Born in 1912 into a Viennese publisher’s family of social democratic conviction, Wolfgang Suschitzky was an eyewitness to the 20th and 21st centuries, with a career spanning well over 70 years. Aside from his rich body of work as a stills photographer, he collaborated on some 200 documentary and fiction films as cinematographer, and is probably best known for his work on Get Carter. Wolf discovered his love for photography very early on and always saw it as a profession of freedom that could be followed in any country, irrespective of its spoken language. In 1934, faced with the rise of Austro-Fascism and consequently Nazism, Wolf emigrated first to Amsterdam, and the following year to London where he lived until his death in 2016 at the age of 104.
During the early years of WW2, he was deemed an enemy alien, resulting in a temporary working-ban. Thankfully, Paul Rotha hired him as a cameraman for his documentaries, and they continued to work together for many years. While the majority of Wolf’s work consists of factual films, his sharp eye for the real world would also inform his stylistic approach in fiction such as The Small World of Sammy Lee.
This mini-season, a collaboration between the Austrian Cultural Forum London and The Garden Cinema, strives to introduce you to the fascinating life and work of this humanist artist who kept his optimistic curiosity and generosity throughout his long life. Wolf always considered himself a lucky man.
Brigitte Mayr and Michael Omasta of Vienna based publishers Synema, who have researched and written extensively on Wolf Suschitzky and worked on several books with him, will introduce each screening in the programme.
