Vox Humana - The Voice Bank

Gideon Bachmann and Bernardo Berolucci on the set of 1900

Ex pat, Heidelberg based film critic Gideon Bachmann created an archive of interviews with over 500 film directors, including Fellini and Pasolini, called Vox Humana - The Voice Bank. he recently succeeded in digitalizing the tapes which have been housed at USC since the 60s and has sold the entire archive to The Criterion Collection for the U.S. DVD rights to the entire archive, which features 800 hours worth of interviews and, says Bachmann, is “ideally suited for inclusion as bonus tracks on DVD releases of classic and historical motion pictures.”

He will continue his good work at international film festivals including Karlovy Vary where he will host onstage interviews to be added to the collection. Other festivals including Cinequest, Haifa and Bologna have also signed up to host Vox Humana sessions, which will involve onstage conversations with directors to be organized and recorded by Vox Humana with a view to adding them to the collection. Advanced talks are also underway with Thessaloniki, Chicago, Torino and Sao Poalo. The initiative is funded by the Cultural Memory Foundation of Switzerland.

To learn more about these tapes, and particularly one on Tarkovsky, click here.

American film critic Gideon Bachmann went to Europe in the early 60s to work with Fellini and Pasolini, and stayed. His interviews with filmmakers have been widely published over the past three decades. He is currently a director of the European Film Institute in Heidelberg, Germany.