Stefan Haupt – screenplay and direction
1961 Born in Zurich
1978-79 A-levels, piano, oboe and singing lessons, choir master
1985-88 Theatre Academy Zurich (graduated as theatre pedagogue)
since 1989 freelance film director married, three children, lives in Zurich
The director’s thoughts on the film
60 years have passed since that day in June.
A child is robbed of its parents.
The monstrosity of war.
How does one live with such a past?
Accept it? Resist it? Bring a charge?
Over 60 years have passed since the events portrayed in the film. But how present are they still in survivors today?
What do we know about the effects of such massacres? What is the “half-life” of such suffering? How long is the aftershock of such deeds, regardless where they are committed? How does one live with such injuries and with the loss of integrity and innocence?
I am touched about how far the roots of Argyris Sfountouris’s life story reach; how fast disaster can strike in small, everyday lives; how fast threads are woven, from a small Greek village to Switzerland, then to the whole of Europe and overseas; how much a life story is linked and interwoven with others: individuals and society, home country and exile, war and peace, grief and guilt, background, present and future.
Regardless of whether there are dozens of victims in a suicide attack, thousands of victims in a bomb attack or 64 million people killed in World War II: the number of victims takes on an incomprehensible and strangely fictional character, and the fates of humans become virtual. They do not reach us. Today’s media inundation touches something within that we can hardly name and that leaves us at a loss.
It is difficult and strange to devote oneself to victims. As if some strange basic notion had taken root deep inside, telling us that we had better avoid them. Victim-ness touches us profoundly, not only as far as the pain of loss and the deprivation of integrity and basic security are concerned. As a victim, you were on the wrong side and in the wrong spot at the wrong time. There is a feeling of being ridiculous and a feeling of shame at not having overcome it.
We are usually interested in the offenders. How could they do such a thing? What were the prerequisites and the conditions? And there is the silent question lurking within whether we ourselves would be capable of such deeds. Looking for explanations, we find relativisations.
There also seems to be a kind of emotional barrier preventing us from delving into our own past critically. The past is linked to a community. This sense of belonging cannot be put at risk. The willingness for self-criticism could mean that you hurl yourself out of this community, that you are ostracised or that you are alone and defenceless.
A SONG FOR ARGYRIS selects one fate among countless fates. It insists on making an example of it. As soon as a fate is given a name, a face and a story, it becomes comprehensible.
This film bows to the people who experienced such traumas in their earliest childhood, people who have survived and who are willing to live, people who neither cut themselves off nor withdraw. It is this search and this longing that underpins the film.
Filmografie
2006 A Song for Argyris, documentary, 105 min., screenplay, director and producer
nominated for the 2007 Swiss Film Award
Winner of the Public Award, Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival 2007
Kyiv Contact Documentary Film Festival 2007
International Documentary Film Festival Munich 2007
International Film Festival Innsbruck 2007
Winner of the Public Award, Los Angeles Greek Film Festival 2007
Locarno Int. Film Festival 2007
Sarajevo Film Festival 2007
2006 Fritz & Love, screenplay for a cinema feature, under revision Direction and co-production planned for 2007
2004 Downtown Switzerland, documentary, 94 min., concept, co-author, co-director and co-producer, with Christian Davi, Kaspar Kasics, Fredi M. Murer, Molodist International Film Festival Kyiv, 2005
2003 Moritz, TV feature, 87 min., co-author, director, co-producer
Baden-Baden, Miami, and others
2002 2002 Elisabeth Kübler-Ross – Facing Death, documentary, 98 min., screenplay, director and producer
Nominated for the 2004 Swiss Film Award
“Best Documentary” FDI quality Award Molodist International Film Festival Kyiv, 2003
Dokfilmfest Munich, Doc Aviv MAX Film Festival Hong Kong, 2004, and others
2001 Utopia Blues, feature, Swiss German dialect, 97 min., screenplay, director, co-producer
Swiss Film Award 2002 (Best Feature, Best Actor)
Zurich film award, FDI study grant Max Ophüls Award 2002 (Best Screenplay)
Major award at Molodist International Film Festival Kyiv, 2002 Pusan, San Francisco, Schwerin, and others
2000 Increschantüm (Homesickness), documentary, 68 min. Raeto-Romance, screenplay, director and producer
1998 I'm just a simple person, documentary, 49 min., screenplay, director and producer
FDI study grant