Uli Edel (born April 11, 1947 in Neuenburg, Germany) is a German film director.
After studying theatre science in Munich, he was accepted into Munich Film School alongside Bernd Eichinger. Uli befriended him and they started working together on their exercise movies, sharing a love for the nouvelle vague and Italian neorealism as well as popular US mainstream cinema.
While still enrolled in film school, Edel started taking acting lessons. He wanted to know about the Stanislavski and Strasberg theories. After finishing the studies Uli worked as assistant director with Douglas Sirk and directed two TV productions.
In 1980 he joined Bernd Eichinger (production) and Herman Weigel (screenplay) for the authentic story of adolescent drug addict Christiane F., Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo. It turned out to be a big domestic and international success when it was released a year later. Six years later the three reactivated their partnership once more for another success — Last Exit to Brooklyn, based on Hubert Selby’s dark, controversial 1964 novel about life on the breadline in 1952 Brooklyn. It starred Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stephen Lang, Jerry Orbach, Burt Young, Ricki Lake, Alexis Arquette and Sam Rockwell. A haunting musical score was provided by Mark Knopfler of the band Dire Straits. The film received excellent reviews and won Best Supporting Actress awards from the New York Film Critics Circle and Boston Society of Film Critics for Leigh's performance as the tough, hard-drinking neighborhood prostitute Tralala, who is gang-raped in the story's tragic climax. However, the film remained a fringe success, probably because its theme was far too downbeat for mainstream consumption.
Further works include Body of Evidence, which was nominated for six Razzie Awards; Tyson; Rasputin; Little Vampire; Purgatory, starring Sam Shepard and Eric Roberts; the 2001 mini series The Mists of Avalon; and the 2002 mini series Julius Caesar starring Jeremy Sisto, Christopher Walken and the late Richard Harris in his penultimate role.
In 2004 he directed a feature film/TV two-parter Sword Of Xanten (aka Ring of the Nibelungs and aka Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King), based on the Volsunga saga and the Nibelungenlied.
In 2008 his film Der Baader Meinhof Komplex was released in Germany.
He is currently (2008) filming Shamrock Boy, a drama about an IRA gunner.
