Christian Frei

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Christian Frei (* 1959 in Schönenwerd , Canton Solothurn ) is a Swiss film author, film director and film producer. In 1984 he founded his own company "Christian Frei Filmproduktionen GmbH". Since 2006 Christian Frei has been a lecturer for reflective skills at the University of St. Gallen . From 2006 to 2009 he was President of the “Documentary Film” review committee of the Federal Office of Culture . Since August 2010 he has been President of the Swiss Film Academy . Christian Frei lives and works in Zurich .

Christian Frei, 2012

life and work

Christian Frei studied audiovisual media at the University of Friborg (Switzerland) . In 1981 he made his first documentary film Die Stellvertreterin . After co-directing with Ivo Kummer at Fortfahren , he has been working as a freelance filmmaker and producer since 1984. Another short film followed with Der Radwechsel , before his first long documentary was made in 1997: Ricardo, Miriam y Fidel is the portrait of a father and his daughter in Cuba, who were caught between loyalty to the ideals of the revolution and the desire to emigrate to the USA - and are torn apart.

War Photographer marked a turning point in the director's career in 2001 and helped him achievehis international breakthroughwith an Oscar nomination and numerous awards. For two years Frei accompanied the photographer James Nachtwey to different conflict scenes and showed him as a rather shy, reserved person who does not correspond to the common image of a cynical daredevil. Frei played with the role of the viewer and confronted him with the ambivalence of war photography and the question of the role of the media. The film appeals to the viewer's compassion and attempts a documentary approach to the war itself. War Photographer is the first Swiss documentary film to receive an Oscar nomination. It met with a great response from audiences and critics around the world and is now considered a classic. In 2003, Frei received a special award for this film at the Grimme Prize , and the film was also awarded prizes at documentary film festivals in South Africa and Ghent. Cinematographer Peter Indergand was nominated for an Emmy for his work. The film received the Peabody Award, won awards at twelve international film festivals, was shown in cinemas in eight countries around the world and on television in fifty-two countries.

In 2004, Christian Frei was asked by Lars von Trier to make a documentary for his production of the Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival . Trier wanted to get Frei involved in this project because he was a "mine specialist". However, the staging failed and the project did not come about either.

With The Giant Buddhas ( in the valley of the giant Buddhas ) followed in 2005 again work with political content and Global Context: The film about the destruction of the famous Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan was also an essay on "faith and fanaticism, tolerance and terror , Identity and ignorance, about impermanence and our poor attempts to oppose it ». With this film Christian Frei won a prize at the Leipzig Documentary Film Festival and competed at the Sundance Film Festival . He was nominated for the Swiss Film Award with both War Photographer and The Giant Buddhas .

In 2010 Christian Frei won the directorial award at the Sundance Film Festival for Space Tourists (2009) . The film contrasts the world of heavily wealthy space tourists with that of Kazakh rocket scrap collectors who go in search of the rocket stages under difficult conditions. Critics spoke of a "breathtaking" film full of "sensational insights" that cemented Frei's reputation as one of the most original and innovative reporters of our time.

In 2014 Sleepless celebrated its premiere in New York in the competition of the International Documentary Film Festival Visions du Réel in Nyon. Christian Frei also worked with the cameraman Peter Indergand on this documentary, in which three people suffering from lovesickness talk about the pain of separation. For this film, they jointly developed a special camera with a spherical mirror in order to make the loneliness of the lovesick come alive. The investigations of the American anthropologist Helen Fisher complement the diary-like comments of the protagonists. Fisher explores the brain physiological processes of romantic feelings.

In 2016 Christian Frei Raving Iran produced the young director Susanne Regina Meures . The documentary accompanies two Iranian DJs in Tehran's underground techno scene. The film won numerous audience and jury awards at international festivals as well as a “ First-Step ” award for young talent.

The documentary Genesis 2.0 celebrated its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2018 and received the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Cinematography. The Swiss cameraman Peter Indergand and the Russian filmmaker and co-director of the film Maxim Arbugaev were responsible for the camera work . Genesis 2.0. pursues mammoth hunters on the remote New Siberian Islands as well as DNA researchers and molecular biologists in South Korea, China and the USA.

Quote

“Whether with cave dwellers in the Afghan valley of the blown up Buddha statues, with Cuban revolutionaries or with war photographers: I am interested in the 'tectonics of the human', what separates and connects us humans. Places and situations in which the terrible and the great in human beings are realized and visualized. "

- Christian Frei

“On a global level, the failure of socialism as an alternative to consumer society has left a gaping void that affects an entire generation. (...) The failure of the search for happiness seems inevitable. If there is a message from the film Ricardo, Miriam y Fidel, then it lies in the ambivalence of feelings. "

- Christian Frei

“Reality is much richer, more complex, more ambivalent and paradoxical, simply more exciting than what the stereotype of the feature film often tells us. (...) In my films, I put these ambivalences and complexities on the audience. And at the same time I want to make a big emotional cinema. "

- Christian Frei

Filmography

Awards (selection)

Ricardo, Miriam y Fidel

  • Basic Trust International Human Rights Film Festival Ramallah-Tel Aviv 2000: Winner Audience Award

Was a photographer

  • Oscar Academy Awards 2002: Nominated Best Documentary Feature
  • Gregory Foster Peabody Award 2003
  • Emmy 2004: Nomination Award for Cinematographer Peter Indergaand
  • Adolf Grimme Prize 2003: Special Prize from the Ministry for Urban Development and Housing, Culture and Sport of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia
  • Durban International Film Festival 2002: Best Documentary
  • Cologne Conference International TV and Film Festival Cologne 2002: Phoenix Prize Best Non-Fiction
  • Rehoboth Beach Independent Film Festival 2002: Audience Award
  • Viewpoint Film Festival Gent 2002: Best Film
  • European Documentary Film Festival Oslo 2003: Eurodok Award
  • Dokufest Prizren Documentary and Short Film Festival 2003: Best Film
  • British Documentary Awards 2002: Shortlisted The Grierson Award Category International Documentary
  • Swiss Film Prize 2002: Nominated for the Swiss Quartz Film Prize in the "Best Documentary" category
  • Docaviv Tel Aviv International Documentary Film Festival : Best Film
  • Sichuan TV Festival: Gold Panda Award Best Long Documentary
  • Mountainfilm in Telluride 2003: Voice of Humanity Award

The Giant Buddhas

  • DOK Leipzig 2005: Silver Dove
  • Dokufest Prizren 2006: 1st prize ex aequo
  • Trento Film Festival 2006: Silver Gentian
  • Tahoe / Reno International Film Festival 2006: Best of the Fest - Documentary
  • 2006 Sundance Film Festival : Nominated for Grand Jury Award for Feature Documentaries
  • Swiss Film Prize 2006: Nominated for the Swiss Quartz Film Prize in the “Best Documentary” category

Space Tourists

  • DOC: The Documentary Channel 2012: Jury Award "Best of Doc"
  • Cervino Cine Mountain International Mountain Film Festival 2011: Miglior Grand Prix dei Festival 2011
  • Beldocs Belgrade 2010: Best Photography Award
  • Mountain and Adventure Film Festival Graz 2010: Grand Prix Documentary Feature
  • Regio Fun Film Festival Katowice 2010: 2nd Award Documentary Film Competition
  • European Documentary Film Festival Oslo 2010: Eurodok Award
  • Sundance Film Festival Park City 2010: Director's Award
  • EBS International Documentary Film Festival Seoul 2010: Special prize of the jury
  • Swiss Film Prize 2010: Nominated for the Swiss Quartz Film Prize in the “Best Documentary” category

Genesis 2.0

literature

  • Norbert Creutz: Director's Portrait Christian Frei, ed. V. SwissFilms May 2006, swissfilms.ch ?
  • Tilmann P. Gangloff: «You shouldn't be bored». Cover story about Christian Frei. In: CUT, das Broadcast-Magazin, vol. 10, no. 9/2006 (September 2006), pp. 16-23.
  • The Tectonics of the Human, GEO Edition Documentaries Christian Frei Collection, ed. Warner Home Video Switzerland 2007.
  • Walt R. Vian: "To direct means to anticipate documentary films and to prepare the cameraman". Conversation with Christian Frei about Space Tourists. In: Filmbulletin, Kino in Augenhöhe, Vol. 51, No. 6.09 (2009), pp. 33–39 ( online )
  • Andrea Seiler: Christian Frei. In: Dies .: Swiss film directors in close-up. From “Höhenfeuer” to “Herbstzeitlosen”, Rüffer & Rub Sachbuchverlag, Zurich 2011, pp. 112–119.
  • Christian Frei in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Norbert Creutz: Director's Portrait Christian Frei, ed. SwissFilms May 2006, http://www.swissfilms.ch/de/film_search/filmdetails/-/id_person/855106512 , p. 1.4.
  2. ↑ Edward Guthmann in the San Francisco Chronicle: "(...) this film is an act of spiritual faith - an eloquent, deeply felt meditation on the nature of compassion." ( http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/12/06/DD164809.DTL ), December 6, 2002.
  3. ^ Workshop discussion: Christian Frei in conversation with Thomas Bodmer, November 22, 2006, Filmpodium Zurich. Bonus material on DVD The Giant Buddhas, Christian Frei Collection 2007.
  4. ↑ Tilmann P. Gangloff: «You shouldn't be bored». Cover story about Christian Frei. In: CUT, the Broadcast-Magazin, vol. 10, No. 9/2006 (September 2006), p. 19.
  5. ↑ Norbert Creutz on The Giant Buddhas, in: Die Tektonik des Menschlichen, GEO Edition Documentary Films Christian Frei Collection, ed. Warner Home Video Switzerland 2007, p. 48.
  6. ↑ «What is the fulfillment of a dream worth to us? Frei's essay enters a fascinating cosmos of dreamers and fantasists, takes a look at Russian space travel, which is somewhere between technical archaic and commercialism, and comes up with spectacular images. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 2009.
  7. ↑ "The downright sensational insights that fit modestly into the overall film make the documentary not only humorous and insightful, but also likeable." Günter H. Jekubzik in Filmtabs ( http://www.filmtabs.de/ft/2010/07/26/space-tourists ), July 26, 2010.
  8. ↑ Arte program preview , January 21, 2011.
  9. ^ Neue Zürcher Zeitung , October 15, 2014.
  10. ↑ First Steps The German Young Talent Award .
  11. ↑ Overview of winning films Sundance Film Festival 2018 .
  12. ↑ NZZ on Sunday , September 20, 2009.
  13. ↑ Norbert Creutz: Director's Portrait Christian Frei, ed. SwissFilms May 2006 , pp. 1.3-1.4.
  14. ^ Workshop discussion: Christian Frei in conversation with Thomas Bodmer, November 22, 2006, Filmpodium Zurich. Bonus material on DVD The Giant Buddhas, Christian Frei Collection 2007.
  15. ↑ DocUtah 2018 Wrap-Up. Retrieved April 23, 2019 .
  16. ^ Budapest International Documentary Film Festival Attracts Large Audiences. Retrieved April 29, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Free, Christian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss documentary filmmaker
DATE OF BIRTH 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Schönenwerd , Canton of Solothurn