Much more than a spectacle

Pride resonates when Arved Friese talks about his parents, who both grew up in anything but wealthy families in the GDR, but built up a secure existence through their work in a medium-sized company and in a bank. This security gave rise to freedom, which suited an adolescent full of ideas like Arved Friese. "My parents supported me in everything, no matter how crazy my ideas were," Friese mentions. When he suddenly blurted out "I want to be on TV!" on the couch one morning after another evening at the movies together, his mother didn't brush it off with a wave of her hand, but instead registered her son with an agency without further ado.

Arved Friese was just seven years old when he successfully passed the audition for the acting agency and took part in his first castings for commercials, series and films. Although he can no longer remember his earliest castings, he can remember his first two supporting roles all the more - and only because they didn't go according to plan. In the first role, the fascination of being on a film set for the first time never left him, even when he had to sit on his film father's shoulders and listen attentively to a conversation. He was so distracted by all the goings-on - the scene also took place at a busy train station - that his eyes were constantly darting back and forth into the camera. In the second role, his only task was to run towards a burning barn in the turmoil in order to extinguish it. But out of sheer excitement, he held a laughing rather than a terrified expression on his face into the camera - as a result, the entire setting had to be rearranged.

Arved Friese really took off as an actor just at the time when children were moving from elementary school to secondary school. He benefited from the fact that he went to a private school that fully supported his passion. For every major film project, which was shot over several weeks and sometimes abroad, he was accompanied by a private teacher to help him internalize the school material on extra study days.

"The intensive collaboration with German acting and directing greats or a coach like Gudrun Bahrmann were particularly valuable for both my acting and personal development, as was the close interaction on set," says Friese, who developed his love of detail for acting during this time. From then on, he read scripts differently, put himself in scenes, imagined how his character would use facial expressions and gestures, emotions and movements in individual moments, but also how his counterpart might appear. "As an actor, it was and is important to me to develop a versatile rather than a uniform acting profile," emphasizes Friese.

The in-depth examination of his roles gradually paid off: While he still played one of the leading roles in the feature film "Der Nanny" directed by Matthias Schweighöfer, his first role as a leading actor took him to the film set of "Timm Thaler oder Das verkaufte Lachen" directed by Andreas Dresen - to name the two best-known screen flicks in a series of television and film productions.

Arved Friese also approaches every shoot with fun and enjoyment because he sees acting as a hobby and not as something he has to do for a living. "Maybe that's also the reason why I don't make a big fuss about acting, both at school and at university," explains Friese - even though he has since taken part in his first international film production: "Bastards", a movie starring Hollywood actor Mads Mikkelsen.

When he began his studies, Arved Friese gradually withdrew from the film business, not only to broaden his horizons, but also to try his hand at new projects. "The foundation for my spirit of discovery was laid by one of my grandfathers, who was a tinkerer himself and showed me early on how to assemble a circuit, for example," recalls Friese. Over the years, this gave rise to the idea of building something of his own. Thinking about what he needed to know for a start-up, the desire to come up with solutions in discussions, the opportunity to think outside the box and finally the saying "Can you actually study social change?" brought him to the CME Bachelor at ZU. "What fascinated me at least as much were the student initiatives," adds Friese, "although I was particularly interested in the student internet radio station Welle20, which had fallen asleep during coronavirus."

Initially supported by the former student vice presidents Matthias Eckmann and Moritz Schön, Arved Friese and his fellow student Kilian Strobel took on the task of renovating the ageing studio and equipping it with modern technology. "We only recently managed to set up a new team and start the actual work because of the administrative work that had been left behind," mentions Friese. This means that the team members go to an event, record it and edit and publish the recorded material as a podcast. The first film projects are also being planned - some with shorter, some with longer running times. "We now have the feeling that Welle20 is breathing again," says Friese.

He himself breathed a sigh of relief when he realized that the course was everything he had hoped it would be. "The courses gave me exactly the right tools to found start-ups that correspond to my understanding of sustainable and socially responsible entrepreneurship," reports Friese. "In general, ZU is a very special place for me, where you get all the freedom and support you need to tackle and implement things that you would never have dreamed of before."