Robert von Dassanowsky

Robert von Dassanowsky (b. January 28 1960, New York City) is an Austrian-American academic, writer, film and cultural historian, and producer. He is usually known as Robert Dassanowsky.

Education/Academia

A student of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and a graduate of UCLA, where he has also served as Visiting Professor of German, Dassanowsky is a widely published academican, award-winning playwright and has written for television.

Since 1993, he has been Professor of German and Film Studies at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and has become particularly known for his influential scholarly work on author Alexander Lernet-Holenia, German filmmaker and photographer Leni Riefenstahl, and on Austrian and Central European film.

Dassanowsky served as founding president of the Colorado chapter of PEN and is a founding Vice President of the Austrian American Film Association (AAFA). Additionally, he is the Contributing Editor of the "Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America", a Contributing Advisor to the "International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers", contributor to "The Greenwood Encyclopedia of World Popular Cultures", and among other books, author of "Austrian Cinema: A History" (2005), the first English language survey of this national cinema. This is followed by a collection of essays on "New Austrian Film" edited with Oliver C. Speck (2008). He serves on the editorial boards of literary publications in the U.S., Canada and Austria. Dassanowsky's "Telegrams from the Metropole: Selected Poems 1980-1998" received a Pushcart Prize nomination in 2000.

Producer

The son of Austrian-American pioneering film studio founder and musician, Elfi von Dassanowsky, he is also active as an independent producer. His recent projects include the documentary "The Archduke and Herbert Hinkel" (2008), the feature film "Wilson Chance" (2005), the animated short "The Nightmare Stumbles Past" (2003), the dramatic short "Believe" (2003), and the award-winning"Semmelweis" (2001).

Affiliations/Awards

A member of Mensa (U.S.A.), he was named the Carnegie Foundation/CASE U.S. Professor of the Year for Colorado in 2004, and was decorated by the Austrian president in 2005. He was elected to the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2001 and as Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2007.

Dassanowsky announced the establishment of the Elfi von Dassanowsky Foundation in memory of his mother in November 2007. The Foundation will deal with cinema and emerging female filmmakers.

External links

* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004184/ Internet Movie Database Filmography]
* [http://www.uccs.edu/~ur/media/pressreleases/view_article.php?article_id=173 Carnegie Foundation/CASE U.S. Professor of the Year]
* [http://www.uccs.edu/~webdept/CMS/getnewscontent.php?id=207 University of Colorado at Colorado Springs]
* [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,338663-2,00.html Time Magazine article]
* [http://www.uccs.edu/~rvondass/aafa/default.html Austrian American Film Association]
* [http://www.poetrysalzburg.com/dassanowsky.htm Poetry Salzburg biography]
* [http://www.experimentalcinema.com/ T.I.E. The International Experimental Film Exposition]
* [http://www.lernet-holenia.com International Alexander Lernet-Holenia Society]
* [http://www.ots.at/presseaussendung.php?schluessel=OTS_20071126_OTS0030&ch=kultur APA Press Release, Vienna, November 26, 2007]