Profile and Events

Jan Schütte made one of the best films of the 1990s. Bye, Bye America toured festivals and the arthouse scene in 1993/94 and received many awards. It exceeded the success of Dragon Chow for which Jan Schuette became known internationally when he was just 30 years old.

Two things define the artistic and professional biography of Jan Schuette and set him apart from everyone else: First, his friendship and close collaboration with screenwriters and authors. Thomas Strittmatter, a gifted screen and play writer who died too young, co-authored all of Jan Schuette’s early scripts.

Second, his close affinity to America. After his first trip to New England, he knew he wanted to come back here often. New England with its 260.000 students is known as the Academic Center of the World. Jan Schuette has visited and lived here many times: in 2000 and 2008 he was Visiting Professor at Dartmouth College, and in 2005/6 and 2009/10 he taught at Harvard’s Department of Visual and Environmental Studies.

In 2002, Jan was part of the International Jury at the Cannes Film Festival, together with Martin Scorsese, Abbas Kiarostami, Tilda Swinton and Sharon Stone. He then joined the newly founded Franco-German Atelier Ludwigsburg Paris, a one-year post-graduate training program for young European producers and distributors, organised and run jointly by the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg and the film school La fémis in Paris. The student’s graduation project is an eight and a half minute short, some of their work has been shown at the film festivals in Venice and Berlin.

In September 2010, Jan Schuette will become the new director of Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB), one of Germany’s leading and oldest film schools (founded by Willi Brandt). Following in the footsteps of Hartmut Bitomsky and Reinhard Hauff, he will pass on his New England experience to his German students.

In December 2010, Jan Schuette will return to Boston to present a program of film screenings and panel discussions titled Beyond the Border, organized by the Goethe-Institut Boston and the Cultural Services of the French Consulate. Together with graduates and current students of the Atelier Ludwigsburg Paris, he will point out the intercultural aspects of filmmaking and how everyone involved benefits.

After my first tour as Visiting Professor at Harvard during the spring semester 2006, we moved again to Cambridge in August 2009. Just as before, I am Visiting Professor at Harvard’s Arts Department – for reasons unknown today called "Department of Visual and Environmental Studies". There they teach sculpture, painting, photography, animation – and film direction.

My colleagues, Alfred Guzetti, Ross McElwee and Robb Moss specialize in experimental film and documentaries. I am the only professor teaching feature film direction to a group of very dedicated Undergraduates, mostly Juniors, who study the basics of how to direct a feature film. During the course of the year, they shoot a couple of shorts on 16mm. Their graduation films are showcased at ceremonial screening at the Harvard Film Archive. At the same time, I have supervised ten "Thesis Films" – the final projects of our Seniors.

The quality of the films is very impressive, particularly this year when one of our students, Andrew Wesman, made it into the Student Competition at the Cannes Film Festival with his work "Shelley". Because I had so many "Thesis"- students this year, I was invited to join the faculty and students for Commencement Day: 32.000 students and parents in Harvard Yard, on a bright and sunny May morning, everyone in Cap and Gown, that was a true highlight of my stay at Harvard, both touching and impressive. It’s a little strange for Germans, but a wonderful tradition to celebrate this important achievement in your life.

At the end of my first residence at Harvard in 2006, I invited six of my students along on the shoot of my feature LOVE COMES LATELY which we filmed in New Hampshire, New York and Florida. That was mutually beneficial and exciting. Early this year I finished a film for German TV, titled Bloch: Verfolgt! and then concentrated on academics. As former director of the Franco – German Film Academy, ATELIER LUDIWIGSBURG PARIS, I am organizing, together with the Goethe-Institut Boston, a tour of our student’s work through the US and Canada later this year.

In August, my family and I are leaving Cambridge to move to Berlin, where I will start my new position as director of the Berlin Film School, DFFB, on September 1st.