The Filmstiftung NRW funded documentary Rodicas, directed&produced by Alice Gruia, shot by Sanne Kurz, has its cast&crew premiere on 4th of June in Cologne, Germany. It’s definitely worth to meet the two Rodicas upfront on the film’s homepage. What a set of lovely Ladies they are!
Last spring I shot
in Israel a trailer for Doing Nothing All Day, a documentary about democratic education. Now, the Bavarian film Funding Body fff announced their positive funding decision. Read all about the involvement of broadcaster BR in this project here or visit the homepage of the film here.
Many great new things are to come in 2011. 
We had a good meeting with the Bavarian film funding body fff last week. nicht weit von mir (not far from me) had its first screening at fff with music and to my regret not with our lovely grading. But what shall I say: Julia Rappold, head of the funding division overseeing the production of nicht weit von mir, she seemd to like it. Have another look at the trailer of the film here.
Other great news is that German broadcaster BR, thanks to the introduction through fff, joined the supporting team behind Doing Nothing All Day, a documentary by Munich based artist Margarete Hentze – my congratulations on that.
Her efforts not only helped create the collaboration with BR, but hopefully will result in positive answers by funding bodies Kuratorium Junger Deutscher Film and fff over the next weeks.
This weekend I’m shooting in Munich a social-spot for an international competition against climate change. The spot will show many energy wasters and savers and create a rhythm from sampled sounds of the things we see. People’s faces will represent 10 European countries and – we need help to get enough people on screen. So, if you are from Germany, Malta, Latvia, Italy, Bulgaria, Greece, Spain, Denmark, England or Ireland and if you wanna be in a film: please get in touch via sannekur [ad] gmail [dot] com.
This is the kind of headshots we will take:
This is an example of a beat created only by things:
What counts is your native language, not your citizenship or country of birth – thanks.
Thanks to D-Facto Motion kindly sponsoring us we can grade nicht weit von mir this week on Scratch in a lovely suite with projection. Having shot on DSLR I expected all sorts of major problems – especially when doing secondaries or having larger tweaks. But so far all goes surprisingly well and the 5D with all its pros and cons has not let me and colorist Sebastian Wild down. Watch nicht weit von mir (working title Andererseits) here or here.
…is heading out the door. January is waiting with grading of not far from me kindly sponsored by D-Facto Motion and a fun project in Brussels: Munich based artist and curator Christiane Huber is taking me to shoot for the Burning Ice Festival – Cultural Response to Climate Change. This year the festival holds in the bank next door an Un-Economic Summit (It’s the Economy, Stupid!) focussing on Prosperity without Growth. The Changing Tents by radical_hope will hold together the bank activities and the theatre program in Kaaitheater on both sides of the canal.
Seasons greetings from one of the latest movies I was DP of. Thanks for stopping by in 2010, see you in the New Year and Guten Rutsch as we say in German.
A film about girls with bad boyfriends and bad habits by Tawnya Foskett. Film stills here.
It’s an American production. No
generous public funding in this movie. All budget for this film comes from private and corporate sponsors. Make a difference and post your tax-deductible contribution to post production now on kickstarter.
Before I went to shoot Where there’s Smoke in New Jersey, I posted here a few snippets from the dailies of a film I shot in NY earlier this year.
Now The Biggest Lie by Masood Haque of Eksaki Films, shot on DSLR in Feb 2010 on location in Manhattan, is finished. Watch the trailer, and check the homepage for more information.
I love the mood of this trailer a lot. But the snippets from the dailies are slightly better upload quality. So if you came here to check DSLR footage, compare Canon 7D with Canon 5D etc…check the snippets!
…come visit the Pinakothek der Moderne Munich, where Himmelfilm will screen in the exhibition Documentary Film in the 21st Century till 20.2.2011. Inspired by a song of British band The Orb Himmelfilm has been shot a few weeks after 9/11 in Israel. Having a large bag of collected sounds, universal memories of people such as Dick Ross, Marie Miyayama, Wim Wenders, Byambasuuren Davaa, Hussam Chaddat, Yossi Tzafrir, Mirna Brkanovic, Luigi Falorni and many others in our luggage, we tried hard reflecting on what skies were like when people were young. News blaring every single day news from Iran, Irak and Afghanistan, war in the air, gas-masks beeing handed out, “Der Himmel war ein Feind für mich” – as Mirna Brkanovic states in the movie.
Carrying a small baby of two months with us through the desert, Himmelfilm has been made by Jiska Rickels (dir) and Sanne Kurz (co-dir, cinematographer). Marion Neumann (1st AC) and Yuval Tzafrir (editor) helped in Israel, Gisela Castronari (editor) and creativepictures (prod) in Munich.
Himmelfilm has found its theatrical release in Benelux as supporting film with Wim Wenders Land of Plenty. It screened in Cannes and Rotterdam in 2005 and won in 2004 the Civis Intl. Media Award of the EBU.
To read more insights, see some images of first letters exchanged between the makers and the dungeon where the 35mm work-print rests in peace, check out my blog.
A while back, I shot in Germany Mein linker grosser Zeh. Produced by the production house UE Spionjak, written & directed by a set of at least three directors, an extended family of Croatian-German descend. Entertaining at its best & funny to the bone the Spionjaks made with Mein linker grosser Zeh their debut appearance on the big screen, having done lots of commercials and shorts in the past as well as successfully produced music for over 20 years in their studios in the Bavarian Tötzham.
Mein linker grosser Zeh is a comedy & a drama with social & sci-fi elements. What sounds like sprung from the minds of crazy people, is beyond that intensly entertaining and heaps of fun to watch.
For English audience, there is a small Walsh-Irish intermezzo from the music-comedians Mark’n Simoan guest-starring as the useless snipers Bell&Bone.
