Jörg Widmer

Jörg Widmer

Profile

Jörg Widmer

Movies

Woodland
Director of Photography
Drawing inspiration from Wald, a 2015 novel by the bestselling author Doris Knecht, as well as her own traumatic experience of witnessing the 2020 Vienna attack, writer-director Elisabeth Scharang retreats to the woods in this atmospheric and soul-stirring film.
Carmen
Director of Photography
A young and fiercely independent woman, Carmen, is forced to flee her home in the Mexican desert following the brutal murder of her mother. She survives an illegal border crossing into the US, only to be confronted by a lawless volunteer border guard. When the border guard and his patrol partner, Aidan—a Marine with PTSD—become embroiled in a deadly standoff, Carmen and Aidan are forced to escape together. They make their way north toward Los Angeles in search of Carmen’s mother’s best friend, the mercurial Masilda and owner of La Sombra nightclub - a sanctuary of music and dance. Carmen and Aidan find both solace and their unwavering love for each other in the safety of Masilda’s magical refuge, but time is running out as the police hunt closes in.
The Albanian Virgin
Cinematography
Albania, 1958. Luana, the daughter of a well respected man in the village, makes friends with Agim, who moved here after his family were banned from the city by the communists. Years later, their childhood friendship turns into teenage love, but without prospects. Luana’s father promised her in marriage to someone else when she was a child. When her father finds out about Luana and Agim’s love, he is furious and immediately arranges for his daughter to be married to the man he chose for her. Luana faces a dilemma: to flee with her lover to Germany, risking being caught by the communists and probably killed, or stay loyal to her family. A poignant love story set in dark times shaped by pressure from old traditions. A deeply human tale about freedom, which is the greatest good even if the price is loneliness.
Tunnel to Freedom
Camera Operator
13 August 1961: the GDR closes the sector borders in Berlin. The city is divided overnight. Escape to the West becomes more dangerous every day. But on September 14, 1962, exactly one year, one month and one day after the Wall was built, a group of 29 people from the GDR managed to escape spectacularly through a 135-meter tunnel to the West. For more than 4 months, students from West Berlin, including 2 Italians, dug this tunnel. When the tunnel builders ran out of money after only a few meters of digging, they came up with the idea of marketing the escape tunnel. They sell the film rights to the story exclusively to NBC, an American television station.
The Book of Vision
Director of Photography
Eva, a mysterious doctor, searches for an answer to her urgent dilemma as she unravels Dr. Anmuth's Book of Vision. Henry gets involved in her life and is forced to confront his own nature, as Eva faces the biggest decision of her life.
Tödliche Geheimnisse - Das Versprechen
Camera Operator
A Hidden Life
Director of Photography
Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter faces the threat of execution for refusing to fight for the Nazis during World War II.
The Girl in the Spider's Web
Camera Operator
After being enlisted to recover a dangerous computer program, hacker Lisbeth Salander and journalist Mikael Blomkvist find themselves caught in a web of spies, cybercriminals and corrupt government officials.
Herzjagen
Camera Supervisor
The Invisibles
Cinematography
Four young Jews survive the Third Reich in the middle of Berlin by living so recklessly that they become "invisible."
Atomic Blonde
Camera Operator
An undercover MI6 agent is sent to Berlin during the Cold War to investigate the murder of a fellow agent and recover a missing list of double agents.
Captain America: Civil War
Camera Operator
Following the events of Age of Ultron, the collective governments of the world pass an act designed to regulate all superhuman activity. This polarizes opinion amongst the Avengers, causing two factions to side with Iron Man or Captain America, which causes an epic battle between former allies.
Bach in Brazil
Cinematography
Inspired by true events, this is a story about what happens when two outsiders from opposite corners of the world are thrown together: Brazil and Germany. Marten Brueckling, a retired music teacher from Germany, has inherited an original sheet of music from Bachs son. Marten has to collect the sheet in person in the beautiful Baroque city of Ouro Preto in the heart of Brazil. But Brazil is not for beginners: Funny circumstances drives hm to teach music to the kids of a juvenile detention center. Bachs music and Brazilian instruments mix perfectly. One of the kids is Fernando, a lovable, abandoned boy, who lived on the streets. But Marten discovers that they have more in common as he thought.
Kommissarin Louise Boni – Jäger in der Nacht
Camera Department Manager
Back on duty after alcohol withdrawal, Commissioner Bonì is investigating the case of a missing student. Eddie, a teenager, found a badly abused young woman in a barn. Now he's dead ...
Alone in Berlin
Steadicam Operator
Berlin in June of 1940. While Nazi propaganda celebrates the regime’s victory over France, a kitchen-cum-living room in Prenzlauer Berg is filled with grief. Anna and Otto Quangel’s son has been killed at the front. This working class couple had long believed in the ‘Führer’ and followed him willingly, but now they realise that his promises are nothing but lies and deceit. They begin writing postcards as a form of resistance and in a bid to raise awareness: Stop the war machine! Kill Hitler! Putting their lives at risk, they distribute these cards in the entrances of tenement buildings and in stairwells. But the SS and the Gestapo are soon onto them, and even their neighbours pose a threat.
Jack
Director of Photography
Delving deep into the soul of one of Austria’s most infamous real-life convicts, Jack is a fascinating, unprejudiced look at the path to redemption and the obstacles that bar the way.
Zum Teufel mit der Wahrheit!
Cinematography
Knight of Cups
Camera Operator
Rick is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles. While successful in his career, his life feels empty. Haunted and confused, he finds temporary solace in the decadent Hollywood excess that defines his existence. Women provide a distraction to his daily pain, and every encounter brings him closer to finding his place in the world.
Magic in the Moonlight
Steadicam Operator
Set in the 1920s French Riviera, a master magician is commissioned to try and expose a psychic as a fraud.
Magic in the Moonlight
Camera Operator
Set in the 1920s French Riviera, a master magician is commissioned to try and expose a psychic as a fraud.
Die Fischerin
Director of Photography
The Spy
Director of Photography
Vera von Schalburg is a German prostitute working in Nazi Germany. In 1938, one year before the outbreak of World War II, Schalburg is arrested by the Berlin police. She is offered to work as a spy for the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service, instead of facing jail time. Completely unaware of the secret war preparations being conducted by her government, and unwilling to leave her teenage son who later joins the Hitler Youth, she accepts the offer.
Amour
Camera Operator
Georges and Anne are in their eighties. They are cultivated, retired music teachers. Their daughter, who is also a musician, lives abroad with her family. One day, Anne has a stroke, and the couple's bond of love is severely tested.
The Tree of Life
Camera Operator
The impressionistic story of a Texas family in the 1950s. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father. Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith.
Pina
Director of Photography
Pina is a feature-length dance film in 3D with the ensemble of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, featuring the unique and inspiring art of the great German choreographer, who died in the summer of 2009.
Schicksalsjahre
Director of Photography
Erzählt wird die authentische Lebensgeschichte der Ursula Heye, Mutter von Uwe-Karsten Heye. Der Bogen reicht vom "Wegschauen" beim Nazi-Terror gegen die Juden Ende der 1930er Jahre über die Trennung und die erzwungene Scheidung von ihrem Mann Wolfgang, von dessen Desertion und Verschwinden bis hin zum - glücklosen - Wiedersehen in den 1950er Jahren.
The Devil's Kickers
Director of Photography
After his parents separate and he loses his place on the soccer team, Moritz must put together a new team against incredible odds.
Die Geschichte vom Brandner Kaspar
Cinematography
70-year old Brandner Kaspar lives with his granddaughter Nannerl in the mountains at the Schliersee. As he is visited by the Death and wants to take him, Brandner Kaspar tricks him and gets another 20 years of life.
The Ruins
Steadicam Operator
Americans Amy, Stacy, Jeff and Eric look for fun during a sunny holiday in Mexico, but they get much more than that after visiting an archaeological dig in the jungle.
M/S Gustloff
Director of Photography
Joseph Vilsmaier Two-part TV movie focuses on the tragic events surrounding the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German passenger ship, at the end of World War II. On 30 January 1945, Captain Hellmuth Kehding was in charge of the ship, evacuating wounded soldiers and civilians trapped by the Red Army. Soon after leaving the harbor of Danzig, it was hit by three torpedoes from the Soviet submarine and sank in less than an hour.
V for Vendetta
Additional Camera
In a world in which Great Britain has become a fascist state, a masked vigilante known only as “V” conducts guerrilla warfare against the oppressive British government. When V rescues a young woman from the secret police, he finds in her an ally with whom he can continue his fight to free the people of Britain.
Good Bye, Lenin!
Steadicam Operator
Alex Kerner's mother was in a coma while the Berlin wall fell. When she wakes up he must try to keep her from learning what happened (as she was an avid communist supporter) to avoid shocking her which could lead to another heart attack.
Resident Evil
Steadicam Operator
When a virus leaks from a top-secret facility, turning all resident researchers into ravenous zombies and their lab animals into mutated hounds from hell, the government sends in an elite military task force to contain the outbreak. Alice and Rain are charged with leading the mission. But they only have three hours before the pathogen becomes airborne and infects the world.
Amélie
Steadicam Operator
At a tiny Parisian café, the adorable yet painfully shy Amélie accidentally discovers a gift for helping others. Soon Amelie is spending her days as a matchmaker, guardian angel, and all-around do-gooder. But when she bumps into a handsome stranger, will she find the courage to become the star of her very own love story?
Alphamann: Amok
Director of Photography
Sunshine
Steadicam Operator
The story of a Jewish family living in Hungary—through three generations—rising from humble beginnings to positions of wealth and power in the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire. The patriarch becomes a prominent judge but is torn when his government sanctions anti-Jewish persecutions. His son converts to Christianity to advance his career as a champion fencer and Olympic hero, but is caught up in the Holocaust. Finally, the grandson, after surviving war, revolution, loss and betrayal, realizes that his ultimate allegiance must be to himself and his heritage.
Nightfall
Steadicam Operator
A largely plotless, fado-scored journey through the gloomy cobblestone streets, zombie bars, and fetid basements of a sordid harbor town populated by German-speaking sots and Portuguese guest workers. An unhappy young couple, Leni and Anton, quarrel and split separately into the rat’s ass of the evening. Everyone is looking for love, but no one finds any—although Leni does pick up a trick.
Beckmann und Markowski: Gehetzt
Cinematography
Buena Vista Social Club
Steadicam Operator
In this fascinating Oscar-nominated documentary, American guitarist Ry Cooder brings together a group of legendary Cuban folk musicians (some in their 90s) to record a Grammy-winning CD in their native city of Havana. The result is a spectacular compilation of concert footage from the group's gigs in Amsterdam and New York City's famed Carnegie Hall, with director Wim Wenders capturing not only the music -- but also the musicians' life stories.
Buena Vista Social Club
Director of Photography
In this fascinating Oscar-nominated documentary, American guitarist Ry Cooder brings together a group of legendary Cuban folk musicians (some in their 90s) to record a Grammy-winning CD in their native city of Havana. The result is a spectacular compilation of concert footage from the group's gigs in Amsterdam and New York City's famed Carnegie Hall, with director Wim Wenders capturing not only the music -- but also the musicians' life stories.
Winterkind
Cinematography
An American Werewolf in Paris
Camera Operator
An American man unwittingly gets involved with werewolves who have developed a serum allowing them to transform at will.
An American Werewolf in Paris
Steadicam Operator
An American man unwittingly gets involved with werewolves who have developed a serum allowing them to transform at will.
Liebe, Leben, Tod
Cinematography
Paul has a foot fetish. He makes random phone calls asking women to describe their shoes. All hang up on him until he reaches Leyla, the daughter of Turkish immigrants. Fearing German xenophobia, she's not left her apartment in four months.
A Single Girl
Steadicam Operator
A young Parisian must make major decisions about pregnancy, a job and her boyfriend.
The Promise
Cinematography
East-Berlin, 1961, shortly after the erection of the Wall. Konrad, Sophie and three of their friends plan a daring escape to Western Germany. The attempt is successful, except for Konrad, who remains behind. From then on, and for the next 28 years, Konrad and Sophie will attempt to meet again, in spite of the Iron Curtain. Konrad, who has become a reputed Astrophysicist, tries to take advantage of scientific congresses outside Eastern Germany to arrange encounters with Sophie. But in a country where the political police, the Stasi, monitors the moves of all suspicious people (such as Konrad's sister Barbara and her husband Harald), preserving one's privacy, ideals and self-respect becomes an exhausting fight, even as the Eastern block begins its long process of disintegration.
Faraway, So Close!
First Assistant Camera
Damiel is now married to Marion, runs the pizzeria “Da Angelo” and the two have a child. The solitarily remaining angel Cassiel is more and more dissatisfied with his destiny as a mere observer of human life and finally decides to take the great leap. As Karl Engel he soon gets into a dubious milieu and finds himself as the assistant of the German American Baker, who makes his money with shady arms deals and sends films east in exchange for weapons. Cassiel’s adventure turns into a “thriller” when he decides to put a stop to Baker’s game.
Faraway, So Close!
Steadicam Operator
Damiel is now married to Marion, runs the pizzeria “Da Angelo” and the two have a child. The solitarily remaining angel Cassiel is more and more dissatisfied with his destiny as a mere observer of human life and finally decides to take the great leap. As Karl Engel he soon gets into a dubious milieu and finds himself as the assistant of the German American Baker, who makes his money with shady arms deals and sends films east in exchange for weapons. Cassiel’s adventure turns into a “thriller” when he decides to put a stop to Baker’s game.
Mord aus Liebe
Director of Photography
The Way of the Wind
Director of Photography
A dramatization of several episodes in the life of Christ.