Titus Leber is a writer and director of films based on classical music.

Biography

Titus Leber was born in Zell am See

Zell am See

Zell am See is the capital city of the Zell am See district in the Austrian state of Salzburg. The city has about 10,000 inhabitants.Zell am See is a tourist destination and a transportation hub for the region...

, Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

. He studied at the Lycée Français de Vienne

Lycée Français de Vienne

Lycée Français de Vienne is a French curriculum secondary school in Alsergrund, Vienna.The Lycée Français de Vienne is one of the world's largest schools accredited by the Agency for French Teaching Abroad and has more than 2000 students.The private school shares its boarding school with...

, where he received a baccalaureate degree in 1969 and a Ph.D in mass media communication in 1975. His doctoral thesis, "The Multilayer Method," explored the history and cultural use of superimposed images.

During his graduate studies, Leber worked on documentaries and became head of the film department of the Institut für Neurovegetative Endoskopie in Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

. He collaborated with the founder of the Institute, Dr. Raimund Wittmoser, on the endoscopy

Endoscopy

Endoscopy means looking inside and typically refers to looking inside the body for medical reasons using an endoscope , an instrument used to examine the interior of a hollow organ or cavity of the body. Unlike most other medical imaging devices, endoscopes are inserted directly into the organ...

 documentaries Hyperhidrosis and Neue Coelome.

Leber's first fictional 16mm short film, 1976's Kindertotenlieder ("Songs of dead children”) won awards at the Valladolid International Film Festival, the Cannes Film Festival

Cannes Film Festival

The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...

, and was Austria's nominee for best short film for the Academy Awards. In 1978, he wrote and directed Schubert- Fremd bin ich eingezogen (“Schubert- A Stranger I came”), for which he won the Austrian National Award for filmmaking.

After a year at the American Film Institute

American Film Institute

The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...

, from where he graduated with a director's diploma in 1979, Leber returned to Austria to write and direct. His first feature film, Anima-Symphonie Fantastique (1981) was shown in out of competition at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival

1981 Cannes Film Festival

- Jury :*Jacques Deray *Ellen Burstyn *Jean-Claude Carrière *Robert Chazal *Attilio D'Onofrio *Christian Defaye *Carlos Diegues *Antonio Gala...

.

From 1983 to 1984 Leber took a research fellowship at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies

Center for Advanced Visual Studies

The Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT was founded in 1967 by artist and teacher György Kepes. Kepes, who taught at the new Bauhaus in Chicago, originally founded the Center as a way to encourage artistic collaboration on a large civic scale....

. His project, the “Image Reactor”, explored interactive image permutation. He returned to Europe fascinated by the possibility of making the audience participate in what happened on the screen, and began work on interactive multimedia

Interactive media

Interactive media normally refers to products and services on digital computer-based systems which respond to the user’s actions by presenting content such as text, graphics, animation, video, audio, etc.-Terminology:...

.

In 1987 he produced “Vienna Interactive”, an interactive touchscreen

Touchscreen

A touchscreen is an electronic visual display that can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area. The term generally refers to touching the display of the device with a finger or hand. Touchscreens can also sense other passive objects, such as a stylus...

 laserdisc

Laserdisc

LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...

, followed by “Mozart Interactive” in 1991. Between 1992 and 1997 Leber worked with the Louvre

Louvre

The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...

 Museum, IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

, the Pasteur Institute

Pasteur Institute

The Pasteur Institute is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who made some of the greatest breakthroughs in modern medicine at the time, including pasteurization and vaccines for anthrax...

 and the Centro Nacional de Cultura, Lisboa on interactive multimedia projects. He also served on the advisory board of Corbis

Corbis

Corbis Corporation is an American company, based in Seattle, Washington, that licenses the rights to photographs, footage and other visual media...

 and the executive board of La Fémis

La Femis

La Fémis , is the French state film school. FEMIS is an acronym for Fondation Européenne pour les Métiers de l’Image et du Son. Based in Paris, it offers courses balanced between artistic research, professional development and technical training...

, the French cinema school.

In the late 1990s Leber moved to Bangkok

Bangkok

Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...

, where he worked with the Mae Fah Luang

Mae Fah Luang

Mae Fa Luang is a name of HRH Princess Mother Srinagarindra of Thailand, used especially in northern Thailand. Several items have been named after her*Mae Fa Luang district, Chiang Rai Province...

 Foundation on multimedia, notably What Did the Buddha Teach?, an interactive installation about the life and teaching of Lord Buddha

Buddha

In Buddhism, buddhahood is the state of perfect enlightenment attained by a buddha .In Buddhism, the term buddha usually refers to one who has become enlightened...

.

TV Productions and Documentaries

• Sangharadja-Thailands Supreme patriarch
• Symphony from the New World ( Based on A. Dvorák's 9th Symphony, in collaboration with NASA).
• Nuclear requiem: For ORF/Austrian Television
• Neue Coelome: Introducing new methods of endoscopy.
• Hyperhidrosis: Award for best Film by German Endoscopic Society

Multimedia

• What Did the Buddha Teach? CD DVD /DVD triptych about the life and teaching of Lord Buddha
• Mozart Interactive
• Vienna Interactive: Mercuriale Award for best Cultural Heritage CD ROM/ Besançon:
• Le monde de Pasteur:Award IAMS for best Scientific CD ROM 1995
• The Great Louvre in HDTV/3D coproduced with UNESO and Beta System, Japan
• Eight Historical cities of Portugal, for the Centro Nacional de Cultura, Lisboa.
• Das Wiener Theatermuseum.
• Endoskopie Interaktiv

External links

• http://titusleber.com
• http://mozartinteractive.com