Michael Pilz
(Austria)

Michael Pilz was born in 1943 in Gmünd, Lower Austria, close to where the „Iron Curtain“ used to separate Austria and Czechoslovakia. Years of 1952-55 he spent as choirboy in Monastery boarding school in Zwettl. In 1954 he started to take pictures and work with 8 mm film. In 1956 he moved to Vienna and became influenced by work of Jackson Pollock, Karl Prantl, Robert Frank, Jean-Luc Godard, Michelangelo Antonioni, Robert Bresson, etc.
Later on he developed a growing interest in the technical, material, and mental aspects of cinematography as well as the various ways of expressing the subconscious in film which lead in his experimental period of the sixties. He had, above all, experimented with different cameras and the film material itself (all forms of direct treatment such as painting, scratching), handheld and out-of-control-moving cameras, and absurd, that is to say anarchist staging. He took various approaches to examine pure („basic“) cinematic phenomena. Unfortunately most of that experimental material has been lost.
During the seventies Pilz worked as author and director in different genres for various departments of ORF, Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (cultural programs, entertainment, documentaries, including movie Franz Grimus, 1977).
Since 1983, Pilz has engaged in delivering occasional lectures and holding workshops on aesthetics and experimental filmmaking, mainly abroad.
In 1988/1990 he made Feldberg - experimental fiction feature film without dialogs.
During last two decades Pilz has been concentrating mostly on producing films shot on his extensive travels.

Films
Filmography
Invocation of Bliss
2009
Yemen Travelogue – Days at Shibam and Seiyun
2008
Haiku happens
2007
Windows, dogs and horses
2005
Siberian Diary – Days At Apanas
2003
Indian Diary – Days At Sree Sankara
2000
Pieces Of Dreams
1999
Was übersetzt ist noch nicht angekommen/ Facts For Fiction
1996
Prisyadim na dorozhku/ Let‘s Sit Down Before We Leave
1995
All the Vermeers in Prague
1994
State Of Grace
1991/93
Two Horse Town
1991
Feldberg
1990
80cm 5t/ Eighty Centimeters Five Tons
1989
Staatz Ende
1989
Der Lauf des Wassers
1988
Zen im Steinbruch
1987
Parco delle Rimembranze/ Park of Remembrance
1987
Paticca-samuppada
1986
Noah Delta II
1985
Wels
1984
Himmel und Erde/ Heaven and Earth
1982
Sandvic Image
1979
Landkino/ Country Movie Houses
1978
Schule und Autorität/ School and Authority
1978
How the ladies pay
1977
Franz Grimus
1977
Die Generalin
1977
Langsamer Sommer - together with John Cook
1976
Das Lied vom Hofer
1975
Zero
1975
Jahresrückblick
1975
L’imagination des yeux
1973
Wladimir Nixon
1972
Wienerinnen
1971
Easy Feeling
1971
Coop Himmelblau - together with Coop Himmelblau
1970
Underground - together with Gert Winkler
1969
Lui - together with Gert Winkler, Lui Dimanche
1969
Jascha
1969
Für Peter Noever und Achille Castiglioni
1969
Maskerade
1969
Big Shot - together with Gert Winkler
1968
Hausrucker–Co Ballon für zwei
1967
Unter Freunden
1966
Plakatkleber
1965

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