Freddy Buache

Freddy Buache

Born: December 29, 1924
Died: May 27, 2019
in Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland
Freddy Buache (29 December 1924 – 28 May 2019) was a Swiss journalist, cinema critic and film historian. He was the director of the Swiss Film Archive (a foundation for the conservation and study of films and cinematography) from 1951 to 1996. He was a privatdozent at the University of Lausanne.

He was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, spending his early childhood in Villars-Mendraz, Vaud, where his parents ran the Café de la Poste. The family moved to Lausanne in 1933, where Buache later attended the Collège Scientifique. A meeting with Henri Langlois in 1945 at an international cinema conference in Basle led to the start-up with other film enthusiasts of Lausanne's first film club in 1946.

In 1948 Buache and Charles Apothéloz made a stage adaptation of a film script by Jean-Paul Sartre entitled Les Faux Nez (The False Noses) for the Société de Belles-Lettres. It was performed by Apothéloz' amateur theatre company at the Théatre de l'Atelier, Lausanne, on 22 and 23 June 1948 as a competition entry. Buache played the part of the Prince. Apothéloz' company took its name "La Compagnie des Faux-Nez" from the play, and the underground former wine-cellar which housed their plays when the company turned professional is still called "Le Caveau des Faux-Nez".

As an independent journalist Buache wrote the "Cinema" column for the Nouvelle Revue de Lausanne between 1952 and 1959, and from 1959 for the Tribune de Lausanne which later became Le Matin. His continuing contacts with the founders of the Cinémathèque Française, Henri Langlois and the film director Georges Franju, resulted in an equivalent Swiss institution: Buache was one of the ten co-founders in 1950 of the Swiss Film Archive (fr:Cinémathèque Suisse), a foundation for the conservation and study of films and cinematography. He was the director from 1951 to 1996 and afterwards the president of its council. His successor was Hervé Dumont, who inherited some 65,000 copies of films amassed during Buache's time as director.

From 1967 to 1970 Buache was the co-director with Sandro Bianconi of the Locarno International Film Festival, and the second head of the jury at the 1973 Berlin International Film Festival.

In 1955 Buache was a contributor to the short-lived Marxist review Clartés along with Roland Barthes and others. He was also sympathetic to the Algerian independence movement, showing a number of films by the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA) at the Swiss Film Archive (to an invited audience). In the somewhat conservative Swiss political atmosphere of the 1950s and early 1960s, his reviews of East German films at the 1964 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival attracted attacks in right-wing journals such as the Bulletin National d'Information accusing him of "abject bias, insincerity and vulgarity". In a 1987 interview, he hoped that he continued to hold left-wing views.

He married the French journalist and art critic Marie-Magdeleine Brumagne (8 July 1920 – 10 November 2005); they first met in 1951. He died in May 2019 at the age of 94.

Source: Article "Freddy Buache" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Movies for Freddy Buache...

Obscure Pleasures: A Portrait of Walerian Borowczyk
Title: Obscure Pleasures: A Portrait of Walerian Borowczyk
Character: Self
Released: November 17, 2013
Type: Movie
During a hospital stay in 2001, the Polish painter, sculptor and filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk compiled a handwritten list of the objects and animals that were featured in his films. While he had used both encyclopedias and dictionaries to order chaos in his own films, this list saw Borowczyk putting his own life in order.
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Les fleurs maladives de Georges Franju
Title: Les fleurs maladives de Georges Franju
Character: Self
Released: May 5, 2009
Type: Movie
A short documentary about Georges Franju.
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Delphine Seyrig, portrait d'une comète
Title: Delphine Seyrig, portrait d'une comète
Character: Self
Released: August 1, 2000
Type: Movie
Delphine Seyrig, an extraordinary woman and actress, died on October 15, 1990. From "Last Year at Marienbad" by Alain Resnais to "India Song" by Marguerite Duras, she played in 34 films for cinema, 13 films for television and 33 plays. Jacqueline Veuve, filmmaker and friend of Delphine Seyrig, wanted to break the silence that has fallen on her memory by making a documentary that traces with emotion and subjectivity the life of the mythical actress, the fierce feminist but also the simple friend.
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The Other Eye
Title: The Other Eye
Character: Self
Released: September 25, 1991
Type: Movie
This film essay explores the strange case of G.W. Pabst, the Austrian filmmaker who was considered a giant of early cinema before his reputation went behind a cloud.
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King Lear
Title: King Lear
Character: Professor Quentin (uncredited)
Released: September 15, 1987
Type: Movie
A descendant of Shakespeare tries to restore his plays in a world rebuilding itself after the Chernobyl catastrophe obliterates most of human civilization.
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Title: Spécial cinéma
Character: Self
Released: September 25, 1974
Type: TV