Distant Lights

Hans-Christian Schmid was born 1965 in the Bavarian city of Altötting, a famous place of pilgrimage. Nevertheless, Schmid was not brought up in a ultra-catholic fashion as some of his films might suggest. Instead, he grew up in a liberal home, attended a high school that was regarded politically left, went to demonstrations for peace instead of Sunday service, and was an active member of the Green party.

From 1985 to 1992, Schmid studied documentary film making at Munich’s Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film (HFF), where he filmed his debut movie Sekt oder Selters (1989) about people addicted to slot machines as well as two more short films. In his graduation film Die Mechanik des Wunders (1992), he dealt with the organized religiousness of his home town for the first time. After graduating from HFF, Schmid got a scholarship from Drehbuchwerkstatt München to study screenplay writing at University of Southern California in Los Angeles.— filmportal.de