Christoph Dreher

Christoph Dreher (born 1952 in Nuremberg) is a German filmmaker, musician and scriptwriter. Since 2000, he has been a professor of audiovisual media.

After studying political science and philosophy at the Free University of Berlin, he studied filmmaking at DFFB (Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie in Berlin) between 1978 and 1983.

In 1980, Christoph Dreher founded the post-punk – post-rock band Die Haut (the first line-up consisted of, in addition to Dreher, Martin Peter, Thomas Wydler and Remo Park). The name of the band was inspired by the book of the same title by German–Italian author Curcio Malaparte. With Dreher as the only permanent member, the band had changing line-ups (one of the longest lasting having consisted of Dreher, Thomas Wydler, Rainer Lingk and Jochen Arbeit) until its breakup in 2000. Originally an instrumental group with the classical instrumentation of guitars, bass and drums, for their numerous records as well as for live gigs Die Haut frequently collaborated with likeminded international singers such as Lydia Lunch, Nick Cave, Jeffrey Lee Pierce or Debbie Harry.

As filmmaker–director, Christoph Dreher has been creating audiovisual works since 1979. While still a student, he made several music videos, either for Die Haut ("Der Karibische Western") or for Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds ("Tupelo", "The Singer" and "Mercy Seat"). With Heiner Mühlenbrock, he made the feature-length film OK OK – Der Moderne Tanz.

In numerous documentary films and series, Dreher dealt with issues from the area of popular culture. For example, in the 18-part series Lost in Music, in cooperation with, amongst others, Rolf S. Wolkenstein, Ellen El Malki and Rotraut Pape, Dreher covered contemporary musical genres and their associated cultures and (life-) styles. The innovative style of his films received recognition with the Adolf Grimme Award (in 1994, for Lost in Music)[1] and other awards.

Since 2000, Christoph Dreher has taught audiovisual media at Merz Akademie for Design in Stuttgart.

Selected works

Publications

www.merz-akademie.de/remediate, mfg.merz-akademie.de/remediate

www.merz-akademie.de/projects/breaking-down-breaking-bad

Film and Video

Music clips and performances

Multimedia and radio projects

Recordings

References

  1. Marianne von Wellershoff, "Musikvideos: Wie die Bilder tanzen lernten", Der Spiegel 25 December 2000 (German)
  2. Sascha Verlan, Hannes Loh, 20 Jahre HipHop in Deutschland, Höfen: Hannibal, 2000, ISBN 978-3-85445-184-6, p. 285 (German): "September 1993 wurde im ZDF erstmals die Lost-in-Music-Sendung HipHop Hooray von Christoph Dreher ausgestrahlt, ein erster Uberblick über die HipHop-Szene in Deutschland, erzählt von den Leuten aus der Szene" - "In September 1993, the Lost in Music programme by Christoph Dreher, HipHop Hooray, was broadcast on ZDF for the first time, a first overview of the hip-hop scene in Germany, narrated by the people in the scene".
  3. Review by Ginger Coyote at Punk Globe
  4. Holger In't Veld, "Fantastic Voyages: Emanzipation vom Schnöden", Der Spiegel 22 December 2000 (German)
  5. Laura Frahm, "Liquid Cosmos. Movement and Mediality in Music Video," in Rewind, Play, Fast Forward: The Past, Present and Future of the Music Video, ed. Henry Keazor and Thorsten Wübbena, Cultural and Media Studies, Bielefeld: Transcript, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8376-1185-4, pp. 15578, p. 171, note 1: "In this context, the television series Fantastic Voyages (Christoph Dreher and Rotraut Pape, ZDF/3Sat 2000) was crucial in exploring the unique 'cosmos' of this medium".
  6. Harvey Kubernik, Hollywood Shack Job: Rock Music in Film and on Your Screen, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 2006, ISBN 978-0-8263-3542-5, p. 362.

External links