Axel Corti

Multi-award-winning director of French and Austrian theater, TV and radio, who began making films (both for TV and theatrical release) in the early 1960s. Corti gained well-deserved international recognition for his black-and-white "Where To and Back" trilogy, based on the autobiographical screenplays by Georg Stefan Troller: "God Does Not Believe in Us Anymore," "Santa Fe" (both 1985), "Welcome in Vienna" (1986). Combining astute social commentary, documentary-like photography and terse, seamless narratives, the films cover the years just before, during and immediately after WWII, painting a gripping portrait of a cross-section of Viennese--from Nazis to non-Jewish, Nazi-resisters--focused through the experiences of several young, Jewish protagonists.