Praesens film

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Praesens-Film AG
legal form Corporation
founding 1924
Seat Zurich
Branch Film rental
Website praesens.com

The Praesens Film AG is a Swiss film production company and film distribution . The company was founded in 1924 and celebrated its greatest successes in the 1930s and 1940s. Before Gloriafilm was founded, Praesens-Film was the only large film production company in Switzerland that also had international success. Today the company is the oldest still existing film company in the country and primarily acts as a distributor of its own and other film productions.

history

founding

Lazar Wechsler , a graduate engineer from the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia , and the Swiss aviation pioneer Walter Mittelholzer founded Praesens Film on March 19, 1924 in Zurich with start-up capital of 10,000 francs . As one of the last countries in Central Europe, Switzerland did not have an efficient film industry. Potential filmmakers either stayed at the theater or emigrated, especially to Germany, the largest film-producing country at the time. The Praesens-Film was supposed to remedy this national cultural gap. But in the first few years the young company still struggled with economic problems. Short commercials and city documentaries as well as advertising slides and flight reports were produced. It was not until the beginning of the sound film era that Praesens-Film began regular film production. The first sound-made film production was a short documentary entitled Hello Switzerland (1929).

First sound films

The Praesens' first feature film was made in 1929 and, in terms of subject matter and professionalism, immediately represented a milestone in Swiss film history. However, this is more a lucky coincidence, or more precisely the good connections of Lazar Wechsler, than it owes the Praesens film itself . He took advantage of a European trip by the famous Russian film pioneer Sergei Eisenstein . He won him over for the film project, so that Eisenstein's preferred cameraman Eduard Tissé directed, Grigori Alexandrow wrote the script and Eisenstein himself took over the production management. The film was advertised in advance as the "most banned film in history" because it took a stand against the ban on abortion, but at the same time believed that giving birth was the better alternative.

The company first made a name for itself abroad when they released the German socialist film Kuhle Wampe or: Who Owns the World? (1931/32) who just finished the bankrupt Prometheus Film . Up until the mid-30s, Wechsler provided a talented team of filmmakers for every important position in a film production, which as a core team produced many of the Praesens films together in the following years. The most important of these was undoubtedly the director Leopold Lindtberg , who was hired from the Zürcher Schauspielhaus in 1935 and who brought the Praesens film to numerous film classics and internationally acclaimed productions. The core team also included the screenwriter Richard Schweizer , the cameraman Emil Berna , the composer Robert Blum , and the film editor Hermann Haller .

In 1933 Praesens-Film produced the first film to be assigned to the Swiss film genre . This is characterized by the identity-creating Swiss dialect and regional, mostly comical, content. This also included the cabaret films. Lindtberg's first film at Praesens was called Jä-soo! and was staged in 1935 together with Walter Lesch from Zurich , since Lindtberg, who was born in Vienna, was not yet quite able to speak Swiss. Yeah-soo! was a cabaret film that looked more like a cabaret than a real film due to the read-off dialogues and the hardly interlocking scenes. Other cabaret films followed, which were very popular with the Swiss audience, which was largely due to the casting of many roles with members of the Cabaret Cornichon .

Flying high and international success

In 1937, when Switzerland launched the “ Spiritual National Defense ” (GLV) cultural offensive , which strongly promoted Swiss cultural creation in order to increase national unity and national awareness, Swiss film was able to flourish for the first time thanks to state subsidies. The first GLV production came from Praesens-Film and was directed by Leopold Lindtberg: Füsilier Wipf (1938). Other productions worth seeing in the sense of the GLV were Franz Schnyder's Gilberte de Courgenay (1941) and Landammann Stauffacher (1941). Apart from these local patriotic defensive and edifying materials, there were also dark crime stories with a regional background and humanistically influenced dramas.

The drama Marie Louise , directed by Leopold Lindtberg in 1944 , even received an Oscar for the screenplay by Richard Schweizer. The next production brought the Praesens film another international success. It was about the story of refugees of different ethnicities and faiths who sought asylum in Switzerland during the Second World War and were only actually allowed to cross the border because of a border official who actively supported them. This film, produced in 1944, is entitled The Last Chance and is one of the first and also one of the few Swiss films to deal with the restrictive Swiss immigration policy during the Second World War. The film also opened in the United States in November 1945 and was so successful that even Hollywood became aware of Lazar Wechsler. The Praesens-Film now had several offers for international film productions, and so several productions with foreign film companies were realized in the following years.

The first was built in 1947 and was called The Drawn (The Search) . It was a co-production with the great US American Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer . Fred Zinnemann worked as a director . Other such internationally and humanistically oriented productions were Swiss Tour (1949) and Die Vier im Jeep (1951), set in occupied post-war Vienna - both staged by Lindtberg.

Downturn

Starting with the film Our Village / The Village (1953), about the Pestalozzi villages, the Praesens film gradually went downhill. The international political deterioration, such as the Cold War , made optimistic productions unbelievable and uninteresting for the audience. In addition, television created more and more competition in Switzerland. However, it was possible to respond to the changed behavior of the public in good time with the Swiss Heimatfilm . One of the first films of this kind was Heidi (1952). More such light entertainment films followed. Among other things, the Heidi sequel Heidi and Peter which was the first Swiss color film (1954). From the 1960s onwards, the successful productions of Praesens-Film were over. In addition, serious competitors emerged from 1950, such as Gloriafilm . In 1964, the crisis in Swiss film, triggered by a sharp decline in audiences, reached its climax when only one film production was completed. Many companies closed forever or, like Praesens-Film in 1966, withdrew from film production.

Today Praesens-Film is no longer active as a film manufacturer. Only the successful productions of earlier years are exploited and films from other companies are loaned and distributed.

Awards

Praesens-Film was responsible for some of the greatest successes in Swiss film history , mainly between the late 1930s and around 1950 . In addition to awards at all important film festivals , Praesens-Film was also able to book four Oscars for itself and its employees.

Selection of awards for film productions of Praesens-Film:

1940 The abused love letters

  • awarded the trophy of the Venice Biennale 1940

1944 Marie Louise

  • Oscar for the best screenplay by Richard Schweizer

1945 The last chance

  • Golden Globe
  • International Peace Prize (1946)

1948 The Drawn (until today the Swiss film with the most awards)

  • Oscar for the best motion picture story
  • Oscar nomination for best screenplay
  • Oscar nomination for Fred Zinnemann
  • Golden Globe (1948)
  • United Nations Grand Prix (1948)
  • Third in the top ten films selected by New York film critics and dozens of awards from around the world

1950/51 The four in a jeep

  • Oscar nomination
  • Golden Bear of the City of Berlin
  • United Nations Grand Prize
  • Silver laurel of the International Selznick Prize
  • One World Award New York for exceptional performance

1952 Heidi

  • 1st prize at the International Youth Film Festival at the Venice Biennale
  • Prize of the Youth Film Festival Trieste (1953)

1952/53 Our village

  • Silver laurel of the International Selznick Prize
  • Bronze bear of the city of Berlin

1958 It happened in broad daylight

  • 4 first prizes from the Barcelona film critics for best film of the year.
  • Voted fourth best film of the year by Swiss film journalists.
  • Film award from the city of Zurich

Filmography

See also

literature

  • Felix Aeppli: The Swiss Film 1929–1964: Switzerland as a ritual. 2 volumes. Limmat Verlag, Zurich 1981, ISBN 3-85791-034-8 .
  • Hervé Dumont : Rise & Fall of the Legendary Swiss Film Company: Praesens Film. Emil Berna, Lazar Wechsler, Paul Hubschmid…. Translation by John O'Brien, Zurich 1991.

Web links