Swiss documentary GENESIS 2.0 awarded at the Sundance Film Festival
GENESIS 2.0, the documentary by Swiss filmmaker Christian Frei was awarded with the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival. The Swiss cameraman Peter Intergand and the russian filmmaker Maxim Arbugaev are responsible for the cinematography, Arbugaev also co-directed the film. This marks the third time Frei presented a documentary film at the most important film festival in the USA and one of the leading international film festivals. His films THE GIANT BUDDHAS (2005) and SPACE TOURISTS (2009) also screened in competition at the Sundance Film Festival, the latter of which was honoured with the World Cinema Directing Award 2010.
28.01.2018
Christian Frei’s GENESIS 2.0, which he co-directed with the young Russian filmmaker Maxim Arbugaev, celebrated its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January. The film observes the harsh and dangerous life of mammoth hunters on the remote New Siberian Islands in the far north of Siberia and portrays high-tech clone researchers who want to bring the extinct woolly mammoth back to life à la “Jurassic-Park”. Resurrecting the woolly mammoth is a first manifestation of the next great technological revolution: the human being as creator, Genesis two point zero.
Arbugaev captured the hard work of the mammoth hunters for the first time in his short film THE HUNTERS (2014), which screened in the short film competition at Visions du Réel in Nyon.
Documentary films of international standing
Christian Frei ranks among the most internationally successful Swiss filmmakers. His documentary films WAR PHOTOGRAPHER (2001), THE GIANT BUDDHAS (2005) and SPACE TOURISTS (2009) have won numerous awards across the globe. With WAR PHOTOGRAPHER, Frei was hitherto the only Swiss director nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best Documentary Feature.
Swiss cinematographer Peter Indergand has also received a nomination at the Emmy Awards for his work in WAR PHOTOGRAPHER in the category of Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Cinematography. Frei collaborated with Indergand for SPACE TOURISTS, THE GIANT BUDDHAS and now for GENESIS 2.0. as well. Christian Frei is the first Swiss filmmaker to screen a third film in the World Cinema Documentary Competition section at the Sundance Film Festival.
SWISS FILMS, January 28, 2018