Sven Kirsten
Camera
Biography
Sven Kirsten was born in 1955 in the port town of Hamburg, Germany. He was supposedly conceived on a freighter of his grandfather's Hamburg-Chicago line between America and Germany (those were long trips). The sailor's bars of the Reeperbahn red light district and the curiosities of the Hamburg Anthropology Museum formed the fertile soil to inspire Sven to follow the call to other distant shores in 1980. After a brief stint at the San Francisco Art Institute, he continued his education as cinematographer at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. Here he fell in love with the aesthetic extremes of L.A. In parallel to lighting and shooting music videos and features with Tom Waits, Sergio Mendes or Robert De Niro, he began to pursue his hobby of urban archeology. Over the last ten years he has photographed and collected the remnants of the vanishing Tiki cult in America. He hopes that his Book of Tiki adequately represents the visual seductiveness of this unique, never-before-recognized facet of American pop culture. When not shooting cable TV movies in Europe, Sven lives with his 9 year old son, Diego, in his hilltop home overlooking the Silverlake reservoir in the center of Los Angeles.
Known For

Three middle-aged daddies visit California to have a marvelous time at the beach. When they learn that a nice apartment and an expensive cabriolet isn't enough for them to score with the chicks, they employ a student to help them. At first he's as disgusted of them and his job as his girlfriend, but soon they find out how to use the situation to everyone's benefit.
Hardbodies

A comedy about a screenwriter (Wuhl) whose old movie script is read by a producer (Landau) and the search for financial backers begins. But it seems that each money source (Aiello, DeNiro, Wallach) has his own mistress that he wants put into the film. Gradually, the screenwriter is forced to make changes to his script to accommodate these backers until he finally sees no semblance of his original ideas in the writing.
Mistress

After being implicated in a murder, a young woman flees New York City and moves to Los Angeles, where she rents a room from a writer. They begin an affair, but it seems she's been followed by a homicidal duplicate of herself.
Doppelganger

Lindsey and Geena spend some time together by the pool while their husbands play golf. After talking about their fantasies they begin to enact a few of them for each other. Soon they incorporate Lindsey's husband Joe into their intimate games. When straight-laced Brad finds out what his wife and friends have been doing he blows up, threatening their marriages and friendships.
Play Time

When framed for the murder of a sultry blonde, an underground cartoonist is drawn into a web of corruption, blackmail and deceit.
Slam Dance

Albert Oehlen steps behind the camera to present a portrait of himself, in life and at work, albeit substituted by actor and similarly brazen iconoclast Udo Kier, with musician Kim Gordon as his inner self, interviewer and judge.
Bad Painter

A group of people meet on board an ambulance aircraft. They are all looking for a mysterious young man for different reasons. A "psychological-poetic" film that explores why people are puzzles to one another in the form of a game.
Grottenolm

Mathematician Teresa just wanted to study during the College spring break. But her friends, who want her to live a little, drag her out to parties. The next thing she knows, she has been drugged, kidnapped, made a redhead, tattooed, and wearing leather?!? Her captors seem to be the most inept crooks ever. They seem to have a plan, if only she could figure out why it involves her.
Teresa's Tattoo

In a slightly future America, a woman goes to the big city to visit with her sister, who is dead in her apartment. In order to find out what happened to her sister, she gets a job working at a dance club, a lower notch in the strip joint circuit. Some of her colleagues begin showing up dead as she uncovers a sinister hierarchy in the strip club management that is harnessing the sexual activity for their own twisted ends.
Liquid Dreams

A grizzled, hard-of-hearing cowboy, Slim, and his two friends, Dusty and Pete, capture a mysterious, well-dressed Frenchman.
The Cowboy and the Frenchman

A psychological thriller about a married women who has an affair with a charming young man and gets involved in a series of murders not knowing if the killer is her lover or her husband or someone else.
Heart of Stone

From the affluent sidewalks of Rodeo Drive and the skies high above Beverly Hills. Can she really get her room mates to do what she wants? When they finally give in to temptation, they start to see a side of Cindy they never imagined.
Roommate Wanted

Bringing his unique sense of humor to this bizarre and original piece of moviemaking, Tom Waits takes the audience through a musical journey with his jazzy, quirky, bluesy tunes presented as you would never, ever, ever expect.
Tom Waits: Big Time

The last three vampires in the world - Edwin Wolkenstein, his father Vladimor and his brother Günni - are driven out of Transylvania by the vampire hunter Ignaz van Hellbring. Edwin, of all people, knows where they can find shelter: with Edwin's pen pal Fella. Once there, Edwin realizes that Fella has lied to him. She is not the blonde musical beauty, but a nerd girl. But Edwin doesn't go down particularly well with his new classmates either...
Biss zur großen Pause - Das Highschool Vampir Grusical

A renowned journalist becomes a suspect in a series of murders after he becomes intimately involved with a mysterious woman. In an attempt to clear his name, he tries to find a connection between his lover and the increasing number of dead bodies.
No Strings Attached

Angela works at an advertising agency and is engaged to her boss, Stefan. Their wedding is just around the corner. Unexpectedly, she meets the artist Peter, who introduces her to a whole new world. His life as an artist is full of adventure, romance, and fascinating stories. Angela begins an affair with him, but without calling off the wedding. Her double life soon leads to trouble.
7 Tage bis zum Glück

Nina and friends are stalked by a masked killer while vacationing on an island.
Dead Island: School's Out 2

Rita is a sexy call girl in a red Corvette convertible who just met Ray. Ray is an ex-con just released after serving 14 years for a killing he claims he was framed for. When these two get together, sparks fly and temperatures rise. But Ray has a reason not to trust Rita - $1 million has been stashed somewhere in Las Vegas and Ray knows everyone wants it almost as much as they want him dead. When everyone has a hidden agenda, who do you trust?
Beyond Desire

A serial killer kills redheaded women and drapes them like Venus from Sandro Botticellis artwork.
Der Venusmörder

A visual record of London punk life in the late '70s, filled with never-before-seen live concert footage and commentary from the Clash, the Jam, X-Ray Spex and the Electric Chairs.