Michael Pilz (director)
Michael Pilz (born February 12, 1943 in Gmünd , Lower Austria ) is an Austrian director , producer and screenwriter.
Live and act
Michael Pilz was born on February 12, 1943 in Gmünd. He has been involved in photography since the age of 11 and made his first 8 mm film at the age of 14 .
Pilz was a choirboy in the Cistercian monastery in Zwettl from 1952 to 1955 , and from 1956 to 1962 he attended the HTL in Vienna. The early influences on his cinematography were Soviet news / propaganda films , Gregorian chant , Samuel Beckett , jazz, and the films of Jean-Luc Godard and New American Cinema .
In 1964 he enrolled at the film department of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna , but broke off his studies again and became a freelance photographer. He later completed an internship with a Dutch advertising film production company. He made his first experimental and short films on 16mm and Super 8 . From 1971 to 1978 he worked mainly for television.
In 1976 he received his own production license. He was a co-founder of the Syndicate of Austrian Filmmakers. His first international success was the 1979/82 two-part documentary Heaven and Earth . Pilz has been traveling to developing countries since 1997. He deals with travels in his films, for example in 2000 ( Indian Diary - Days at Sree Sankara ) or trips to Zimbabwe in 1997 (“Across the River”), 2002 ( Gwenyambira Simon Mashoko ).
In November 2008 the Austrian Film Museum showed a retrospective of his works.
The Diagonale 2014 shows the documentary Franz Grimus .
Pilz married twice, in 1967 and 1982. He has four children in total. He lives in Vienna.
Awards
- 1970 + 1971: Film Funding Award of the City of Vienna
- 1983: Prix du Jury Oecumenique, Festival du Film Documentaire, Nyon (Switzerland) for heaven and earth
- 1983: Grand Prix for best documentary film, Festival Figueira da Foz (Portugal) for heaven and earth
- 1996: Austrian Award for Filmmaking
- 1997: Honorary Media Art / Documentary Film Award, Lower Austrian provincial government
Publications
- 1986: No film - a patchwork: Dziga Vertov (self-published)
- 1989: thunder. blitzt - Notes on a film project (FELDBERG), Lower Austrian State Museum , New Series No. 245
- Olaf Möller, Michael Omasta (eds.), Michael Pilz. Eye Camera Heart , Filmmuseum SynemaPublications Volume 10, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-901644-29-0
Web links
- Michael Pilz in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Homepage of the artist
- Mushroom exhibition in the film museum
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Filmkunst Austrian Society for Film Studies, Communication and Media Research, Austria. Federal Ministry for Education and the Arts, issues 137–140, 1993, p. 98.
- ↑ Treasures from the Filmmuseum - Diagonale 2014 ( Memento from March 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) ORF.at from March 13, 2014.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mushroom, Michael |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian director, producer and screenwriter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 12, 1943 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Gmuend |