Eugen Schuhmacher
Eugen Schuhmacher was a German zoologist and pioneer of animal documentaries. Besides Bernhard Grzimek and Heinz Sielmann he belongs to the German wildlife documentary filmmakers with an international reputation.Biography
Eugen Schuhmacher was born in Stuttgart, Germany. His career began in the early 1930s with educational and cultural shortfilms about the wildlife in South America and the German Reich. In the next four decades he made documentaries about animals, the Inca culture, and the indigenous people from North America, South America and Papua New Guinea. This movies were awarded at festivals in Berlin, Venice and in Cannes. His movie Natur in Gefahr from 1952 is an alerting report of the destruction of the nature paradises and the extinction of species. His feature film In the Shadow of the Karakoram received the German Film Prize for best documentary in 1955. In 1958 he discovered the German television for his work and he made one of the first German television series about endangered species. 37 episodes of On the Track of rare Animals were shot, a series which has taken the audience on a journey to Galapagos, Papua New Guinea, Africa, and other exotic places. This series was very popular in German television. In 1966 he finished his movie project , a film which had taken seven years to make. It was awarded at the Mountain Film Festival at Trento in 1967. Schuhmacher has died at age 66 of cancer in Munich, Germany. His last movie Europas Paradiese had its premiere after his death.
He was awarded the Royal Geographical Society's Cherry Kearton Medal and Award in 1971.Selected movies
- 1955: Im Schatten des Karakorum
- 1967:
- 1973: Europas Paradiese
Selected books
- 1968: The Last of the Wild: On the track of Rare animals, Collins, London, 1968
- 1968: The Last Paradises: On the track of Rare animals, DOUBLEDAY & CO, INC. New York
- 1970: Alaska: Vast Land on the Edge of the Arctic, Kümmerly & Frey Geographical Publishers, Berne, Switzerland
