Christoph Dreher


Christoph Dreher is a German filmmaker, musician and scriptwriter. From 2000 until 2020, he was a professor of audiovisual media.
After studying political science and philosophy at the Free University of Berlin, he studied filmmaking at DFFB between 1978 and 1983.
In 1980, Dreher founded the post-punk – post-rock band Die Haut. The name of the band was inspired by the book of the same title by German–Italian author Curzio Malaparte. With Dreher as the only permanent member, the band had changing line-ups until its breakup in 2000. Originally an instrumental group with the classical instrumentation of guitars, bass and drums, for their numerous records as well as for live gigs Die Haut frequently collaborated with likeminded international singers such as Lydia Lunch, Nick Cave, Jeffrey Lee Pierce or Debbie Harry.
As filmmaker–director, Dreher has been creating audiovisual works since 1979. While still a student, he made several music videos, either for Die Haut or for Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. With Heiner Mühlenbrock, he made the feature-length film OK OK – Der Moderne Tanz.
In numerous documentary films and series, Dreher dealt with issues from the area of popular culture. For example, in the 18-part series Lost in Music, in cooperation with, amongst others, Rolf S. Wolkenstein, Ellen El Malki and Rotraut Pape, Dreher covered contemporary musical genres and their associated cultures and styles. The innovative style of his films received recognition with the Adolf Grimme Award and other awards.
From 2000, Dreher taught audiovisual media at Merz Akademie for Design, Art and Media in Stuttgart.

Selected works

Publications

  • 2010 Auteur Series: The Re-invention of Television. Stuttgart: Merz & Solitude.
www.merz-akademie.de/remediate,

Film and video

  • 1980 Ok Ok – Der Moderne Tanz
  • 1981 Commercial – 40 One-Minute-Adventures in the World of TV
  • 1985 Die Legionäre
  • 1992 Die Haut live: Sweat
  • 1993–98 Lost in Music
  • 1993 Tekkno Trance
  • 1994 Metal Mania
  • 1995 Reggae Revolution
  • 1995 Hoch über Hamburg
  • 1995 Hip Hop Hooray
  • 1996 Deep into Dub
  • 1996 Electronic Jam
  • 1996 Chicago Connections
  • 1995–98 Freestyle Series
  • 1995 Streetfashion
  • 1997 Pop Odyssee – The Beach Boys and Satan
  • 1997 Digital Spirit
  • 1998 Pop Odyssee – House of the Rising Punk
  • 2000 Silver Rockets/Kool Things – 20 Years of Sonic Youth
  • 2000 Fantastic Voyages
  • * "Introducing: The Cosmology of the Music Video"
  • * "Nightmares"
  • * "Body Rock"
  • * "Short Stories"
  • * "Liberated Images"
  • * "Wonderful Worlds"
  • * "Space is the place"
  • 2001 Beck – Permanent Mutations
  • 2002 Superhuman
  • 2003 Dance the Voodoo – The Cosmos of Koffi Kôkô
  • 2004 Voodoo Transformations
  • 2005 Youthquake '65 – The London Pop Explosion
  • 2007 Psychedelic Revolution '67
  • 2009 No Wave – Underground '80 Berlin-New York
  • 2012 ''It's more than TV – The new US-series and their makers''

Music clips and performances

Multimedia and radio projects

Recordings

  • 1982 Burnin' the Ice
  • 1987 Headless Body in Topless Bar
  • 1990 Die Hard
  • 1992 Head On
  • 1993–94 Sweat
  • 1998 Spring
  • 1999 Springer
  • 2004 Re-Issue of ''Burnin' the Ice''