Christian Bauer

Christian Bauer was born in 1947 in Wartaweil, Germany. He graduated in German and English Literature, American Affairs and History. He taught at college and the University of Munich. He started a second career and wrote film reviews for major German newspapers. Independent filmmaker and producer since 1980, he has to this date directed more than fifty documentaries. In 1993, after several consecutive nominations, Christian Bauer was awarded the German equivalent of an Emmy, the Adolf Grimme Prize for his film on the last days of an American army garrison in Bavaria.

With a substantial body of work already to his credit, Christian Bauer founded TANGRAM, his Munich based production company in 1989. Its launch coincided with a time of rapid change in German Television, and since then the company has grown, producing internationally acclaimed documentaries on a broad range of subjects. Most recently, these have included films on the Ice Age and the Neanderthal Man, Julia Butterfly Hill, the Police Force in Germany and the first German docu-soap "The True Kir Royal". Currently in production is a three part program for ZDF/ZDF Enterprises: 2001 The Odyssee of Man. Bauer himself is working on his feature length documentary "Allen Doesn't Live Here Anymore" about his friend and filmmaker Allen Ross from Chicago, who disappeared in November of 1995. Due to Bauer's efforts Allen's body was found under a house in Cheyenne,Wyoming in July 2000. The film will try to unravel the mystery of Allen's disappearance and his murder. For more details see: www.tangramfilm.de.

You may know Tangram as an ancient Chinese puzzle comprising seven geometrical pieces. Its fascination lies not in making the shapes fit together, but rather the creation of new patterns and designs, the scope of which is limited only by the imagination.

Tangram Productions has a similar philosophy: avoid the conventional by re-arranging the basic elements of light, sound, people, location, narrative, time and space in a way which sheds new light on the subject and serves the story best. After one hundred years of the moving image we do not seek to re-invent film-making. We do strive to find new form, perspective and insight into our subjects, knowing that true creativity always emerges from simplicity.