Arthur Cohn

Arthur Cohn (born February 4, 1927 in Basel ) is a Swiss film producer and multiple Oscar winner.

Life

Cohn's father, Marcus, was a lawyer, and his mother, Rose, wrote poetry and was a writer for Cabaret Cornichon . His grandfather Arthur Cohn was the first full-time rabbi of the Basel Israelite community from 1885 to 1926 .

Arthur Cohn spent his youth and student years in Basel, followed by years as a journalist , including at Echo der Zeit (radio) and working on the conception of scripts that brought him to film .

His best-known productions are Der Garten der Finzi Contini (1970), co-produced with Artur Brauner , Gianni Hecht Lucari and Fausto Saraceni , and The Children of Monsieur Mathieu (2004) by Christophe Barratier , who was particularly successful in France . He co-produced several films by the Brazilian director Walter Salles . Cohn's closest collaborators in the last three decades were Pierre Rothschild (Zurich) and Lillian Birnbaum (Paris).

Arthur Cohn received several honors for his work: Boston University , Yeshiva University and the University of Basel awarded him honorary doctorates . In 1995 the French Ministry of Culture honored him with the Commandeur de l ' Ordre des Arts et des Lettres , the highest order that a non-French citizen can receive. Cohn was the first non-American producer whose name graces a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame . In November 2005, he was also awarded the UNESCO Award at a charity gala .

During the summer open-air cinema event, an Arthur Cohn gala took place on Basel's Münsterplatz , the last time being on July 27, 2006. His latest production was staged and presented.

On February 11, 2019 Arthur Cohn was awarded for his life's work by the Cinema for Peace Foundation in Berlin.

Oscar win

The documentary films Nur Himmel und Dreck (1960), American Dream (1990) and One Day in September (1999) won an Oscar, which Cohn accepted as one of the producers and awardees. According to the official interpretation of the awarding academy , Cohn is a three-time Oscar winner.

Arthur Cohn calls himself a six-time Oscar winner in press releases and also has six Oscar statues in his possession. The three other Oscars were each awarded for the best foreign-language film , specifically these were The Garden of the Finzi Contini (Award 1972), Longing for Africa (Award 1977) and Dangerous Trains (Award 1985). However, producers can only be honored with the Oscar for documentaries and English-language feature films. The Oscar for best foreign language feature film will be awarded to the work as a whole and to the country submitting the application. Although Switzerland was the main donor and Cohn producer of Sehnsucht nach Afrika (France / Switzerland / Ivory Coast ), the Oscar was officially awarded to Ivory Coast , which was also co-producing (submitting country) and the film as a whole.

Filmography

1961: Heaven and Dirt ( Le ciel et la boue , documentary film)

1964: Paris Secret (documentary)

1967: Woman lures seven times (Woman Times Seven)
1968: The scent of your skin (Amanti)
1970: Sunflowers (I girasoli)
1970: The garden of the Finzi Contini (Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini)
1972: Lo chiameremo Andrea
1973: A short vacation (Una breve vacanza)
1976: Longing for Africa (Noirs et blancs en couleur)
1979: Fateful friendship (L'adoption)
1980: The Yellow Star - The Persecution of the Jews 1933–1945
1984: Dangerous Trains (La diagonale du fou)
1990: American Dream (documentary)
1995: 25 cents (two bits)
1997: White Lies - Life is too short to be honest (White Lies)
1998: Central Station (Central do Brasil)
1999: One Day in September ( One Day in September , Documentary)
2001: Behind the Sun (Abril Despedaçado)
2004: The children of Monsieur Mathieu (Les choristes)
2008: The Yellow Handkerchief (The Yellow Handkerchief)
2008: The Children of Huang Shi (The Children of Huang Shi)
2009: Feathered Fan and Silken Ribbon (documentary)
2012: Russendisko (co-production with Christoph Hahnheiser)
2018: The Etruscan smile (The Etruscan Smile)

Awards

Walk of Fame

Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame , November 17, 1992.

Academy Awards

1961 Oscar for best documentary Just Heaven and Dirt , together with René Lafuite
1990 Oscar for best documentary American Dream , together with Barbara Kopple
1999 Oscar for best documentary One Day in September , with Kevin Macdonald

Fonts

The State of Israel - Today. Frey, Basel 1950.
Trouble in the Middle East Athena-Verlag, Basel 1953.
Israel: how it lives and laughs. Maor Publishing House, Jerusalem 1963.

literature

Gero von Boehm : Arthur Cohn. Interview in: Encounters. Images of man from three decades. Collection Rolf Heyne, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-89910-443-1 , pp. 307-315.
-minu : Arthur Cohn: the man with the dreams. Book publisher of the Basler Zeitung , Basel 1999, ISBN 3-85815-341-9 .
Thomas Gmür: Cohn, Arthur. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .