Fred Kelemen

Fred Efrem Kelemen (b. 1964 in West Berlin, Germany) is a film director and cinematographer

The late Susan Sontag helped to promote Kelemen's work in the mid-1990s, comparing it to the likes of Sokurov, Béla Tarr and Sharunas Bartas.

Kelemen was the son of Hungarian and German parents. He studied painting, music, philosophy, science of religions and theater before attending the German Film & TV Academy in Berlin from 1989 to 1994. His debut film "Fate" in 1994 received the German National Film Award. He has also directed "Frost" (1997), "Nightfall" (1999) and "Fallen" (2005), each drawing international attention and numerous awards. In 2008, he was at work on a screenplay titled "Fever".

Kelemen has served as cinematographer for film directors including Béla Tarr ("Journey to the Plain", 1995, "The Man from London", 2007), Rudolf Thome ("The Visible and the Invisible", 2006) and Gariné Torossian ("Stone, Time, Touch", 2005).

Since 2000 he has also directed several plays, including an adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s "Fahrenheit 451" at the Schauspielhaus in Hanover, and Eugene O'Neill's "Desire Under The Elms" in Berlin. In addition, Kelemen has worked as a teacher at film and media institutes in Europe and Latin America.

With his production company Kino Kombat Filmmanufactur, Kelemen produced his film "Krisana"/"Fallen" (co-producer: Laima Freimane/Screen Vision, Latvia, 2005) and he produced or co-produced the films "Moskatchka" by Annett Schütze (co-producer: Laima Freimane/Screen Vision, Latvia, 2005) and "Fragment" by Gyula Maár (co-producer: Béla Tarr/TTFilmmühely, Hungary, 2007).

Kelemen's films have occasionally met with lukewarm reviews, and indeed, moviegoers seeking Hollywood-style entertainment are likely to be disappointed.

At screenings and in interviews, Kelemen is occasionally asked about the possibility of hope and redemption in light of the unrelenting bleakness and apparent hopelessness portrayed by his films. Kelemen has answered, "To live without hope, to believe in life and its possibilities without hope or desperation, to move beyond these illusions and enter the space of reality where we can see with an unspoilt look what life is really like, to think the unthinkable without limiting ourselves, to act authentically, not to be afraid of Utopia even if there is no promise of fulfillment, to extend our mental and emotional boundaries, to love without expectations and reward, would be an act of human dignity and beauty. – Even though it is terribly difficult because of its deep simplicity." [http://www.fredkelemen.com/html/interviews/interviews.html]

References

* [http://www.fredkelemen.com/html/bio/bio_filmographie_eng.html Fred Kelemen.com]
* [http://www.kviff.com/en/film-archive-detail/20050975-fallen/ Karlovy Vary International Film Festival]
* [http://partners.nytimes.com/books/00/03/12/specials/sontag-cinema.html?scp=4&sq=fred%20kelemen&st=cse Susan Sontag essay "The Decay of Cinema," NY Times]