FESTIVAL MORITZ FEED DOC

United States | 2007, 2011 | 70 min | VOSC (Original version subtitled in Catalan)

First as a photographer and later also as an art director, Juergen Teller’s unmistakable gaze—overexposure, eccentricity, ease, self-portraiture—has shaped the visual language of brands such as Helmut Lang, Yves Saint Laurent, Vivienne Westwood, Marc Jacobs, and Céline (including the famous campaign featuring Joan Didion). Inseparable from his Contax G2 and his signature “flash blast,” Teller has never given in to trends or constraints. Across the three sessions of this documentary, we encounter familiar faces such as Helena Bonham Carter in London, Vivienne Westwood in Nairobi, and Lily Cole and David Blaine in Suffolk.

 The imprint of the great master of color can be found in the work of artists such as David Lynch, Gus Van Sant, Dennis Hopper, David Byrne, and Sofia Coppola. Born in Memphis in 1939, his handcrafted and honest approach to the craft—aligned with the school of Robert Frank, Cartier-Bresson, and William Christenberry—propelled him straight into the classrooms of Harvard and to his first exhibition at MoMA. At a time when favoring Kodachrome over black and white was considered vulgar, Eggleston wrote his love letter to vernacular America: diners, gas stations, cars, parking lots, streets…