is recognised internationally as an author and filmmaker; he is regarded as a driving force behind New German Cinema and as one of the major German fiction writers and essayists of the post-war period. What is less well known is that Kluge has revolutionized German television as well. Since 1988 he has been producing a magazine programme for commercial television which, as Tom Tykwer puts it, is »antidotal« to the common lack of imagination in the medium.