Peter Lindbergh – Women's Stories

How do you become an artist? This is the question with which director Jean Michel Vecchiet confronts photographer Peter Lindbergh. But Lindbergh is not the kind of person to simply provide an answer to this question. Nor to any other about his life, which began in 1944 in German-occupied Poland. Asked about the whys and wherefores of his photographic work, he tells his interlocutor not take everything so seriously. And so we are left with the pictures themselves and the story of how they were created in order to get to the bottom of this artist. But then again, his photographs do not really have to be forced to speak because they are always telling stories, especially stories about women. Strong, beautiful personalities of all ages are the mainstay of his photographic work. And, away from the camera, it is also women who have made possible Lindbergh’s extraordinary achievements at the interface between photography, film and narrative. They include his mother, who died early; his sister; his two wives; and his female editors. Ultimately, it is not only beauty that speaks to us from within his pictures, but life itself.
by Jean Michel Vecchiet
with Astrid Lindbergh, Helga Polzin, Irène Silvagni, Petra Lindbergh, Naomi Campbell, Charlotte Rampling
Germany 2019 French, German, English, Polish, Italian 113’ Colour World premiere | Documentary form

With

  • Astrid Lindbergh
  • Helga Polzin
  • Irène Silvagni
  • Petra Lindbergh
  • Naomi Campbell
  • Charlotte Rampling

Crew

Director Jean Michel Vecchiet
Cinematography Jean Michel Vecchiet
Editing Krystel Abou Karam
Music Alain Arsac, Anthony Sahyoun
Sound Design Christian Obermaier, Jochen Jezussek
Sound Xavier Dreyfuss
Assistant Director Catherine Cattaruzza
Producers Jean Michel Vecchiet, Marc Schmidheiny, Christoph Daniel, Wiebke Andresen
Co-Producers Dario Suter, Joel Brandeis, Benjamin Seikel, Vanessa Nöcker
Co-Production DCM Berlin
B/14 Film Hamburg

Jean Michel Vecchiet

The documentary filmmaker divides his time between France and Lebanon. In the last forty years he has made films in the USA, China and the Middle East among other regions; these works have been screened around the world. His preferred topics are art, history and geopolitics.

Filmography (documentaries)

2001 Peter Lindbergh, Carnet de route 2003 Mao’s Photographers 2005 Lives and Deaths of Andy Warhol 2007 Andy Warhol, l’Œuvre incarnée · We Were Exodus 2009 Iran: The Hundred Year War (Iran, der Wille zur Großmacht) 2011 Basquiat, a Life 2012 Songs of Freedom 2013 June 6th 1944, They Were the First 2019 Here Lives the Devil · Peter Lindbergh – Women Stories

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2019