Overview
On Monday, March 23, join the Kamera Kollektiv and AbelCine in NY for a special Creative Forces panel on the art of documentary storytelling. Kamera Kollektiv cinematographers will discuss their experiences shooting non-fiction films and what inspires them in their careers, as well as screen clips from their documentary projects. There will also be ample time for dialogue with the audience and networking to follow. Additionally, manufacturers such as ARRI, Canon, Nanlite, ZEISS, SmallHD, Teradek, Wooden Camera (and more) will be showing off the latest gear for documentary filmmakers in our showroom.
The panel will feature Kamera Kollektiv members Wolfgang Held (co-founder), Claudia Raschke (co-founder), Thorsten Thielow (co-founder), Martina Radwan, Axel Baumann, Tom Hurwitz, ASC, and will be moderated by Marshall Curry.
Clips will be screened from The Neighbor's Window, this year's Oscar-winning Live Action Short, directed by Marshall Curry with DP Wolfgang Held and MoVI Operator Thorsten Thielow. Additional clips will be shown from Boys State, winner of the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize for Documentary, with DP Thorsten Thielow and contributions by the other Kollektiv members.
ABOUT
The Kamera Kollektiv is a group of New York cameramen and women who share a love for cinematic, socially-conscious filmmaking.
The cinematographers of the Kollektiv are known for their Cinema Verite hand-held skills, natural lighting techniques and strong story telling abilities. They share a background in narrative feature filmmaking and bring knowledge of complex lighting set ups as well as dramatic storytelling techniques to any project. They are also able to adapt to any project, from an intimate unobtrusive style to leading a large crew in a full scale production.
SPEAKERS
Wolfgang Held
Emmy-winning Director of Photography Wolfgang Held has photographed many indie movies and documentary features. Filming all over the globe, Held has been exploring both documentary and fiction filmmaking, in search of authenticity and truth.
His most recent feature credit is O.G., starring Jeffrey Wright, which was shot in an active maximum-security prison. Held photographed Brüno for Sacha Baron Cohen and Larry Charles and The Fourth Estate, a Showtime doc series about the New York Times. He is currently working for Liz Garbus and Alex Gibney on the upcoming Netflix series on The Innocence Project, incorporating cinema-verite filmmaking and dramatic recreations to tell the stories of those who have been innocently convicted. | wolfgangheld.com
Claudia Raschke
Award-winning cinematographer Claudia Raschke is best-known for her ability to bring the rich tones of the motion picture medium to a diverse spectrum of films, from highly stylized commercial endeavors to behavioral documentaries to lower-budget works of art. Raschke has worked on five Oscar-nominated documentaries. Her most recent six-part documentary series for National Geographic will air Fall 2019 and her feature documentary RBG was nominated for an Oscar and has been screening in theaters around the world. | www.claudiaraschke.com
Thor Thilo
Thorsten Thielow – Thorsten is an NYC-based cinematographer and director. Working on documentaries for theatrical release and primetime television Thorsten is passionate in making films that illuminate the human condition and bring about social change.
Some of his recent work includes Robin Williams – Come Inside My Mind, which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, Dirty Money, currently streaming on Netflix, and China Hustle, which screened at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. Thorsten also worked on the narrative feature O.G., starring Jeffrey Wright and which premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival. | www.thordp.com
Martina Radwan
Martina, a native German, based in NYC for more than 20 years, has been the cinematographer of award-winning features and documentaries for over a decade.
Some of her most recent films include Inventing Tomorrow, The Final Year, The Family I Had, The Promised Band, and Through A Lens Darkly. Saving Face, for which she earned a 2013 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Cinematography, was the winner of the 2012 Academy Award and the 2013 Emmy for Best Documentary. Her narrative works ranges from drama (Rain, Under Construction) to thrillers (The Killing Floor, Train). Martina has also collaborated with numerous international artists, like ANOHNI for whom she shot the video background for her Hopeless Tour, as well as conceptional artists like Andrea Geyer, Josiah McElheny and Wu Tsang. | martinaradwandp.com
Axel Baumann
Axel Baumann is a three-time Emmy-nominated cinematographer, who has worked in film and television for more than twenty years. Axel’s work has appeared on HBO, National Geographic, Netflix, Discovery, History Channel, PBS, ESPN, Showtime, CNN as well as in theaters worldwide. Axel was awarded an Emmy for his cinematography on Carrier, a 10-part PBS series on the USS Nimitz, produced by Icon Films and directed by Maro Chermayeff. Recent credits include Mission Blue (Netflix) directed by Fisher Stevens, Soundbreaking (PBS) directed by Maro Chermayeff and Jeff Dupre, and Pavarotti, directed by Ron Howard. | www.axelbaumann.com
Tom Hurwitz
Tom Hurwitz, ASC is one of America’s most honored documentary cinematographers. Winner of two Emmy Awards, along with the Sundance and Jerusalem Film Festival Awards for Best Cinematography, Hurwitz has photographed films that have won four Academy Awards and garnered several more nominations (most recently for Dancemakerand Killing in the Name).
His television programs have also won dozens of awards, such as Emmy, Dupont, Peabody, Directors Guild and film festival awards for Best Documentary, over the last 25 years. Recent awards include Emmys for Best Documentary Special (Jerome Robbins, Franklin) and Sundance Awards (Queen of Versailles, Love Free or Die).
He is also a founding member of the faculty of The MFA Program in the Social Documentary, at New York’s School of Visual Arts | tomh.com
Marshall Curry (moderator)
Marshall Curry is an Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker. He is the director of Street Fight, Racing Dreams, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, Point and Shoot, A Night at the Garden, and executive producer of Mistaken for Strangers. His first non-documentary film, The Neighbor's Window, won the 2020 Academy Award for best Live Action Short.
Curry is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and is co-chair of Cinema Eye Honors. He was selected by Filmmaker Magazine as one of "25 New Faces of Independent Film," was awarded the International Documentary Association (IDA) Jacqueline Donnet Filmmaker Award, and received the International Trailblazer Award at MIPDOC in Cannes. | marshallcurry.com
Coronavirus Update:
AbelCine takes the health of our clients and staff seriously. All our locations are open for regular business, and we are evaluating our training and event schedule on an ongoing basis. Learn more about the steps we are taking to ensure the safety of everyone who enters our facilities.
