Balz Bachmann
Biography
The composer and musician Balz Bachmann, born in Zurich, has studied contrabass at the Swiss Jazz School in Bern. He has been writing music for motion pictures and documentary films, theatre, arts and TV. Bachmann has won several awards such as the film music award of the SUISA-foundation of the Locarno Film Festival 2003 for his score for Little Girl Blue by Anna Luif and was nominated twice for the Swiss Film Prize Quarz.
Since 1999, Balz Bachmann collaborates with sound designer and film musician Peter Bräker. They developed scores for (among others) I was a Swiss Banker, directed by Thomas Imbach and for Jeune Homme by Christoph Schaub that both won the film music award of the SUISA-foundation.
Besides his work as a composer and producer, Balz Bachmann is a visiting professor at the University of Arts Zurich. As a performing musician, Balz Bachmann accompanied the singer Sophie Hunger on her European tour and has been playing bass and guitar in the punk band The Fox.
In 2017, Balz Bachmann received the Fondation SUISA Film Music Prize for the third time for his original score for the documentary Bis ans Ende der Träume, directed by Wilfried Meichtry. Bachmann's scores for Bis ans Ende der Träume and Willkommen in der Schweiz (directed by Sabine Gisiger) were both nominated for the German Documentary Film Music Award 2018.
His most recent work includes the score for David Vogel's documentary Shalom Allah (with a premiere at the Semaine de la Critique Locarno 2019), Katalin Gödrös' Tatort-episode Ausgezählt as well as the international coproduction Hungry Saints, directed by Marc Raymond Wilkins.
Film
Directed by Anna Luif
Directed by Katalin Gödrös
Directed by Theo Stich
Directed by Marc Raymond Wilkins
Directed by Nina Stefanka
Directed by David Vogel
Starshot, 2019
Directed by Samuel Perriard
Short film
Directed by Katalin Gödrös
Directed by Christoph Schaub
Bis ans Ende der Träume, 2017
Directed by Wilfried Meichtry
Directed by Sabine Gisiger
Directed by Katalin Gödrös
Directed by Valentin Hitz
Directed by Kaspar Kasics
Directed by Sabine Lidl
FILM SCORE
A bittersweet deconstruction of the American dream: Two food delivery boys in New York want to loose their virginity to a mysterious Ukrainian girl, while a Swiss pulp fiction novelist starts a burrito empire from an immigrant woman’s kitchen.
FILM SCORE
Aïcha, Johan and the married Lo Manto couple have taken a step in their lives that is unsettling to many people around them. They have made the Muslim creed: "I testify that there is no God but Allah and that Mohammad is His prophet". This is where their transformation and reorientation begins. Aïcha moves from the rural province to the big city and follows the strict rules of her new religion euphorically. The Lo Mantos try to stand their ground against the prejudice of their surroundings. And Johan? He sports a beard and flirts with his role as a devout Muslim. Or is filmmaker David Vogel just imagining it? What role does his own Jewish past play? The longer he accompanies his protagonists, the more he feels that he cannot ignore his own biography. His religious past catches up with him – a past he thought to have left far behind.
Premiere: Semaine de la Critique Locarno Film Festival 2019