© Maya Wipf
Laura Kaehr, *1978 in LocarnoLives and works between Ticino and Zurich
Laura Kaehr, started her career as a Ballet dancer. Originally from Minusio, Ticino, she left Ticino when she was 14 to attend the «Centre de Danse International Rosella Hightower». There she studied dance, ballet modern, theater, music, and literature. She graduated in 1997 with a Baccalaureate in arts and French literature.
She danced internationally, both in Cannes and Montecarlo with the school company, San Francisco with the Brady Street Theater and with Michael Smuin which choreographed for Francis Ford Coppola and in Zurich with the Opera house. In the year 2001 she started to become interested in the Monte Verità, in Ascona (Swiss canton of Ticino), which has served as the site of many different Utopian and cultural events.
She met and worked with Harald Szeeman (Swiss curator, artist and art historian) on her own project, showing the relationship between dance and architecture. She created an evening for the centenary of the Foundation of the Monte Verità. Thanks to Harald Szeeman she discovered that her Great Grandfather was part of this utopian colony, creating many art projects of his own.
In 2002 she moved to Paris, to attend both the Cours Simon and the Jack Waltzer classes of the Actor’s Studio of Paris. She also attended the Sorbonne as an Auditeur Libre in French literature and Philosophy.
She started working for RSI (a Swiss radio and television broadcaster) in 2005, doing TV films. In 2008, she worked with TSR (a French language Swiss TV channel) acting many production for Rita Productions and the TSR. She is currently on television with «T’es Pas la Seule».
In October 2011, she was invited by the Biennale Theater of Venice to work and perform for the Calixto Bieito and Jan Fabre performances.
From 2011-2014 she was part of the Transdiziplinary and Film Master Class of the ZHdK, Zurich University of the Arts. She has made a short film called «1927» where she staged a scene from the «Friedens Opera» written by her Great Grandfather Friedrich Kähr.
In 2013, she also directed a play, «Thank You For the Lovely Flowers», which premiered at the Gessneralee «Bühne A» where she treated the same story in a new way, collaborating with different artists.
The film «1927» premiered at the Locarno international Film Festival «L’immagine e La Parola».
Currently, Laura Kaehr is working on her first feature film, and choreographing dance scenes for Swiss films such as «Vecchi Pazzi» directed by Sabine Boss. In 2015, she won the award for Best Commercial Director in Switzerland (EDI) and is now directing fashion films and commercials.
While attending the UCLA writers program in Los Angeles, she met the writer Larry Wilson with whom she is now writing her first feature. Larry Wilson is noted for his feature films, Beetlejuice, Addams Family, and The Little Vampire, writing and directing for HBO’s Tales From The Crypt for five seasons, plus many other credits.
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Lives and works in Zurich
Manu Gerber is a supervising sound editor and re-recording mixer for feature film. As a classically trained composer and graduate of the Academy of Music Basel, he brings a lot of musicality, passion and great attention to detail to every project. He shares his love for movies and sound as a teacher for Film Sound and Sound Design at the Zurich University of the Arts.
Manu Gerber Website
Lives and works between Italy and London
After her BA in Marketing, Chiara worked as a copywriter in advertising in Milan at Lorenzo Marini & associati, GWC World and Erremme Associati. After a brief stint in the Music Industry as a Tour Manager for Plastic Made Sofa, European and U.S tours, and as a Coordinator of MiAMi, an Indie Music Festival in Milan, she decided to pursue her lifelong passion for film. She started writing subtitles for movies premiering at the major Italian Film Festivals (Venice, Turin, Rome, Taormina, ect. working on titles like: A Bigger Splash, Tangerine, Whiplash, What We Do in The Shadows, Cop Car, The Daughter, The Grand Seduction).
While working at a film Festival she meet Dubbing Director Massimo Milazzo, who was working in Rome and looking for someone to pass his art on to. He saw potential in Chiara and offered to mentor her. She became his pupil, learning to adapt dialogues at first and then to direct voice actors. In a short time she became a Dubbing Director herself, working with some of the most talented voice actors in the business like Christian Iansante (Italian voice of Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Renner, Joseph Finnes, Christian Bale, Sam Rockwell and Ewan McGregor), Mino Caprio (Italian voice of Peter Griffin from Family Guy, Seth MacFarlane and William H Macy), Luca Mannocci (Italian voice of Jon Boyega in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Miles Teller).
In 2013, she decided to follow her dream to become a film Producer, so she moved to Los Angeles to study Production and Development at UCLA, where she graduated with Merit in 2016. While attending a writing class at UCLA Chiara met Laura Kaehr, a writer director and choreographer from Switzerland. Creative sparks immediately flew between them, however it wasn’t until later that the two got to work together. After graduating Chiara worked on the film The Lonely Italian, which won the Best Picture Award at the Ferrara Film Festival 2016 and will be distributed by Sony through the Orchard in the summer and on Hot Summer Nights, which premiered at SXSW 2017. Chiara also gained some valuable work experience at the Academy Award Nominated Production and Management Company Echo Lake Entertainment and the Sales and Distribution company XYZ Films. She then moved on and worked for Imperative Entertainment in Santa Monica for about a year, with Tim Kring, whom she credits as her hero and mentor, Bradley Thomas and Dan Friedkin. During her time at Imperative she got to work with all the main industry players in Hollywood and also started to develop a passion for discovering international young talent. After a few years in Los Angeles Chiara decided it was time to bring her professional experience back to Europe and moved to London, where she worked for FilmWave. Moved by their common passion for genre films, Chiara started to consult on "The Education of Elena", Laura Kaehr’s first feature film, with a story co-written by Larry Wilson (Beetlejuice and the Addams family). The collaboration proved successful and Chiara became a Consulting Development Executive for Cat People Films.
Chiara’s dream for the future is to keep working with emerging talent from all over the world and produce smart and daring projects.
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Lives and works between Milano and Zurich
IOKOI is a singer and musician you couldn’t quite get around in the recent past: be it as a performing musician in the theatre, as live improvisator at the silent movie screenings of the Institute of Incoherent Cinematography (IOIC), as solo or band musician with concerts in Europe and two tours in China. In Summer 2013 she set up an interactive installation and concert for Zurich's known festival «Stadtsommer. Recently she worked with swiss director Laura Kaehr on the soundtrack for her movie «1927», screened on the Locarno Film Festival and Kurzfilmtage Winterthur. For Kaehrs theatre piece «Thank you for the lovely flowers» she composed the whole music and was part of the live performance performed at the Gessnerallee Zurich.
Her first single «Growing Young» also struck the right note with the eccentric fashion designer «Yohji Yamamoto», who used it to emphasize a trailer for his fall/winter-collection 2012 for Selfridges. IOKOI sets her music into a dialogue with the world of fashion, while she brings up questions on identity and self- portrayal.
With her music, IOKOI takes an unique stand between Ambient, Drones and Pop. She consciously leaves her songs time and space to unfold, while she soulfully takes her listeners in.
IOKOI Website