Reading with Helmut Zierl

Follow The Sun - The Summer of My Life
A concentrated dose of life experience

“Three months that gave my life a new direction. And that taught me three things: respect, humility, and tolerance. Values for my life.” Back in 1971, in Lütjensee in the North German countryside: Helmut Zierl is 16 and stands with his army duffel bag at the highway on-ramp heading south. First, school kicked him out; then his father did too. And he thinks to himself: Just get away, head for the sun, and search for the meaning of life with 200 marks in his pocket. What follows are three months of happiness, fear, adventure, and life on the road. Three months of intense life experience that pushed him to his limits and set him on a new path for the future. He has never forgotten that summer and is telling this story here for the first time.

Helmut Zierl, born in 1954 in Meldorf, Schleswig-Holstein. At the age of seventeen, he attended the Hamburg Schauspielstudio Hildburg Frese. After several years at the Landesbühne Hannover and the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, he embarked on an impressive career as a TV, series, and film actor. He became known to audiences through *Tatort*, *Der Alte*, *Florida Lady*, *Familie Sonnenfeld*, *Flug in die Hölle*, *Ein Mann steht seine Frau*, *Traumschiff*, *Rosamunde Pilcher*, and approximately 300 other productions. Awards: 2018 INTHEGA Award for “Death of a Salesman” as Best Production of the Year, Audience Award from South Tyrol (2019), and the INTHEGA Special Award for acting achievements in recent years (2019).