Friedrich Kappeler

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Friedrich Kappeler (born June 7, 1949 in Frauenfeld ) is a Swiss documentary filmmaker and photographer .

He is best known for his film portraits about the songwriter Mani Matter , the painters Adolf Dietrich and Varlin , the writer Gerhard Meier and the clown Dimitri .

Life

Friedrich Kappeler grew up with three sisters and one brother in Frauenfeld. His father ran a tannery and his mother was a physical education teacher . At the age of 14 he began to film and joined the amateur film club Frauenfeld, whose president was the later TV presenter Kurt Felix . After his commercial diploma, he entered the photography class at the Zurich School of Design in 1971, which he attended until 1974.

Although he disappointed his father by not taking over the family-run tannery business, the latter agreed to let Friedrich earn the urgently needed money to buy 16mm film material as an unskilled worker in his own business.

From 1974 to 1977 he studied directing at the HFF University of Film and Television in Munich . At the same time, Friedrich Kappeler always carried his camera with him. 1973 saw the first solo exhibition of his photographs by the Kunstverein Frauenfeld, and a year later another solo exhibition by the Kunstverein Biel. From this point on, he also regularly took part in group exhibitions.

Friedrich Kappeler has been a freelance film writer and photographer since 1977. In the same year he joined Nemo Film GmbH. Nemo Film was a production association of independent Swiss directors initiated by Alexander J. Seiler . Members included Fredi M. Murer , Yves Yersin , Kurt Gloor , Markus Imhoof and Georg Radanowicz . Nemo Film GmbH, later Nemo Film AG, produced the series The 7 Deadly Sins for Swiss television in 1980/81 . Kappeler has staged the deadly sin 3 , pride or the return.

After Friedrich Kappeler had made a lasting name for himself in the Swiss documentary film scene with the film portrait of the painter Adolf Dietrich in 1991, he went back to school. In 1992/1993 he completed a year of scriptwriting with the Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski .

Since the mid-1990s, Kappeler also acted as a board member and assessor for the cultural foundation of the Canton of Thurgau. To date, he has mainly photographed analogue and preferably black and white in the classic 6x6 medium format . Friedrich Kappeler lives with his long-term partner Chantal Oklé in Frauenfeld.

Cinematic work

While studying photography in Zurich, he made the four-minute animated film Es Hundelänke and Kappeler's first documentary Emil Eberli , which already showed his preference for portrait films . After the two shorter documentaries, Tired, a Wanderer returns ... and The Other Beginning followed in 1978 with Bei der Bahn , the first documentary film for Swiss television.

In 1980, Kappeler also shot his only feature film in the 7 Deadly Sins series for Swiss television . He cast this film, for which he also wrote the script , with the then unknown Gardi Hutter .

With the documentary The beautiful moment about the Swiss photographers Jean Amrein, Richard Aschwanden, Ernst Hiltbrunner and the photographer Vreni Aschwanden, Kappeler's collaboration with the cameraman Pio Corradi began , which subsequently lasted for over two decades.

Kappeler became known to a wide audience with the documentary film about the naive Thurgau painter Adolf Dietrich in 1991. From this film onwards he always worked in the editing room with the same person, the film editor Mirjam Krakenberger . This was followed by films about the writer Gerhard Meier, 1995, and the painter Willy Guggenheim , alias Varlin, in 2000. Kappeler also wrote the script for these portrait films .

With the 2002 documentary Mani Matter - Why are you so truurig? Kappeler finally achieved a great success. The film was produced by the Zurich Catpics AG, the producer Alfi Sinniger, who in 1991 carried an Oscar for the best foreign film to Switzerland with Reise der Hoffnung . Kappeler's Mani Matter Portrait was the most successful Swiss documentary film in Switzerland with over 146,000 cinema tickets sold over a period of 10 years.

Two years later, Kappeler made the documentary about the clown Dimitri for Zurich-based T&C Film AG, which was also shown in the cinema .

Three years later, in 2007, followed Kappeler's last documentary, a portrait of the late Gerhard Meier. For this film he also wrote the script again.

Filmography (selection)

  • 1972: There Dogs Bar (animation film)
  • 1973: Emil Eberli
  • 1975: A wanderer returns tired ...
  • 1977: The other beginning
  • 1978: At the railway (SF)
  • 1980: Pride or Return (feature film, SF)
  • 1986: The beautiful moment
  • 1989: forest
  • 1991: Adolf Dietrich - painter
  • 1995: Gerhard Meier - The ballad of writing
  • 1997: In viadi tier Carigiet (SF)
  • 2000: Varlin
  • 2002: Mani Matter - Why are you so sad?
  • 2004: Dimitri - clown
  • 2007: Gerhard Meier - The Cloud Shadow Boat

Photographic work (selection)

Solo exhibitions

  • 1973: Bernerhaus, Kunstverein Frauenfeld
  • 1974: Kunstverein Biel
  • 1991: Weinfelden community library

Group exhibitions

  • 1974: Swiss Foundation for Photography, Zurich («Photography in Switzerland from 1840 to today», traveling exhibition)
  • 1985: Bernerhaus, Kunstverein Frauenfeld
  • 1987: Eisenwerk, Frauenfeld
  • 1998: Forum of Swiss History, Schwyz ("Sideways glances. Switzerland 1848 to 1998 - a photochronic", traveling exhibition).

Collective publications

  • Photography in Switzerland from 1840 until today. Niggli, Teufen 1974.
  • Sideways glances. Switzerland 1848 to 1998 - a photochronic (catalog). Offizin, Zurich 1998.

Awards (selection)

  • 1986: Thurgau Culture Prize
  • 2002: Recognition award from the city of Frauenfeld
  • 2012: Radio and TV Prize of Eastern Switzerland

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Pride or The Return (TV Movie 1980). Retrieved June 16, 2018 .
  2. ProCinema: ProCinema: statistics - filmdb - 1003904. Retrieved June 16, 2018 .
  3. ProCinema: ProCinema: statistics - filmdb - 1004865. Retrieved June 16, 2018 .
  4. Thurgau Culture Prize Winner 1986 - 2016. ( Memento of the original from June 16, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Website of the cultural office of the Canton of Thurgau, accessed on June 16, 2018. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / kulturamt.tg.ch
  5. List of the award winners. Website of the city of Frauenfeld, accessed on June 16, 2018.
  6. Radio and TV Prize of Eastern Switzerland 2012 - Friedrich Kappeler awarded. SRG Ostschweiz website , accessed on June 16, 2018.