SWISS FILMS Cinéportrait Samir
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Cinéportrait SAMIR Cinéportraits – a monograph series published by the promotion agency SWISS FILMS. When using the texts or excerpts thereof, the source must be cited. Update: 2015 / Original version: 2003 www.swissfilms.ch SAMIR BIOGRAPHY Born in 1955 in Baghdad, Iraq, Samir moved to Switzerland as a child with his parents at the beginning of the MULTIMEDIA 1960s. In the early 1970s he attended the Zurich AND MULTIPLE IDENTITIES School of Design and then completed an apprentice- ship as a typographer. After training as a cameraman, he began to make his own films in the mid 1980s and by Marcy Goldberg co-founded the Megaherz, Videoladen and Dschoint Ventschr video collectives n a far-sighted 1993 interview with the journalist Michael Sennhauser, Samir made a statement in Zurich. In the 1990s he worked for various German I that would prove significant for his career ever since: “I hope that my knowledge of Europe and broadcasters as a director for series and tv films. Together the Middle East will prove fruitful for my future as a filmmaker. This knowledge cannot be divided with the documentary film- maker Werner Schweizer, he into two – even if that's precisely what certain quarters seem to believe.” If anyone knows that things restructured the production company Dschoint Ventschr cannot simply be divided into two opposing categories, it is Samir. The son of a Swiss-German moth- Filmproduktion in 1994, spe- cializing in innovative works er and an Iraqi Communist father has spent his life bringing together elements that others might and new directors. In 1997 the two received the Zurich have thought could not be mixed: Arab and European culture, fiction and documentary, film and Film Prize for their support of young talent. Alongside his video, semiotic theory and police thrillers, the role of the auteur filmmaker and that of the producer. work as filmmaker and pro- ducer, Samir is also active in Samir is one of the most versatile personalities active on the Swiss film scene today. His theatre and installation arts. work ranges from experimental video, through documentary and feature films, to television pro- grammes and museum installations. He is equally at home as a TV talk-show host or a lecturer in media theory. Alongside his own filmmaking pursuits, he has long been active as a producer and talent-spotter, helping many young filmmakers launch their own careers. And he has also been a vocal participant in local politics and Swiss cultural policy debates. Navigating between places, identities and cultures has always been a crucial theme in his films. From the multicultural character Max alias Massimo Huber in his early fiction feature Filou (1988), to the real-life Karma Lobsang – the daughter of Tibetan immigrants who became a scholar of the ancient Swiss language Rhaeto-Romanic – in Tibet in The Navigating between places, identities and cultures has Engadine (1998) and, most recently, the tangled tale of his own always been a crucial theme family’s emigration in Iraqi Odyssey (2014), Samir's protagonists in Samir's films. live out their multiple identities in ways that defy clichés and pre- conceived ideas. Samir's unconventional approach is also evident in his use of film form. Over the years he has combined cinema, video and computer technology in various ways, always remaining on the cutting edge of new technical developments in the field. Unlike other filmmakers of his generation, who often turned to video simply as a low-budget alternative to celluloid, Samir understood early on that the aesthetic potential of video – and later of digital media – would allow him to create mul- tilayered sound and image compositions that would perfectly parallel the theme of hybridity in his work. His 1993 documentary Babylon 2 introduced the device of the layered and subdivided frame to portray the realities of being a “Secondo” (second-generation immigrant) in Switzerland in the electronic age. In its development of a new visual style and its treatment of a highly relevant – but up to that time largely neglected – topic, Babylon 2 remains one of the most influential documen- taries of contemporary Swiss film history. DIRECTOR’S PORTRAIT / SAMIR SWISS FILMS 1 SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY AS DIRECTOR 2014 Iraqi Odyssey documentary Abu Dhabi Film Festival: Best Asian Film Award 2014 MULTIMEDIA 2010 Der Engel und die Fibonacci- Zahlen TV documentary AND MULTIPLE IDENTITIES 2005 Snow White fiction Swiss Film Award: Best Performance in a Leading Role (Carlos Leal); Award for Best Setting, Hofer Filmtage 2002 Forget Baghdad documentary Best Film, Semaine de la cri- Samir further developed this aesthetic in his 2002 documentary Forget Baghdad, which tique, Locarno Film Festival; Zurich Film Prize explored the paradoxical situation of Iraqi Jews in Israel: forced to emigrate from Iraq in the 1950s 1999 Die Jagd nach dem Tod because they were Jews, but treated with suspicion in Israel because of their Arabic cuture and TV thriller (PRO7) political sensibilities. The impossibility of easily reconciling these various aspects of their identities 1998 Projecziuns tibetanas (Tibet In The Engadine) is mirrored by the composition of the images, in which – thanks to split-screen and digital image TV documentary layering – there are always several different things happening at once. For Iraqi Odyssey he took 1997 La eta knabino (The Little Girl) short experimental film technical innovation one step further, integrating the latest 3D technologies into his investigation Angelique, short fiction (for the "Blind Date" TV series) of family history as a microcosm of geopolitical tensions. In his most personal and most far-rang- Swiss Film Prize for best short 1998 ingly political film to date, the use of 3D is not simply a playful device, but a means of literally and 1996 Tödliche Schwesternliebe figuratively embedding his interviews with family members in the history that shaped their own TV drama (PRO7) Die Metzger life stories. TV comedy (ZDF) In Samir's work, the serious and the playful, the utopian and the ironic exist side by side. 1995 Die Partner TV crime series (ARD) Perhaps the most telling example is La Eta Knabino (1997), a 6-minute so-called “digital silent film 1994 Eurocops fable” shot and edited in the style of early cinema, but using late-1990s computer technology to TV series (ZDF, SF DRS, ORF) process the images. The film's exaggerated comic style contains a serious message: the importance 1993 Babylon 2 documentary Zurich Film Prize; Quality of solidarity. And fittingly, the intertitles are in Esperanto, the hybrid language invented in the late Award, Swiss Federal Office of Culture 19th century for the utopian purpose of creating universal understanding. In his 2005 feature film 1991 immer & ewig (always & for- Snow White, he combined a satirical portrayal of a “poor little rich girl” from Zurich’s glittering Gold ever) experimental fiction Award for innovative film, Coast with an earnest message about friendship, love, and staying In Samir's work, the serious Solothurn; Quality Award, and the playful, the utopian Swiss Federal Office of Culture; true to oneself. As a citizen of the 21st century, Samir knows that and the ironic exist side by Best Script, Sitges Int. Fantasy Film Festival; Grand Prix utopian dreams must be viewed today with a certain irony. But he side Film Etranger, Entre Vue Film Festival, Belfort also knows that they must not be forgotten. 1988 Filou fiction When Samir burst onto the then-staid Swiss filmmaking scene with works like Filou and Quality Award, Swiss Federal Office of Culture Babylon 2, there were few films tackling the subjects of migration and racism in Switzerland, 1987 Martin Disler and virtually none made by immigrants themselves. If things look different today, this is due at short TV documentary least partly to Samir’s influence: not only through his work as a filmmaker, but also thanks to his 1986 Morlove experimental feature tireless efforts as a producer, together with his partners Werner ‘Swiss’ Schweizer and Karin Koch. Quality Award, Swiss Federal Office of Culture Their Zurich-based production company Dschoint Ventschr has earned a reputation for discovering 1985 Schiefkörper and promoting new talents, and for tackling controversial aspects of Swiss history and politics in short experimental video formally innovative ways. With films like Nadia Farès’s Miel et Cendres (1996), Stina Werenfels’ 1983 Stummfilm short fiction Going Private (Nachbeben) and Andrea Štaka’s Fraulein (Das Fräulein, both 2006), and Nicolas 1981 Semiotik einer Heimat Wadimoff’s Opération Libertad (2012), Dschoint Ventschr has been one of the most international- (Semiotics of a Native Land) documentary video ly-visible Swiss production companies for several decades, and remains one of the country’s most sought-after co-production partners. In 2012 Samir was honoured with an “Atelier” (master class) DIRECTOR’S PORTRAIT / SAMIR SWISS FILMS 2 SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY AS PRODUCER 2014 Dawn by Romed Wyder 2013 Mon père, la révolution et moi by Ufuk Emiroglu MULTIMEDIA 2012 Dans un jardin je suis entré AND MULTIPLE IDENTITIES by Avi Mograbi 2012 Opération Libertad by Nicolas Wadimoff 2009 Räuberinnen by Carla Lia Monti 2006 Das Fräulein by Andrea Štaka and a retrospective at the international film festival Visions du réel in Nyon, Switzerland, featuring 2006 Nachbeben by Stina Werenfels both his own documentaries and works he produced. 2005 White Terror by Daniel In his 1998 essay “The Liberation of the Frame” (see below), Samir