Documentary Films in Competition 2002 / Missing Allen / Germany, USA 2001
A search for a missing friend and colleague, filmmaker and cameraman Allen Ross, in which the director operates like a detective. The first person narrative also functions as a European viewpoint on certain problematic aspects of American society.
Missing Allen is a detective story which takes the viewer to Waco, Texas and Oklahoma City, centres of various religious cults. The film covers an investigation into the disappearance of Allen Ross, a Chicago filmmaker and cameraman who went missing in 1995 just a few weeks after finishing a film about the Mississippi River. For that project he once again teamed up with director Christian Bauer, their latest effort in a long creative friendship. Four and a half years later Ross’s fate is still a mystery and Bauer begins his own investigation. There are very few possible explanations for his disappearance: either he is hiding out from a cult that wants to take revenge against a former member, or he has been murdered. More general questions permeate this mystery ensconced in darkness: how well do we know those closest to us? Can we ever really understand what’s really going on in their minds?
92 min / Black & white, 35 mm
Director Christian Bauer
/ Screenplay Christian Bauer
/ Dir. of Photography Michael Gööck
/ Music Titus Vollmer
/ Editor Julia Furch
/ Producer Christian Bauer
/ Production Tangram Christian Bauer Filmproduktion
Christian Bauer (b. 1947, Wartaweil, Germany) graduated in German and English literature, American studies and history, afterward lecturing at the University of Munich. He then switched careers, working as a film critic and, since 1980, as an independent filmmaker producing his own films. To date he has made over fifty documentaries. The Yankees Go Home won the Adolf Grimme Prize (1993), and his latest, Missing Allen (2001), took Best Documentary at the Montreal festival. Selected filmography: American Premiere (1980), Behind the Black Mirror (1987), Chicago (1989), Capone (1992), The Yankees Go Home (1992), The Second Life of Marlene (1995), Missing Allen (2001).
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