Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein

Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein (born 1939 in Königs Wusterhausen, Germany) is a German cinematographer. He has collaborated with director Werner Herzog on a number of projects. Among his many collaborations with other directors, Schmidt-Reitwein is notable for his cinematographic achievement in shooting Alan Greenberg's acclaimed 1982 documentary about Jamaica and death of Bob Marley, Land of Look Behind.

Biography

Early life and family

Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein is the son of the painter Karl Schmidt-Reitwein. The first twelve years of his life he has been in Lübeck.

Early career

He went to Waldorfschool and afterward he studied Physics for a few semester also in Lübeck. Then he switched on to the Film Industry and went for that in 1959 to Berlin. He did some various practicum in different film management area such as synchron studio, film laboratory, and sound studio. Suddenly his career structure broke up, as he was captured there after building the Berlin wall, on the east communist side, as he tried to help his girlfriend be transported to the west. In such a fast political juristic show-process he was sentenced for 5 years imprisonment as an accused human dealer and a bounty hunter. After spending moore then 3 years in penitentiary, the west-government dealt in a conspirative action for his freedom against 84.000DM worth of butter.

Career as a cinematographer

He started his Professional career again from the very beginning. In the first instance as camera assistant in Munich. In 1969 Werner Herzog gave him his greatest chance for the first time by a Doku- Feature Film as Director of Photography. Thereby emerged the most promising film critics for Fata Morgana. Thereafter he worked together 17 more movies and documentary films with Werner Herzog himself. On top of this, he also worked with various well known numbers of directors such as Alexander Kluge, Herbert Achternbusch, Josef Bierbechler, H.C. Blumenberg, Werner Schroeter, Alan Greenberg, Markus Fischer, Douglas Wolfsperger, Andre Heller, etc. He gathered 2 German Film Prize awarded in gold for his light speciality on his films he worked together with Werner Herzog. For his latest feature film he received the 1 st Prize award for his camera work from the Fantasy Film Festival in Málaga (Spain). Schmidt-Reitwein had worked in Ludwigsburg Film Academy and University of the Philippines ( Film Academy in Manila) as a Lecturer.

He also works for TV, shooting many commercials for Nike, MasterCard, Swiss Com, Mercedes - Benz.

Personal life

At present he lives together with his Philippine wife and his 5-year-old daughter on his farm house in Bavaria in Ering nearby the Inn - river.

Filmography (incomplete)

• Fata Morgana
• The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner
• The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
• Nosferatu the Vampyre
• Heart of Glass
• Woyzeck
• Land of Look Behind
• Where the Green Ants Dream
• Marmorera
• Wie zwischen Himmel und Erde

Awards

• 2 Federal Film Awards (Film ribbon in gold)
• 2 nominations for the German Camera Prize
• 1 nomination for the Festival de l image de Film (Chalon sur Soune)
• Jury member Cameraimage 2001
• First Prize for DOP work on FANTASY FILM FESTIVAL 2007 in Málaga (Spain)

Websites

• Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein at the Internet Movie Database
• Official site