Leonard Retel Helmrich

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Leonard Retel Helmrich

Leonard Retel Helmrich (born August 16, 1959 in Tilburg , Netherlands ) is a Dutch- Indonesian director and documentary filmmaker .

Life

Leonard Retel Helmrich's father was a descendant of Dutch colonial rulers and worked as a reporter and photographer in Jakarta before emigrating to Holland. His mother was Indonesian. His older siblings were born in Indonesia ; at home the family spoke Dutch and Indonesian . In 1990 he traveled to his parents' country for the first time. Today he lives half in Jakarta and half in Amsterdam .

Helmrich studied film at the Dutch Film and Television Academy and received his doctorate in 1986 with the feature film The Drowning Man . He later taught at various universities such as the Flaherty Seminar in New York and at Harvard , where he was a member of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies .

The French film critic André Bazin inspired him. According to Bazin, the moving camera is the essence of filmmaking: "It should not cut up reality, but rather it should show reality in is temporal continuity." So Helmrich developed a theoretical perspective as well as a practical technique for handling the camera , which he calls Single Shot Cinema .

Helmrich teaches at New York University and leads workshops at various universities, art schools and film festivals around the world. He is also a producer at the film production company Scarabeefilms together with his sister Hetty Naaijkens-Retel Helmrich .

In his films, he often deals with upheavals in Indonesia. During a long-term observation he accompanied an Indonesian family for 12 years, which resulted in a trilogy ( Eye of the Day , Shape of the Moon and Position Among the Stars ). These films made him internationally known and received awards at film festivals such as IDFA , Tribeca and Sundance .

Single shot cinema

Retel Helmrich became known for his film style, which he calls Single Shot Cinema . This method is about intuitively guiding the camera. The camera is always in motion and entire interactions are always filmed in long shots . He developed constructions such as a crane made of bamboo cane in which the camera is moved with the help of cords.

He also designed a special bracket for the camera, the SteadyWing , based on the model of the Steadycam . In this way he manually achieves a stability and mobility in order to constantly film from different perspectives and to control the camera fluently even with complex movements. With this camera, Retel Helmrich can act in direct contact with his protagonists, especially since he does not look through the viewfinder, but captures the images intuitively. The idea behind it is to record fast and slow movements, high and low angles, close and wide shot sizes within a scene in one take. The camera movement itself becomes a cinematic expression .

Filmography

  • 2001: Eye of the Day (documentary)
  • 2004: Shape of the Moon (documentary)
  • 2006: Promised Paradise (documentary)
  • 2010: Position Among the Stars (documentary)
  • 2013: Raw Herring (documentary)

Awards

  • 2013: Tribeca Film Festival - Nomination for Best Documentary for Raw Herring
  • 2011: Sundance Film Festival - Special Jury Award for Position Among the Stars
  • 2011: European Film Award - nomination in the category Best Documentary for Position Among the Stars
  • 2010: International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam - Best Documentary for Position Among the Stars
  • 2010: International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam - Best Dutch Documentary for Position Among the Stars
  • 2005: Sundance Film Festival - Grand Jury Award for Shape of the Moon
  • 2004: International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam - Joris Ivens Award for Shape of the Moon

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ taz.de accessed on October 12, 2017
  2. ^ New York University: CV Leonard Retel Helmrich, accessed October 12, 2017
  3. ↑ Single Shot Cinema accessed October 11, 2017
  4. ^ New York University: CV Leonard Retel Helmrich, accessed October 12, 2017
  5. ↑ scarabeefilms.com. Retrieved October 12, 2017
  6. ↑ filmmakermagazine.com. Retrieved October 11, 2017
  7. ↑ Leonard Retel Helmrich explains Single Shot Cinema accessed on October 11, 2017
  8. ↑ youtube Helmrich's bamboo crane
  9. ↑ Single Shot Cinema accessed October 11, 2017
  10. ↑ IDA: The Single Shot Cinema of Leonard Retel Helmrich, accessed on October 11, 2017
  11. ↑ indiewire.com Retrieved October 12
  12. ↑ nofilmschool.com Accessed October 12
  13. ^ IDFA. Accessed October 12th
  14. ↑ variety.com Accessed October 12
  15. ↑ indiewire.com Retrieved October 12
personal data
SURNAME Retel Helmrich, Leonard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch-Indonesian director and documentary filmmaker
DATE OF BIRTH August 16, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Tilburg , Netherlands