Sandra Hüller to Play Wolfgang Herrndorf in Maria Schrader's 'Work and Structure'
Sandra Hüller will star as the late German writer and artist Wolfgang Herrndorf in Work and Structure (Arbeit und Struktur), a feature film directed by Maria Schrader and set to begin production in early 2027 (Deadline).
The casting pairs two of Germany's most internationally recognised film talents. Hüller, widely known for her performances in Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest, takes on the role of a real-life figure — a man who documented his own decline with unflinching detail. Schrader, whose 2021 film I'm Your Man earned strong international notices, is adapting the screenplay together with Jan Schomburg (Deadline).
Herrndorf was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour in 2010. He began recording his daily life in an online blog, and that material became the book Work and Structure, published posthumously in 2013 after his death at the age of 48. The title refers to the routine he imposed on himself to keep working through illness (Deadline).
The production brings together a cross-border set of partners. Komplizen Film, Studiocanal, French company Haut et Court, and German broadcaster ZDF are producing. Studiocanal will handle world sales — the business of selling distribution rights to international territories — and will release the film directly in Germany, France, and Italy in 2028 (Deadline).
Public funding underpins the project at several levels. Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, the Film- and Media Foundation NRW, the German Federal Government's cultural film funding programme, and Creative Europe MEDIA Slate Development are all listed among the backers (Deadline). In July 2026, the German Federal Film Board (FFA) awarded €1.1 million across five German-French co-production projects, with Arbeit und Struktur among them (FFA). That co-production framework — a treaty-based structure allowing two countries to pool funding and tax incentives on a single film — is a common route for European projects of this scale.
Hüller playing Herrndorf, a man, is likely to draw attention given the rarity of cross-gender casting in biographical films and Hüller's international profile following her Academy Award-nominated turn in Anatomy of a Fall. The performance and Schrader's approach to the material will be judged on the screen when the film reaches audiences in 2028.
