Frederick Baker Collection

Frederick Baker Collection:

Time period: 1998-2020

Works:

• screenplays
• films (on various recording media)

Correspondence:

• with production companies
• film distributors
• television stations
• funding institutions
• educational institutions/universities
• filmmakers

Life documents:

• awards
• travel documents

Collectibles:

• reception documents
• production materials (shooting schedules, set lists, casting documents, contracts)
• various screenplays and concepts
• manuscripts
• film festivals
• film posters
• collection of material from exhibitions and film projects
• library

Frederick Baker (1965-2020) was an Austrian-British filmmaker, artist, and archaeologist. He lived and worked in London, Berlin, and Vienna, where he produced and directed films, conceived and implemented multimedia/exhibition and VR projects, wrote books, and worked as a journalist. He interviewed numerous prominent figures, including Yoko Ono, George H. W. Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev, Václav Havel, Simon Wiesenthal, and Vivienne Westwood. 

Baker was born in Salzburg in 1965 and grew up in London. After graduating from Cambridge, he made a bunch of documentaries about European history. He covered stuff like the political changes in Europe after 1989 and Jörg Haider's rise in Austria. Many of his productions were broadcast on the BBC or ORF. Frederick Baker created several internationally award-winning documentaries for ORF, including “Stalin – The Red God,” he explored how atheistic communism itself mutated into a religion; in “Imagine Imagine,” he examined how and why John Lennon's classic ‘Imagine’ became so popular; and in “The Message of ‘Silent Night,’” he traced the roots of the world-famous Christmas carol.

His films have been shown at numerous film festivals, he was a member of the European Film Academy and a pioneer in the field of virtual reality film. His 2007 book The Art of Projectionism describes a technique he developed and used in his films, such as the documentary Shadowing the Third Man (A/UK, 2005), which premiered at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. Baker also worked prominently at the intersection of cultural heritage, archaeology, and digital humanities, was affiliated with the University of Cambridge, and participated in numerous conferences and publications.

Awards (Selection):

Klimt's Magic Garden (Filmbäckerei/Museum of Applied Arts Vienna) World VR Days, Amsterdam. Silver Halo Award for Cinematic VR

Pitoti Prometheus (Cambridge University/Filmbäckerei) 3D VR Guild Award, Liège & Best Documentary Golden Halo Award, Amsterdam VR Festival

Pitoti - Digital Rock Art in Ancient Europe (Cambridge University/Filmbäckerei) European Union Europa Nostra Award

Shadowing the Third Man (BBC/ORF/Studiocanal) with Guy Hamilton, John Hurt (v.o.) Official Selection Cannes Filmfestival. Grand prize "Premio Assoluto", Film Festival Rome

Films as director (selection): 

Cinema Austria: Die erste 112 Jahre, documentary film, country of production: Austria

2018 Prometheus Pitoti, short film, countries of production: United Kingdom, 
Austria

2014 Und Äktschn!, feature film, countries of production: Austria, Germany

2010 Widerstand in Haiderland, documentary film, country of production: Austria

2008 Romy Schneider – Eine Frau in drei Noten, documentary film, country of production: Austria

2004 Shadowing the third Man, documentary film, countries of production: Austria, United Kingdom

2003 Imagine Imagine, documentary film, countries of production: United Kingdom, 
Austria

2001 Stalin, der Rote Gott, documentary film, countries of production: United Kingdom, 
Austria