Veteran film historian and critic Ron Holloway dies at 76
Matthew Kruk
Veteran film historian and critic Ron Holloway dies at 76
17 December, 2009 | By Martin Blaney
The international film festival circuit will not be the same following
the sad news that the veteran film historian, critic and filmmaker Ron
Holloway died in Berlin on Wednesday morning at the age of 76.
Hailing from Peoria, IIlinois, Holloway had come to Paris at the end of
the 1960s as a Rockefeller Fellow on a two-year grant and completed a
doctoral thesis on "The Religious Dimension in the Cinema, with
particular reference to the films of Carl Theodor Dreyer, Ingmar Bergman
and Robert Bresson" at the University of Hamburg.
He had just completed his dissertation when an offer came from Variety
to serve as the US trade paper's correspondent for Germany and Eastern
Europe. He and his wife Dorothea Moritz moved to Berlin in 1976 after
Ron was invited by the newly appointed Berlinale festival director Wolf
Donner to become a member of the Berlinale selection committee with
responsibility for Russia. In addition, he played an instrumental role
in the setting up of the German Films sidebar which Donner launched in
1977 to spotlight certain types of cnema which had been neglected
beforehand.
In 2007, Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick recognised the Holloways'
special contribution to the festival over 30 years by presenting them
with the Berlinale Camera Award.
Apart from his writings for publications as diverse as The Hollywood
Reporter, Moving Pictures, Financial Times, Herald Tribune and many
academic journals in Europe and the US, Ron had been known at festivals
around the globe for the journal KINO - German Film & International
Reports which he published from Berlin with his wife Dorothea.
Launched in 1979 to coincide with a German Film Tour in the US, the film
magazine celebrated its 30th anniversary this autumn with a jubilee
edition including tributes from Dieter Kosslick, Wim Wenders, Volker
Schl�ndorff, Andreas Dresen, and Regina Ziegler among many friends and
colleagues from around the globe.
Ron Holloway directed two documentaries on the filmmakers Elem Klimov
and Sergei Paradjanov as well as two TV features about film - Made in
Germany and Sundance for public broadcaster ZDF. He was also a
co-founder of the Chicago Center for Film Study and the Cleveland
Cinematheque.
His awards included the German Cross of Merit (the equivalent of the UK's
OBE), Polish Rings, the Gold Medaille Cannes, the American Cinema
Foundation Award, and the Diploma for Support of Russian Cinema.
Just a week before his death, Ron had been presented with the German
Film Critics' Association (VDFK) Honorary Award in recognition of "his
tireless commitment for the international circulation of German and East
European cinema."
"The New German Cinema of the 70s owes its worldwide success in large
part to the journalistic support from Ron Holloway," the critics' body
had said.
Film festivals like the Berlinale and Cannes will not now be the same
without the familar figure of Ron Holloway reaching into his shoulder
bag to produce the latest issue of KINO - German Film hot of the presses
to slip into a colleague's pocket.