Fredi M. Murer

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Alfred "Fredi" Melchior Murer (born October 1, 1940 in Beckenried , Nidwalden ) is a Swiss filmmaker.

Life

Fredi M. Murer was born in 1940 as the youngest of six children. The family soon moved to Altdorf (Uri) , where Murer went to school. When he was just 13 he saw a film for the first time in his life ( The Kid by Chaplin ).

From 1959 Murer studied at the Zurich School of Applied Arts . Initially he attended drawing courses, but soon switched to photography. He has lived from filming since 1965. In 1975 he made a study visit to the USA. Today Murer lives in Zurich .

plant

Murer's work is strongly influenced by his youth in the canton of Uri . He was influenced by Heinrich Danioth's imagery and Pastor Josef Müller's collection of legends from Uri . Reviews of Murer speak of "his mountain people" that he shows. Murer's films convince with their restraint, simplicity and simplicity.

In the documentary We Bergler in the Mountains ... he approached for the first time clearly the mysticism and magic associated with the mountain world and its people. The film shows the situation in three different side valleys of the canton Uri: The Maderanertal , which has remained natural , the Schächental , which is affected by tourism , where the farmers have to supplement their income with additional factory work; and the valley of the Göscheneralp , where the village had to give way to a reservoir. In one valley the population remains, in the second they have to move out, in the third they moved out.

The film Grauzone , which is kept entirely in gray, shows the urban area to which many mountain people have moved.

Murer's best-known work is the feature film Höhenfeuer (1985). It shows the behavior of people in isolation and loneliness. The story takes place in a valley in Uri, but it could also take place in other mountain regions of the world. The film manages with a minimum of dialogues.

In the documentary The Green Mountain (1990) Murer contributed to the discussion about the storage of radioactive waste at Wolfenschiessen in the canton of Nidwalden .

His film Vollmond , released in 1998, was awarded the Grand Prix of the Americas at the Montreal World Film Festival that same year and was nominated for the Swiss Film Prize for Best Fiction in 1999. Originally two films were planned ( Twice the whole truth ). A lack of funding made it necessary to reduce the project.

The feature film Vitus tells the story of a gifted boy, his resistance to his overambitious parents and the relationship with his grandfather. Financing this film also turned out to be extremely difficult: it took five years to make it. Vitus was able to celebrate some audience successes at international festivals. In the Oscar elimination, he reached the semifinals.

The Swiss Film Academy was founded at the end of July 2008 and Murer took over as director. In the future, the academy will take care of the organization and the nomination process for the Swiss Film Prize .

In 1997 Murer was awarded the Central Switzerland Culture Prize for his work .

Special

In September 2008, as part of the “Celebrities design a postage stamp” series, a postage stamp created by Fredi M. Murer was published by Swiss Post . So far, Emil Steinberger , Stephan Eicher , Nina Corti and clown Dimitri were allowed to design their own brand.

Murer is a passionate draftsman. He works in his personal sketchbooks almost every day. Sometimes it's just finger exercises, sometimes it's comments on political or social events or on his private life. In 2010, almost by chance on his seventieth birthday, the book Fredi M. Murer as a draftsman appeared , which contains almost 700 drawings. (edition stephan witschi, ISBN 978-3-9523619-1-7 )

Movies

  • 1962: Marcel
  • 1965: Pacific - or the satisfied
  • 1965: Sylvan
  • 1966: Chicory (together with Urban Gwerder )
  • 1966: Bernhard Luginbühl (about Bernhard Luginbühl )
  • 1967: High and Heimkiller
  • 1968: Swiss Made 2069
  • 1969: Sadis - fiction
  • 1969: Vision of a blind man
  • 1972: Passages - with HR Giger and Li Tobler
  • 1973: Christopher and Alexander
  • 1974: We mountain people in the mountains are actually not to blame for being there
  • 1979: gray area
  • 1982: A New Face of Debbie Harry
  • 1985: bonfire
  • 1987: Seeing with different eyes
  • 1987: Jenatsch (actor)
  • 1990: The green mountain
  • 1991: The hidden fiction in documentary film
  • 1998: full moon
  • 2004: Downtown Switzerland (production, direction, book)
  • 2006: Vitus
  • 2014: love and chance

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. SDA : Swiss Film Prize 2009 Compromise between BAK and Film Academy at nzz.ch, July 30, 2008 (accessed July 31, 2008)
  2. ↑ Fredi M. Murer - closely connected to the film and Switzerland (PDF; 3.9 MB)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Article in Die Lupe - Das Briefmarkenmagazin , issue 3/2008, p. 24 ff.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.post.ch  
  3. ↑ Joint postage stamp with Germany  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Swiss Post press release dated September 2, 2008@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.post.ch  
  4. ↑ Love and Chance on the website of vegafilm.com
personal data
SURNAME Murer, Fredi M.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Murer, Alfred Melchior (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss filmmaker
DATE OF BIRTH October 1, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Beckenried , Nidwalden