Walther Bever-Mohr

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Walther Bever-Mohr (born November 19, 1901 in Düsseldorf , † November 24, 1955 in Schwelm ) was a German amateur film maker and from 1952 to 1955 President of the Association of German Film Amateurs (BDFA) . His privately made films were shown internationally before and after 1945 and were awarded prizes.

Life and filmmaking

Bever-Mohr was already enthusiastic about drama and literature as a teenager. He composed and recited verses and performed with an amateur drama group . In 1927, succeeding his uncle Wilhelm Bever, he took over the door lock factory Bever & Klophaus in Schwelm. Around 1930 he began producing private 16 mm films , including colored travel films using the lens grid method . In October 1938 he joined the Wuppertal working group of the BDFA and showed his films in public for the first time in the following years. In 1940 he made a folklore Kodachrome film about the village population in the West Beskids . The following year, his railway film Glück aufzüge won first prize at the International Amateur Film Competition in Stockholm . In 1943 he made his last color film during the war with Ski Romance about Bodo .

In the post-war period , a demonstration by the workforce prevented the occupation authorities from dismantling his factory. When the BDFA's Wuppertal working group was re-established in September 1949, Bever-Mohr became its first chairman. In 1952 he was elected President of the West German BDFA in Hanover and shot the expressionist black and white film Der Schatten des Vaters . As a local politician of the FDP , Bever-Mohr was also active in the Schwelm city council. He fell ill with polyarteritis nodosa in the early 1950s and died in November 1955 after a long illness.

Model railways

Walther Bever-Mohr was an avid collector of the Märklin company model railways . The model he owned at the end of the 1930s filled two rooms on the upper floor of his house and is said to have been the second largest facility in the German Empire at the time after that of Hermann Göring .

Filmography

• From the Lombard Spring into Eternal Ice (1939, color)
• Sun over Vorarlberg (1939, color)
• Play of colors in a small town (1939, color)
• Longing for winter sun (1940, color)
• Happiness on Rails (1941, color)
• Beskidy Country (1941, color)
• Ski romance around Bodo (1943, color)
• The Father's Shadow (1952)

A large number of his films have been preserved and are now in private hands.

documentation

• 2012: Bad luck on skis, luck on rails - The film treasures of Walther Bever-Mohr , DVD, 55 min, excerpt on Youtube .