Christian Schocher

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Christian Schocher (* 1946 in Pontresina ) is a Swiss filmmaker and cinema operator who produces his films largely independently. His best-known feature film Reisender Krieger (1981) is still a unique work in the history of Swiss film .

life and work

Christian Schocher was born in Pontresina in 1946. His father is the Swiss photographer and documentary filmmaker Bartholome Schocher . He attended the Evangelical Middle School in Samedan and completed an apprenticeship in photography in Chur because he was supposed to take over his father's photography business. Instead, at the age of twenty-one, he took over the Cinéma Rex in Pontresina, which has belonged to his father since 1958. In 2013 Christian Schocher closed his life's work, the Cinéma Rex, and handed it over to younger hands.

The first cinema pictures, by the autodidact Schocher united under the title Corsin Fontana and his objects , turn the objects of the artist Corsin Fontana into protagonists. His first feature-length film, Die Kinder von Furna (shot in 1973, completed in 1975), is an ethnographic film in the style of Fredi Murer's Bergler- Werk or Remo Legnazzi's Chronicle of Prugiasco . In 1979 Schocher began shooting his roughly three-hour feature film Reisender Krieger , for which he hired a non -actor for the lead role. Most of the conversations are improvised. The film made its debut at the Locarno Film Festival in 1981 . In his next feature film, Lüzza's Walkman , Schocher also works without a script and written dialogues. The (lay) actors largely play themselves. Between 1998 and 2011, a trilogy of Rhaeto-Romanic films from the Surselva region was created : Paun jester ha siat crustas - Foreign bread has seven crusts (1998) creates a space for the memories of hotel employees in the Engadine . Giuventetgna dultsch utschi - Jugend süsser Vogel (2002) is a portrait of six young people from the Surselva. Finally, Egliadas - Moments (2011) is a documentary about the Swiss photographer Emil Brunner .

In addition to his own work as a filmmaker, Schocher works as a cinema owner and operator of the Cinéma Rex. In addition to commercial films, it also shows films from the so-called Third World under the title World Film Festival and designs a special program dedicated to auteur films, Swiss documentaries and Swiss filmmakers such as Daniel Schmid and Fredi Murer. In 2013 he stopped operating the Cinéma Rex after 45 years.

family

Christian Schocher lives with his wife Carina in Pontresina. The couple have four children, including Nathan Schocher, who composed the music for three of his films.

Awards (selection)

  • 1991 Award of recognition from the Canton of Graubünden
  • 1999 Premi Cristal (Best Romansh Film)
  • 2002 Pontresina Culture Prize
  • 2012 Film Prize Wasseramt
  • 2013 Upper Engadine Culture and Recognition Prize
  • 2015 Bündner Kulturpreis

Filmography (selection)

Films by Christian Schocher

  • 1975 The Children of Furna (documentary)
  • 1978 The blood on the lover's lips
  • 1981 Traveling warrior
  • 1985 Engiadina (documentary film)
  • 1989 Lüzza's Walkman
  • 1997 years later (documentary)
  • 1998 Paun jester ha siat crustas (documentary)
  • 2002 Giuventetgna, dultsch utschi (documentary film)
  • 2008 Traveling Warrior - Director's Cut
  • 2011 Egliadas - Moments (documentary)

Films about Christian Schocher

  • 1986 Schocher Pontresina ( Johannes Flütsch )
  • 2014 Christian Schocher, filmmaker (Marcel Bächtiger, Andreas Mueller)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Andreas Berger: From life with the cinema. Christian Schocher, his films and the traveling warrior . Cinema number 3/1981.
  2. ↑ Krebs, Marc: From the "traveling warrior" and the dying cinema . Week of the day of January 3, 2013, accessed on December 22, 2014.
  3. ^ Top arrow, Ruth: hanging part in St. Moritz . NZZ from July 22, 2013, accessed on December 22, 2014.
  4. ↑ Jur, Marie-Claire: Much praise for Christian Schocher . Engadiner Post dated December 7, 2013, accessed on December 22, 2014.
personal data
SURNAME Schocher, Christian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss filmmaker and cinema operator
DATE OF BIRTH 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Pontresina , Switzerland