Barbet Schroeder

Born in Tehran, Iran to a Swiss geologist father and a German-born, non-practicing physician mother, Barbet Schroeder spent his formative years traveling with his family, spending a key part of his childhood in Colombia. When his parents divorced when he was 11, he settled in France and gradually became enamored of motion pictures. Before age 30, he had had several careers, including film critic (for Cahiers du Cinema), photojournalist, and jazz impresario. In 1962, he and Eric Rohmer formed Les Films du Losange, a production company that oversaw the Rohmer's films, beginning with the as-yet-unreleased short, "La Boulangere de Monceau" (1962), which Schroeder narrated. After producing, appearing in and assisting with several other New Wave films (i.e., Godard's "Les Carabiniers" 1962) Schroeder directed his first feature, "More" (1969), a powerful depiction of heroin addiction. After "La Vallee/The Valley" (1972), in which a Frenchwoman goes native in New Guinea, the filmmaker earned acclaim for his feature-length documentaries, notably "General Idi Amin Dada" (1974), a portrait of the former Ugandan despot, and "Koko, the Talking Gorilla" (1977).