Kaspar Kasics

Kaspar Kasics (born August 5, 1952 in Interlaken ) is a Swiss documentary filmmaker, author and film producer.

biography

Kaspar Kasics was born as the younger of the two sons of musician Tibor Kasics and dance teacher Ulla Kasics . He is a grandson of the Hungarian singer and singing teacher Ilona Durigo and the Hungarian pianist and piano teacher Osman Kasics .

Before turning to film, Kaspar Kasics studied German, philosophy, history and English at the University of Zurich and music at the Zurich and Basel Conservatory (with Rudolf Kelterborn and Konrad Ragossnig, among others). On the recommendation of Prof. Wolfgang Iser ( University of Konstanz ) and Prof. Christian W. Thomsen ( University of Siegen ), his dissertation was published by the University Press Carl Winter , Heidelberg (literature and fiction, on the theory and history of literary communication, Siegen 94 series).

After completing his studies, Kaspar Kasics worked as an editor, director and presenter for Swiss television DRS. He realized numerous features, including about Reinhild Hoffmann, Robert Wilson, Fischli / Weiss, Anna Huber, Jérome Déchamps, Gregor Seyffert as well as about the last home sticker and the largest commercial laundry facility in Switzerland.

Kasics has been a freelance filmmaker and film producer since 1990. In addition to commissioned films for various dance companies, the Education Department of the Canton of Zurich and for Happy Tooth International, he made various documentaries on social and cultural topics.

In 2004 he founded Distant Lights Filmproduktion GmbH. From 2010 to 2017, Kaspar Kasics was President of the Swiss Film Direction and Screenplay Association (ARF / FDS), which he chaired from 1996 to 2001. Kasics also works as a dramaturgical advisor and expert at the universities in Zurich and Lucerne. He is a member of the Federal Film Commission and the Culture Commission of Suissimage.

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In his films, Kaspar Kasics deals with fundamental social and cultural issues.

Someone - or the passion for resistance - is about the change in the resistance culture in the 20th century. Half a century later, the members of the former socialist working-class youth, who focus on order and discipline, are confronted with the spontaneous actions of the political movement “Züri 1990”. At the same time, the worker's oratorio Jemand (libretto: Hans Sahl, music: Tibor Kasics)is being sung in the Zurich Volkshaus with the workers' oratorio Jemand (Libretto: Hans Sahl, music: Tibor Kasics), which isbeing performed for the first time since 1938.

Closed Country is about the Swiss refugee policy during the Second World War. The survivors of two Jewish families who wanted to escape from Belgium to Switzerland in 1942 learn today what happened at the border in the Jura. The fate of both families lay in the hands of the then head of the Federal Aliens Police, Heinrich Rothmund, and was closely linked. The documentary based on the research of the historian Stefan Mächler shows the anti-Jewish attitude and the arbitrary bureaucratic mechanics that shaped the refugee policy of Switzerland at the time.

For the first time, Blue End tells the full story of the Texas murderer Joseph P. Jernigan, who was executed after a dubious trial and whose body was handled by the National Library of Medicine in Washington for the "visible man" project. The background to Jernigan's act, the legal proceedings and the conduct of science were not known until the film was released. Thanks to the appearance of Jernigan's brother and everyone involved, the documentary reveals a truly “unheard of story” (Zürcher Tages-Anzeiger). It shows how justice and science are prepared to cross ethical boundaries under social pressure to succeed.

Downtown Switzerland is a search for clues in the present. Focussed on the social, economic and cultural change in Switzerland's largest city, the film paints a picture of the state of the nation. A picture of the times that unites the rise and the offspring of the right-wing populist people's party in Switzerland with aspects of globalization, future visions of a large corporation, asylum seekers playing football, hedonists roller skating, protesting women, overburdened hammers and Dadaist-inspired (sub) cultural experiments. The film is a joint effort between Kaspar Kasics and the directors Christian Davi, Stefan Haupt and Fredi M. Murer.

At Fanny Bräuning's No More Smoke Signals, Kaspar Kasics worked as a producer, dramaturge and chief editor. Using the independent radio station "Kili Radio" in the historical area of ​​Pine Ridge, South Dakota, the documentary shows how things are with the Lakota today and what remains of the uprisings in the 1970s. Everything comes together in the radio station, from the former leader of the American Indian Movement, John Trudell, to Roxanne Two Bulls, who tirelessly struggled to improve conditions, to the young Lakota who are claiming their country back in hip-hop. The search for traces culminates in the spectacular Memorial Ride, with which the Lakota keep their history alive for their descendants every year.

Closed Country and Blue End premiered in the Official Selection of the Berlin International Film Festival and, like No More Smoke Signals, received numerous awards.

Filmography

• 1991: Somebody or the Passion for Resistance (documentary)
• 1995: It's my life (television documentary)
• 1996: Bal Moderne (television documentary)
• 1997: Le barrage (experimental film)
• 1999: Closed Country (Documentary: Director, Screenplay, Editing, Production)
• 2000: Sauvé (documentary)
• 2001: Blue End (documentary: director, screenplay, editor, production)
• 2002: Dragan and Madlaina (TV movie)
• 2004: Downtown Switzerland (documentary: director, screenplay)
• 2008: No More Smoke Signals (documentary: production, dramaturgy and editing)
• 2015: Yes No Maybe - A film about love
• 2018: the first and the last

In post production

Yes No Maybe , feature documentary, 102 '

What's up with love Does it still exist or is it a utopia? What holds a couple together and where does longing lead us? YES NO MAYBE embarks on a search for traces and meets two very different couples, a first and a last love. One unexpectedly picks up on the Internet, the other culminates after years in a shared dream in Portland, Oregon. In the meantime, Eva Illouz and Sven Hillenkamp astutely decipher the impossible character of love, a finding that the two couples ignore.

In development

Now or never , feature documentary, 80 '

After a short-term, fatal diagnosis, a 55-year-old psychoanalyst finds herself in a highly absurd life situation: without work, without perspective, without meaning. In the time remaining to her, she begins to look at and understand the life she has lived anew. In doing so, she encounters a repressed spiral of humiliation and violence.

Homesickness for the Future , feature documentary, 90 '

In view of the global crises, the documentary poses the question of utopia: Can we see our life differently or rethink it? Can it still be possible to develop new ideas about social life? At the center of the film is the political child prodigy Cédric Wermuth, who seems to play the role of forward thinking and provoking in Switzerland. But is this still possible after his election to the Swiss National Council? And aren't there other ways to make utopias thinkable again?

Web links

• Kaspar Kasics in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Kaspar Kasics at filmportal.de
• Kaspar Kasics at swissfilms.ch