Luc Schaedler

Filmmaker & Producer

Luc Schaedler (b. 1963) studied anthropology, film history and social history at the University of Zurich. In 2005, he earned a PhD in Visual Anthropology.

This dual perspective—academic and cinematic—has shaped his work ever since. It is grounded in Visual Anthropology. The field explores how ethnographic images are produced and how visual representations are analysed. It also asks how images relate to social and cultural contexts.

For Schaedler, this approach has a profound influence on his documentaries. It sharpens attention to moments in which people represent themselves. It makes power relations visible. And it allows cultural practices, language and everyday life to be observed rather than explained—so that they become tangible.

From 2006 to 2008, he headed the Visual Anthropology department at the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich. Alongside mentoring students in documentary filmmaking, he is involved in research projects in Visual Anthropology. For him, engaging with the “other” through film is not an exoticising gaze. It is a way of thinking about the world—and a contribution to cross-cultural dialogue.