Curt Truninger

Curt Truninger
Curt Truninger and actress Eva Birthistle on the set of The Rendezvous in Toronto. Photo by Peter Rehak.
Born	Curt Truninger (1957-04-12) 12 April 1957 (age 60) Lucerne, Switzerland
Occupation	film director, screenwriter, producer, visual artist, actor

Curt Truninger (born 12 April 1957) is a Swiss filmmaker, screenplay writer and producer. He also works as a visual artist, journalist and occasional actor.

Curt Truninger is a Member of the European Film Academy.

Truninger was raised in Lucerne. His father Ernst worked as a banker and in the travel business. His grandfather Ernst was a popular local politician, journalist and restaurateur.

Truninger developed an interest in film at an early age, especially in French movies. As a teenager he met the renowned American photographer and editor of Camera magazine, Allan Porter, who introduced him to the world of photography and the associated arts. Truninger was also a UNICEF Ambassador and is an accomplished amateur athlete. He divides his time between Toronto and Zurich.

After studying Social Sciences and Art History at Munich University, he graduated with a PhD from the University of Aberdeen, where he also taught. During this time Curt was a member of the Think Tank Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London.After leaving academia, Truninger returned to Switzerland, where he worked for the Swiss public broadcaster SRF. During the 1980s he was host of the film programme Neu im Kino, and honed his writing skills working for Swiss and German print media as a film and culture critic and photographer. He then went to Munich, where he worked for the Bavarian Public Broadcaster BR, contributing to their Foreign Affairs programmes such as Weltspiegel. Soon thereafter, legendary German cultural journalist Reinhard Hoffmeister, lured Truninger to join the team of the Arts programme Aspekte at the German Broadcaster ZDF. Truninger has also written and directed many documentaries and docu-dramas for ZDF and hosted the talk show "Begegnungen". His freelance work includes a documentary portrait of Richard Avedon, produced in collaboration with the iconic photographer himself.

After a brief excursion directing music videos, Truninger made a leap to feature films in 1996 with Waiting for Michelangelo, a critically acclaimed romantic comedy about four friends lucky in life but unlucky in love. It featured popular Canadian star Roy Dupuis, and was shot in Toronto and Lucerne. The film, distributed by Channel 4 in London, went on to become one of the most widely distributed Swiss films. Truninger also co-wrote the original screenplay with his long-time producer Margrit Ritzmann.