A blank space is not empty, but a resonance space. This formulation by the German director Christian Petzold for his films is the focal point of the investigation. For the first time, the literature-based concept of the blank space is systematically transferred and expanded into a film studies analysis. What is new is primarily the consideration of the blank space in moving images and the evaluation of the acoustic blank space in music and sound. As the most important representative of the so-called New Berlin School, Petzold creates cinematic art by means of reduction. The author portrays Petzold as a minimalist director who evades conventions, leaves questions unanswered, understands renunciation as a principle, and draws his cinematic richness precisely from this aesthetics of omission. His streamlined dramaturgy and visual language lead to a unique cinematography.