Titus Leber
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| Titus Leber | |
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| Born | March 2, 1951 Zell am See, Salzburg Austria |
| Occupation | Film director, screenwriter |
| Official website | |
Titus Leber (born March 2, 1951) is a writer/ director of numerous films, mostly based on classical music. He was one of the early pioneers of interactive multimedia and has produced and created a large number of groundbreaking applications in this field.
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[edit] Biography
Titus Leber was born in Zell am See, Austria. His father was a publisher and his mother, Gerda Leber Hagenau, a well known writer and translator of Polish literature and stage plays. T.Leber studied at the Lycée Francais de Vienne and then studied History of the stage arts (Theatergeschichte) under professors H. Kindermann and M. Dietrich, art history (under Prof. Fillitz) and psychology. He concluded his studies with a PhD. on “ Die Schichtungsmethode- Ansätze zu einem visuellen Denken jenseits der verbalen Sprache” ( “The multilayer method- Attempts towards ways of visual thinking beyond verbal communication”), a thesis in which he explores the history and far reaching potential of superimposed images.
From a very early age onward T. Leber was fascinated by filmmaking. Even before possessing a real movie camera he produced numerous “paper films” by drawing on paper strips frame by frame scenes which he had previously staged with his large armies of toy tin-soldiers. At age 14, Leber got his first super 8 camera and started from then on to make a number of short films, mainly based on myths from Ancient Greece (“Der platonische Urmensch”, Orpheus”, “Sysiphus”). After his army service (1969) and parallel to his academic studies Leber worked on documentaries and became head of the film department of the Institut für Neurovegetative Endoskopie in Düsseldorf, where he produced and created together with the founder of the Institute, Dr. Raimund Wittmoser, a series of groundbreaking endoscopic documentaries (“ Hyperhidrosis”, “ Neue Coelome” etc.)
Leber's first fictional 16mm short film “ Kindertotenlieder” ( “Songs of dead children”-1976, color, 32 min) won him numerous international awards and he became Austria's nominee for best short film for the Academy awards. He then wrote and directed the award winning “ Schubert- Fremd bin ich eingezogen” ( “Schubert- A Stranger I came”).1978 T.Leber was then awarded the Austrian National Award for filmmaking.
After a year at AFI (The American Film Institute), from where he graduated with a director's diploma, T. Leber returned to Austria to write and direct his first feature film “Anima-Symphonie Fantastique” (1981, with Mathieu Carriere and Charo Lopez) which was shown in the official selection of the Cannes Film Festival in 1981.
A one year term as Research Fellow at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) during which he built an “ Image Reactor” allowing him to perform nearly unlimited numbers of image permutations in real time, brought an important turn in Leber's career: fascinated by the possibility of making the audience participate in what happened on the screen he returned to Europe to ”bring together the best of both worlds- high tech from America and cultural heritage from Europe”. Followed a number of large scale laser-videodisc touch screen –driven applications such as award winning “ Vienna Interactive” (1987) and “Mozart Interactive”(1991).
In 1992 T. Leber moved to Paris where he worked extensively with the Louvre Museum ( The Great Louvre in HDTV/3D) and began to develop an interactive multimedia history of Europe in collaboration with IBM. During his 5 year stay in Paris he also created the award winning interactive CD –ROM “ Le monde de Pasteur” (“The world of Pasteur”) as well as a cultural history of “ Eight historical cities of Portugal”.
He became member of the advisory Board of Bill Gate's company Corbis and member of the board of the French Cinema school FEMIS and held a three year tenure as a professor at Cologne's Media Academy in Germany.
In the late 90s Titus Leber moved to Bangkok where he headed for several years the multimedia project of the Mae Fah Luang Foundation under Royal Patronage for which he created “What Did the Buddha Teach?”, a comprehensive interactive CD ROM /DVD triptych about the life and teaching of Lord Buddha, and where he is currently working on a four hour opera film project about “Parsifal- A Buddhist Tale”. Mr Leber's works have been so far been translated into nine languages
[edit] Filmography:
- Anima –Symphonie Fantastique (1981, 35mm, with Charo Lopez and Mathieu Carriere). Official selection of the Cannes Film Festival 1981
- Schubert-Fremd bin ich eingezogen (1978): Festival de Cannes,1979: selected by “Semaine de la Critique”.
- Kindertotenlieder (1975, 16mm with Elisabeth Kallina and Steve Bernas); Espigia de Oro for best short film/ Semana Internacional de Cine Valladolid-Prix spécial Moyen et Court Métrages/Cannes-Paris, Festival de la Colombe d´Or- Grand Prix Musique et Image/ Festival International du Film d´Art, Paris 1977- Prix du Public/Besancon Festival International du film de Musique et de Danse-Austria's official nominee for Academy awards.
[edit] TV Productions and Documentaries
- Sangharadja-Thailands Supreme patriarch
- Symphony from the New World ( Based on A. Dvorák's 9th Symphony, in collaboration with NASA).
- Nuclear requiem: For ORF/Austrian Television
- Neue Coelome: Introducing new methods of endoscopy.
- Hyperhidrosis: Award for best Film by German Endoscopic Society
[edit] Multimedia
- What Did the Buddha Teach? CD DVD /DVD triptych about the life and teaching of Lord Buddha
- Mozart Interactive
- Vienna Interactive: Mercuriale Award for best Cultural Heritage CD ROM/ Besancon:
- Le monde de Pasteur:Award IAMS for best Scientific CD ROM 1995
- The Great Louvre in HDTV/3D coproduced with UNESO and Beta System, Japan
- Eight Historical cities of Portugal, for the Centro Nacional de Cultura, Lisboa.
- Das Wiener Theatermuseum.
- Endoskopie Interaktiv
