Claude Baechtold first films Afghanistan, then thinks

Claude Baechtold says that he is an artist who acts first and then thinks. In 2002, he did not know why he slipped into the luggage of journalist Serge Michel and war photographer Paolo Woods, both of whom had gone to do a series of reports in Afghanistan, then supposedly liberated by the United States. At the time, the thirty-year-old (born in 1972) was still looking for himself. He has recently graduated in graphic design from the École cantonale d’art de Lausanne, already does some photography and has just lost his parents.

At the time of departure, Claude Baechtold had no idea that this trip would turn his life upside down. As soon as he landed in Kabul, he completed his equipment by purchasing a camcorder. His camera in one hand, his compact film camera in the other, the thirty-year-old will machine-gun everything that passes in front of him, during his more than forty days of peregrination. He thus immortalizes carrots, children’s faces, old people’s beards, electric poles, Soviet tanks, taxis, burkas, the desert. The compulsive person brings back to Switzerland a collection of still (6,500) and animated (forty hours) color images.

«Riverboom»

At the time of the shots, the original Vaudois was well aware of the potential of the material. Once home, he realizes his excellence. And decides to promote it: he will thus devote a good part of his time to it – he also does journalism – during the twenty years that followed. First by publishing the series of photos at Éditions Riverboom, name of a house he co-created in 2006 in homage to an eponymous river crossed in Afghanistan. These picture books play on multiplication, comparison, enlargement. A unique photographic work of its kind.

Claude Baechtold thought he had lost the camcorder tapes forever. In 2020, he found them by chance and decided to exploit them. He is putting together a documentary called… “Riverboom”. The film is currently being released in French-speaking cinemas. An opportunity to see the multiple talents of this director-photographer who, once again, surpasses himself and innovates. His feature film is great cinema, awarded at various festivals: a technical feat, given the rudimentary filming conditions. The result is at the same time general public, informative, intimate, funny, exciting. The author says he has entered the world of the big screen and intends to stay there. He is preparing a second project.

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