Gottfried Kolditz

Kolditz was born in Goldbach-Altenbach to a farm family. Between 1945 and 1949 he studied German philology at the University of Leipzig, and took a course of direction and acting in 1947–1949 at the Leipzig Higher School of Music and Drama. In the early 1950s he worked as an actor and director at various theaters in East Germany.

After 1955 he worked at DEFA, the East German film studio, in a wide range of genres: fairy tales ("Ms. Blizzard," from the story of the same name by the Brothers Grimm), adventure films, musicals, and science fiction ("Signals" and "B dust of stars" on themes similar to 2001: A Space Odyssey). He wrote scripts both for himself and for other directors. He was widely acclaimed for his Red Westerns with actor Gojko Mitić: "Next Falcon", "Apache" and "Ulzana."

He died in 1982 in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia while preparing the shooting of a new film from his script, "Chief White Feather," which was later completed by another director.