Filmfritz GmbH is a film and television production company based in Munich. We produce films for various broadcasters, and for clients from industry. Our main focus is on documentaries. Why?

Documentaries are witnesses of the past. They show us real, non-fictional life in a condensed form. Reality offers an inexhaustible and fascinating range of topics. We’re especially interested in observing how people develop, and in detecting social trends. Here, time is an important element for us: we take the time to observe people, to discover stories that are not so obvious, and also take our time when filming and editing. What’s important for us?  Well-founded research; sensitive and responsible interaction with protagonists; authenticity; and an original visual language. The managing director Astrid Bscher works as a director in her own production company, concentrating mainly on television portraits and extended documentaries. A lot of her work involves the stage – i.e. music, opera and the theatre, as well as the fine arts and architecture.

Filmfritz GmbH is a film and television production company based in Munich. We produce films for various broadcasters, and for clients from industry. Our main focus is on...  

mehr

I Live Alone In My Heaven

The Singer Günther Groissböck

He makes you feel what it's like to be lonely at the top. To see and hear him is to learn more about the search for the right path that preoccupies every earnest and serious person. The characters he plays on stage are deeply moving. Bass singer Günther Groissböck traverses the opera houses of the world as kings, scholars, philosophers, priests, mythical creatures and gods. You might call him an expert at playing lonely characters.

At first glance, Günther Groissböck does not seem like someone with personal experience of loneliness. Through his work both on stage and behind the scenes, the singer operates in close contact with other people. He is married with a daughter and in the middle of life, or as the conductor Philippe Jordan puts it: "He is passionate about many things in life, not just art". Is it possible to act out something you don't have experience of yourself?
How does he bring his characters to life? What elements go into performing a part? At what point does his instrument - his voice - touch the audience? How much community spirit and how much individuality is required from an opera singer in this day and age? And where does Günther Groissböck get that incredible energy that he exudes on stage?

Our cameras followed this artist from the Austrian town of Waidhofen an der Ybbs for two years, capturing on film the key moments of his life during that time: from his return to work after the pandemic to his debut as King Philip in Verdi's Don Carlo at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The result is a very personal portrait depicting a unique attitude to life, epitomised in two lines from one of Mahler's Rückert-Lieder: I live alone in my heaven, in my love, in my song.

Music documentary/portrait of a singer. Duration: 65 minutes.Filmed in: New York, Vienna, Gesäuse National Park, Amsterdam, Prague, Verona, Richard Strauss's villa in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.Contributors: Anna Netrebko, Philippe Jordan, Krassimira Stoyanova, and many more.

He makes you feel what it's like to be lonely at the top. To see and hear him is to learn more about the search for the right path that preoccupies every earnest and serious...  

mehr

Koenig's New York Sphere – A sculpture becomes a symbol

Fritz Koenig's sphere was already a sensation in 1971. That was when the bronze sculpture – the largest in the world, weighing 20 tons - travelled from Landshut in Germany to New York. It was installed on the forecourt of the World Trade Center, and became "The Sphere". Interpreted as an eye that rotated on its own axis every 24 hours, with the world and world trade in view.


30 years later, on the traumatic 11th September 2001, the Twin Towers collapse onto the sculpture. Amid the rubble, the artist Fritz Koenig discovers his injured sculpture and is present when it is erected once more, like a phoenix from the ashes. As a symbol of the suffering, but also of the will to survive of the city of New York, the sculpture now has a second life opposite "Ground Zero" in Liberty Park. The film by Astrid Bscher describes the transformation of this work of art into a memorial of 9/11. Contemporary witnesses from New York such as Daniel Libeskind, Michael Burke (brother of a deceased firefighter) and Professor Holger Klein from Columbia University all have their say. 

Fritz Koenig's sphere was already a sensation in 1971. That was when the bronze sculpture – the largest in the world, weighing 20 tons - travelled from Landshut in Germany to New...  

mehr

Wotan Must Wait. The singer Günther Groissböck.

Father of the Gods, Castle of the Gods, Wotan, Valhalla – words that instantly conjure up the "Ring of the Nibelung", Richard Wagner, and Bayreuth. For almost one hundred and fifty years, people have counted the singers brave enough to perform the weighty and extremely difficult role of Wotan. In the summer of 2020, Günther Groissböck was to have been the new Wotan at Bayreuth. The Austrian currently has an international career; he is a regular at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and at all major European opera houses. For many months, we accompanied him on his way to this complex debut, and watched his “Wotan” grow. Then came Covid-19, the lockdown, and the closure of all opera houses. So the portrait of Günther Groissböck has now become a film about the fact that nothing in life can be planned. Everything an artist encounters – joy as well as pain – can become part his inner trove of experience, in the hope that he can use these feelings as a kind of raw material to continue shaping himself. Written and directed by: Astrid Bscher

Father of the Gods, Castle of the Gods, Wotan, Valhalla – words that instantly conjure up the "Ring of the Nibelung", Richard Wagner, and Bayreuth. For almost one hundred and fifty...  

mehr

The myth of the tenor. Heroes of the operatic stage

Furente grido dell’anima or “wild cry of the soul” - that's what the Italians call a tenor’s high C. For centuries now, singers producing high notes with their chest voice have been the main focus of the opera world - especially where women are concerned. Enrico Caruso or Mario del Monaco were celebrated like popstars in their day, and the generation of Luciano Pavarotti even began to appear in football stadiums. But there is more to it all than just training the body to produce unnatural, almost feminine pitches. Tenors are only really adored when they have the bearing of a true dragon-slayer to match. The myth of the tenor has a lot to do with a longing for the seemingly incompatible - for example, empathy versus a fierce fighting spirit, or tenderness versus toughness. This 52-minute-long film commissioned by ARTE/WDR – together with present-day tenors such as Peter Seiffert, Jonas Kaufmann, Klaus Florian Vogt, Vittorio Grigolo and Joseph Calleja – sets out to discover why these high-voiced heroes remain so perennially fascinating.

Furente grido dell’anima or “wild cry of the soul” - that's what the Italians call a tenor’s high C. For centuries now, singers producing high notes with their chest voice have...  

mehr

The Olympus Of the Arts – Munich’s Nationaltheater.

Some people regard opera as a magical place where miracles can happen – others as a pointless relic from a bygone era that is only kept afloat through state subsidies. Nevertheless, the art form has survived – it has been around for over 400 years. One of the world’s oldest opera houses is located in Munich: the city’s Nationaltheater. Destroyed by a fire in 1823 and bombed in 1943, it was rebuilt each time. Film director Astrid Bscher takes an anniversary as an occasion to retell the building’s history. Her film, commissioned by Bavarian Television, also sheds light on the creative processes that take place in and around an opera house. The story of how Richard Strauss's “Die Frau ohne Schatten” came into being is documented by the correspondence between the composer (played by Rainer Bock) and his lyricist Hugo von Hofmannsthal (Alexander Beyer) – and also by a new production of this opera, conducted by Kirill Petrenko and directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski.

Some people regard opera as a magical place where miracles can happen – others as a pointless relic from a bygone era that is only kept afloat through state subsidies....  

mehr

The conductor Andris Nelsons - Genius on Fire

Andris Nelsons seems to have just two physical states – solid or liquid. Either he sits firmly on a chair, quiet, self-absorbed, and saying very little. Or he flows, streaming all his energy into his surroundings. An in-between state of so-called normality does not exist with him, and never did. Nelsons was a prodigy from his childhood onwards, and today conducts the best orchestras in the world. The trumpeter Hokan Hardenberger puts it like this: “He has a lot of energy. Every note in the score becomes music, it really does. With him, everything has weight. There are no half-measures, not even in rehearsals. He’s always full of intensity.” The film accompanies the Latvian conductor for a period of two years, in locations such as his home city of Riga, and on concert tours to Vienna, Zurich and Munich. A production commissioned by WDR/ARTE, the film is also available on DVD.

Andris Nelsons seems to have just two physical states – solid or liquid. Either he sits firmly on a chair, quiet, self-absorbed, and saying very little. Or he flows, streaming all...  

mehr

The Mastersinger. Klaus Florian Vogt

At the age of 30, Klaus Florian Vogt led a secure middle-class existence, as a horn player with the Hamburg Philharmonic with a lifetime contract, living with his family of four in his home town of Brunsbüttel. But the predictability of his life terrified him. One day, a singing professor casually told him: "You are a tenor, and if you want, you can come more often." Vogt gradually decided it was time for a change. The film "Der Meistersinger" shows how an opportunity that many people would have let slip has now turned into a world career. With her camera, for five years, the author accompanied this tenor who discovered his true calling late in life. The result is a deeply moving portrait that deals with singing as an opportunity for self-realization. The film is available on DVD.

At the age of 30, Klaus Florian Vogt led a secure middle-class existence, as a horn player with the Hamburg Philharmonic with a lifetime contract, living with his family of four in...  

mehr

Making of Ballo – José Cura

A star tenor as a director? A marketing gimmick, surely? José Cura has never been surpassed in versatility - he studied piano, composition and conducting, was a rugby player, and worked as a fitness trainer – and now he’s a director too? The Argentine was mostly successful when he performed on stage in all his glory. Although the ladies officially only praise his “creamy baritone-based spinto voice”, they also adore his good looks. Maybe those will also help him with his first job as a director? The entertaining documentary "Making of Ballo" accompanies the brilliant showman José Cura From the first mock-up set rehearsal all the way to the premiere at the Cologne Opera, showing how he captivates the whole team – and brings an exciting production of Giuseppe Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera" to the operatic stage.

A star tenor as a director? A marketing gimmick, surely? José Cura has never been surpassed in versatility - he studied piano, composition and conducting, was a rugby player, and...  

mehr