A Portrait of sound designer Lars Ginzel

Lars Ginzel needs to move. And that is not easy because: ‘I’m a difficult tenant,’ the sound engineer admits. ‘I’m loud, I only take up a small space, and I want a good price.’ At least he has found a new home now in the Babelsberg studio grounds. Really, though, the German media industry should be rolling out the red carpet for him. Few of his colleagues in Germany have earned as much recognition as the 46-year-old. He won a BAFTA for Best Sound for ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT and received an Oscar nomination, among other accolades. At the 2026 European Film Awards, he was nominated for a European Film Award in the category Best Sound Design for THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB. Last year, he received the German Film Award for the sound design of SEPTEMBER 5. ‘I find it hard to pat myself on the back,’ he says when asked about his main field of expertise. But he admits, ‘I don’t focus that much on the German film scene. At this point, I don’t even know in how many languages the films were that I‘ve worked on.’ This has allowed him to develop a broader perspective on storytelling. At the same time, he has not been confronted so much with the limitations of the German industry, where post-production is less important in film funding.

Initially, his career was boosted by some lucky coincidences. In 1998, he did his first internship at RuhrsoundStudios in Dortmund, one of Germany’s leading recording studios, which had just finished working on RUN LOLA RUN. Among other things, they took time to spend a full day explaining an audio workstation to him. During this job, he also got to know colleagues who helped him land a position as a sound editor on Hans-Christian Schmid’s exorcism drama REQIUEM in 2006. At that time, he decided to go into sound mixing and landed his first prestigious international project two years later – as re-recording mixer on Ari Folman’s animated film WALTZ WITH BASHIR. That multi-award-winning war drama earned him a reputation he now views with mixed feelings: ‘I wish I didn’t have to make war films.’ The ‘only meaning’ of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT for him was ‘for someone to see this film and then say: I will never, ever go to war.’ He has clear quality criteria. In the war drama THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB, for example, he sought a way to use the real sound recordings that form the heart of the film ‘in an ethically sound way, without becoming too manipulative.’

When he talks with directors about his work, he emphasises the interpersonal aspects rather than the technical ones: ‘Our language is not designed so we can express ourselves in detail about sounds. Everyone says things differently. That is why the most important task for me at the beginning of every project is to spend time with a director and understand what makes them tick’. When working on ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, for example, director Edward Berger was in the room while Lars Ginzel and Frank Kruse did the effects premix. They went out for lunch together, giving them a chance to ask spontaneous questions: “When you sit down together and talk about everything under the sun, you can develop a shared understanding of a film. That makes it even easier when you work with someone for a second or third time.”

The best example here is Tim Fehlbaum, for whom Lars Ginzel designed the sound for TIDES and SEPTEMBER 5. Despite his experience with war films and science fiction epics such as MATRIX RESURRECTIONS, he is not necessarily interested in spectacular sound effects. ‘I’m attracted to films that are quieter, without constant dialogue. Last year, I was the re-recording mixer for the film APRIL by Georgian director Dea Kulumbegaschvili. It was about silence and moods matching the images. The question of when one sound should follow another is just as exciting.’

But to what extent does he still see a future in his profession, in view of AI and its continuing advance? ‘I don’t rule out the possibility that I could be replaced by AI,’ he says pragmatically, adding: “But it takes a lot of tact and sensitivity in dealing with people to do this job properly. As I see it, the most important thing is to understand the way my colleagues think. And the question is whether directors will want to sit in front of a computer for two months and interact with AI.” He sees more of a threat to his profession – at least in Germany – in the current production crisis: ‘I fear that we are losing too many people because they are moving into other industries or abroad. Perhaps in ten years’ time we will have to reconstruct, with great effort, the knowledge that is currently being lost.’

Rüdiger Sturm