Steff Gruber
Directing
Biography
Steff Gruber was born in 1953 in Zurich, Switzerland. From 1972 to 1979 he attended film lectures and courses at the University of Zurich, ETH Zurich and F+F Zurich College of Design. In 1976 he studied mass media philosophy at the University of Georgia (USA) where he became the assistant of the Professor and film-maker James Herbert. Since 1978 Gruber works as an independent filmmaker. He has taught at various schools and colleges, including a post as a lecturer in film and electronic media at the Konstanz University of Applied Sciences (1994-1997). Among his activities today, he is the director of the production company KINO.NET AG.
Known For
Making-of documentary that covers "Cobra Verde," Herzog's last film with Kinski before Kinski's death. This is the documentary that registers the behind the scenes moments of "Cobra Verde", the last project that united director Werner Herzog to actor Klaus Kinski. The notorious and infamous relation between the two filled Cinema theatres with masterpieces, but also filled pages of Cinema History with mutual declarations of both love and hate.
Location Africa
This 1987 documentary is the only window into an experimental open-air penal colony in the Peruvian Amazon, which no camera has ever entered and has been rarely written about.
Sepa: Our Lord of Miracles
The film is about a Swiss filmmaker (S.) who is working on a documentary film on the theme of loneliness in New York. It mixes documentary and fiction in an entertaining way, showing all the flourishing industry that is aimed at lonely people, the numerous organizations that offer their services for singles and those seeking partners. S. explores it all with journalist thoroughness. Initially distanced, but as time goes by he finds himself more and more involved personally. He cannot get a woman, he saw on the flight to New York, out of his mind. All that he knows is her name, Michéle, and that she studies music in Boston. His telephone quest does not bring anything and he decides to go to Boston. There he visits all the music schools and puts up posters in the streets. Finally Michéle gets in touch. S. falls in love. The film story meets finally his personal situation. Distance is no longer possible.
Fetish & Dreams
The Swiss photographer Daniel Leuenberger lives on the edge of society, working in Moldova with girls between 9 and 14 years old. He has caused much controversy with the photos of his models which he sells via the internet. The film raises questions of how images are used and their effects in a world increasingly dominated by the media. However, it also shows girls' lives in Moldova's neighbour Transnistria, which does not officially exist. Modelling is not just an important additional source of income for the girls, but more importantly provides a change from the dullness of everyday life.
Passion Despair
A short film on throw-away culture and TV