Christian Frei was 17 when he first realised his vocation. As a schoolboy in Solothurn, Switzerland, he became intrigued by what lay beyond the walls of a monastery he passed every day. The day-to-day lives of the young monks represented an alien world, a hidden, fascinating world he could never enter.

Armed with a tiny Super-8 camera, Frei and a few school friends not only gained access to this forbidden realm, but were also given deep insights into the moral and spiritual life of an institution normally hidden behind walls and stereotypes.

“Documentary filmmaking allowed me to look at the structure of a hidden society,” says Frei. “Whereas fiction filmmaking unfortunately often deals with clichés and stereotypes, documentary filmmaking allows us to show a much richer world of emotions and conflicts, the fullest range of human experience. And as American documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman once said: There is great drama in every bit of so-called ordinary lifre.”

Frei, now 42, went on to study visual media at the Department of Journalism and Communication at the University of Fribourg and has been an independent director and producer for nearly two decades, as well as working regularly for Swiss television.

His latest film, War Photographer, was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars in 2002. Its subject, photojournalist James Nachtwey, told Frei he was trying to raise a sense of humanity in his work. “This is probably what I am trying to achieve too,” says Frei. We are pleased to welcome Christian to Cape Town, courtesy of Pro Helvetia. He is a Close Encounters Laboratory tutor.