30 years of filmmaking...
...began in late summer 1991 with a seminar by Giuseppe DeSantis as part of my training at the film school.
The former resistance fighter and co-founder of Italian Neorealismo spoke so passionately about his work that there was no escape. His films tell of people's everyday problems, give an insight into society and thus want to encourage people to think about its condition - social impact is what we would call it today. A claim that I also try to make in my work.
On this page you will find a selection of my work.
Wolfgang...
...grew up in Innsbruck, children's ski instructor, DJ, barman, iron founder and furniture packer, then gradutated from High School . Graduation from the School for Documentary Film, Television and New Media, ZeLIG, in Bolzano, Italy.
Cameraman and director, documentary films in Europe, Asia, South America and Antarctica. Production of exhibition DVDs and art films in collaboration with artists such as Raymond Pettibon, Thomas Feuerstein and Hans Weigand.
Lived and worked in New Delhi and Hanoi from 2005 to 2015. During this time, produced reports for international TV stations and documentaries in Vietnam, India, Nepal and Myanmar in collaboration with 3Sat, ARTE, CBS, DED, GIZ, VECO and UNIDO.
Returned to Europe in summer 2015, currently in Prague.
Documentary
Die Helden von Prag
Documetary | 45min | WDR/Pangolin Doxx | 2019
Idea | Co-Director | Camera | Post-Production
In 1989, more than 25,000 East German citizens fled to West Germany via the German Embassy in Prague. Many of them had come in a hurry and left everything behind. The desire for freedom was great, but at the time it was not clear whether the dream of leaving for the West would actually come true for them.
No one could have guessed at the time that the fugitives were ushering in the end of the GDR regime. Up to 4,000 people stayed on the grounds of the West German embassy for weeks or even months in autumn of 1989. They were people who did not know each other, from East and West Germany and from Czechoslovakia. Despite the tensions between East and West, they stuck together and thus set in motion the end of the inner-German border and the fall of the Iron Curtain in Europe.
Die heilige Schildkröte von Vietnam
Documentary | ARTE/NDR Luckfilm | 45min | 2012
Co-Director | Camera
The film is a voyage of discovery in Vietnam - on the border between mythology and species conservation. It tells the story of a turtle goddess. According to legend, in the 15th century she helped King Leloi with a magic sword to chase the Chinese occupiers out of the country. And indeed, in Hoan Kiem Lake, in the centre of Hanoi, lives an ancient reptile belonging to the extremely rare species of Asian giant freshwater turtles.
The film accompanies British biologist Tim Mac Cormack as he wages an almost hopeless battle: he searches Vietnamese lakes for the last survivors of this archaic reptile species and hopes that a breeding programme could still save it from the threat of extinction.
The film is one of the last documents of the sacred turtle in Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi, which died on 19 January 2016.
Die Wilden Siebziger
Documentary | ORF/3SAT | Jungle Production | 45min | 2008
Idea | Director | Camera | Post-Production
On 3 May 1978, together with Sherpa Ang Phu, Robert Schauer, Wolfgang Nairz and Horst Bergmannam were the first Austrians to stand on the summit of Mount Everest. On 8 May, Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler reached the summit for the first time without the aid of artificial oxygen. "Die wilden Siebziger" is a film about a period when a small mountaineering "elite" studied together, carried out expeditions and researched the medical basics of high-altitude mountaineering. Their joint ventures culminated in the first ascent of Mount Everest "by fair means", i.e. without oxygen. Back then, they laid an important foundation for professional mountaineering of the present day.
In the film, they look back on that time and talk about their experiences.
In the course of filming, we had the honour of shooting one of the last interviews with Sir Edmund Hillary. It was not included in the film and is therefore still available.
Tara
déjàvuFilm | Documentary | 42min | 2000/2006
Production | Director | Camera
Tara, a child of Austrian emigrants, grew up in India. As a white European in India, life is not always easy for her. Tara travels from her home town of Bodhgaya to Spiti Valley, a valley at an altitude of 3800m on the border with Tibet. There, a group of nuns live in a monastery they founded themselves. Tara teaches them English. Together they prepare for the hoped-for arrival of the Dalai Lama. Two concepts of an alternative life as a woman in India, away from arranged marriages and a society divided into castes.
TV-Features
Art in post-dictatorial Myanmar
TV-Feature | 3SAT Kulturzeit | 5min | Director | Post-Production
Amidst an atmosphere of fear of a new dictatorship, the first exhibition of contemporary art from South-East Asia took place in Yangon in February 2019. The venue was the Secretariat, the former seat of the British colonial government and later the centre of power of the military junta. For the first time, Myanmar's young art scene had the opportunity to exhibit their work in an international context.
Ghost-Town Naypyidaw
TV-Feature | 3SAT Kulturzeit | 5min | Director | Post-Production
At the turn of the millennium, construction work on the new capital of Myanmar, Naypyidaw, literally "the city of the king", began under utmost secrecy. The military junta intended to use it to as a demonstration of its power. The architecture too shows how the junta wants to protect itself from the people. In the huge open spaces any gathering can be recognised immediately and there is nothing in the field of fire that could prevent the military from breaking it up by force - as the present unfortunately shows.
SADLY, the fear of the people of Myanmar has been confirmed! Since the coup in February 2021, they have been persecuted, terrorised, arrested or murdered in unimaginable ways by the military! What my friends report from the country is so unimaginably cruel and sad!
If you want to help the CDM (Civil Disobedience Movement) you can do so here.
Koodiyattam - Sanskrit Theater Kerala
TV-Feature | ORF Kulturmontag | 8min | Director | Post-Production
Included by UNESCO in 2001 in the list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, Koodiyattam is one of the oldest known forms of theatre in India. It is said that Buddhist settlers brought the original form of theatre to Kerala for missionary work almost 2000 years ago. It was later adopted by the Hindu Brahmin caste as an ironic and intellectual satire on Buddhism.
Koodiyattam is a theatre without words. The masks, which take hours of make-up, highlight the complex facial expressions and gestures of the performers, that must be learned over years of training. Each movement is attributed a specific meaning that describes the content of the stories, stories mostly taken from Hindu mythology. A play can last up to 10 days with daily performances of 4 to 5 hours.
Hanoi Sound Stuff Festival
TV-Feature | 3SAT Kulturzeit | 5min | Director | Post-Production
Electronic music in Hanoi - new sounds in a city steeped in history. The capital in the north of Vietnam is the intellectual centre of the country and, for the communist government, the moral antithesis to the cesspit of sin of Saigon in the south. So at first glance it seems strange that it is here, of all places, that club culture is taking root.
The organiser of the festival, the musician Tri Minh, has ambitious plans for his project, he wants to make the festival a permanent fixture in the city's cultural calendar. More than 60 artists from Europe and Asia performed on 3 stages on 28 and 29 March 2009. The audience could drift between the Experimental Stage, the Dj Dancefloor and the Main Stage with top stars of Vietnamese pop music, dance or simply listen to unusual sounds.
Creating Contours
German Development Service | Schmitz Foundation
15min | Director | Camera | Post-Production
Thanh Hoa is a picturesque province in northern Vietnam. Since 1999, its inhabitants have no longer been allowed to economically exploit the forests of the three large nature reserves Xuan Lien, Pu Hu and Pu Loung. Alternative sources of income and supply urgently need to be found. Gaining Contours traces this search and initial successes.
A Passion for Tea
Vredeseilanden (VECO Vietnam)
10min | Director | Camera | Post-Production
For Vietnam, tea is an important commodity in terms of jobs and export earnings. But as with many other agricultural commodities, prices for farmers have fallen dramatically in recent years. Vredeseilanden (VECO Vietnam), a Belgian development NGO, is active in Phu Tho province, where tea is an important crop and often accounts for more than 40% of family income. One approach is to improve the quality of the tea by developing strong market linkages and collective action to generate higher incomes for farmers.
FilmKids Films
Philipp and the bull calfs
KiKa | Pangolin Doxx | 2017 | 25min
Camera | Casting
Philipp lives on a farm in Tyrol, 1,500 metres above sea level. He wants to become a farmer like his father. So the ten-year-old lends a hand whereever he can, because there is hardly any room for machines on the mountain. Philipp helps in the fields, with herding and feeding the cows - but above all with rearing small bulls. The boy is very fond of them.
Film
Lukáš, the climber
KiKa | Pangolin Doxx | 2018 | 25min
Camera | Casting
Lukáš likes overhangs best. For that he needs strength and must be agile - and he has a lot of both. Lukáš has been climbing since he could walk. First over tables and on wall ledges at home. Then on bouldering walls and with a rope in the rock faces of his home country, the Czech Republic. Lukáš cannot imagine a life without climbing.
FilmPhotography
Photography
Street photography, mini-series, nature and concert photography. Always based on available, or natural light and careful in dealing with the protagonists in order to disturb the atmosphere as little as possible, photography is the quiet balance to the moving pictures in film.
Links to photo series will follow shortly.
In Develpment
Dialogue with a Viennese Viet Minh
A transmedia story about a life as a refugee and the longing for a new home. Documentary | Comic | Game
Art. 1 of the Refugee Convention: Under international law, only those who leave their country for "fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion" are refugees.
All this applies to the protagonist (E.F.). He actually wants to study technical chemistry at the University of Vienna, but because of his cultural origins and political convictions he is forced to leave his home country. E.F. is 23 years old when he says goodbye to his family for the last time. He will never see his parents again.
In order not to starve, E.F. enlists in the Foreign Legion in Paris and is sent to Vietnam via Algeria. There he defected to the Viet Minh and soon became an important military advisor to Ho Chi Minh. For five years he fights alongside the Vietnamese against the French colonial rulers. But his dream of a new home in Vietnam does not come true. After 13 years on the run, E.F. returned to Vienna.
The documentary film follows E.F.'s escape route and deals with the history of colonialism, the comic tells of his personal experiences on the run and the game looks into the historical background of the Vietnamese freedom struggle.
Other Projects
Spiti Help
The Spiti-Help association was founded in 2003 as a result of the documentary film „Tara“, a large part of which was set in the Yangchen Chöling nunnery in the northern Indian Spiti Valley.
One of the main goals of the association is the preservation of traditional Tibetan medicine in the valley. In addition, we have had a close friendship with the nuns of Yangchen Chöling for over 20 years now.
Book publication
Together with the nuns and the author Christl Finkenstedt we produced the book "Laughing and Praying. Nuns in the Himalayas". It is a very personal glimps into the life of the nuns, their routine in the nunnery and their position in the community of the valley.
Currently the book is available as an e-book with numerous pictures, interviews and video sequences in Apple's Books Store. We are also working on a "print on demand" version. The proceeds from the sale go entirely to the monastery.
Work Shops
Lectures
Since 1998 I have been offering lectures on The Language of Audiovisual Media. Among others in cooperation with the Cultural Department of the Tyrolean School Board, The German School in Dew Delhi and the Austrian Gymnasium in Prague.
Over the years, the media landscape has changed a lot: internet, social media and digital games have become an integral part of everyday culture and the VHS cassette that I used to illustrate the first lectures with is now a piece of media history.
All this has found its way into my lectures and can be taught either as individual topics in the area of digital games, film history or film language, or as complete overview of the current media landscape. These lectures are aimed at school classes, company employees or workshops for students.
Work Shops
Film workshops for young and old, of short duration of an afternoon, or in-depth for up to 50 hours a month, semester or year. At the end of the workshop there is always a finished film.
Seminars on careers in film and television production, for professionals or those who want to become professionals
Technical training for camera or editing
Team training for a better communication on set
Let me know your requirements and I will send you a proposal for your personal seminar.
Contact
Contact
For more information about my work, links to my films, or booking requests, please use the form, send an email, or call:
A: +43-676-3041468
Cz: +420 725 853 831
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