Luc Schaedler

Luc Schaedler (b. 1963 in Zurich) is a Swiss documentary filmmaker and anthropologist. He studied anthropology, film history and social history at the University of Zurich, completing his Ph.D. in visual anthropology in 2005. His first documentary, "Made in Hong Kong" (1997), served as his master's thesis; his second, "Angry Monk – Reflections on Tibet" (2005), as his doctoral dissertation.

In 2001, Schaedler founded the production company go between films in Zurich. His long-term travels and research in Asia are the starting point and driving force of his work as a filmmaker and producer. From them, four feature-length documentaries have emerged to date: "Made in Hong Kong" (1997), "Angry Monk – Reflections on Tibet" (2005), "Watermarks – Three Letters from China" (2013), and "A Long Way Home" (2018). The films have screened at major international festivals, including Sundance (Nomination Grand Jury Award), San Francisco IFF (Nomination Golden Gate Award), Busan IFF, Locarno IFF (Semaine de la critique), DOK Leipzig, Vancouver IFF, Montreal – Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, and DOK.fest Munich.

The defining approach that continues to shape Schaedler's work is visual anthropology: the production of ethnographic images and the analysis of visual representations — and with them, the question of how images relate to social and cultural realities. This approach sharpens the eye for situations in which people present themselves, in which power dynamics become visible, and in which cultural practices, language and everyday life are not explained but observed and made tangible.