Christian Frei is a Swiss

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 filmmaker. He is mostly known for his two films War Photographer

War Photographer

War Photographer is a documentary by Christian Frei about the photographer James Nachtwey. As well as telling the story of an iconic man in the field of war photography, the film addresses the broader scope of ideas common to all those involved in war journalism, as well as the issues that they...

(2001) and The Giant Buddhas

The Giant Buddhas

The Giant Buddhas is a documentary by Swiss filmmaker Christian Frei about the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamyan in Afghanistan. It was released in March 2006...

(2005). Both deal with topics and themes more or less linked to war

War

War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...

 and intolerance

Toleration

Toleration is "the practice of deliberately allowing or permitting a thing of which one disapproves. One can meaningfully speak of tolerating, ie of allowing or permitting, only if one is in a position to disallow”. It has also been defined as "to bear or endure" or "to nourish, sustain or preserve"...

.

Born in 1959, in Schönenwerd

Schönenwerd

Schönenwerd is a municipality in the district of Olten in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland.-Geography:Schönenwerd has an area, , of . Of this area, or 10.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 43.2% is forested...

, Switzerland, Christian Frei studied visual media in the Department of Journalism and Communication at the University of Fribourg

University of Fribourg

The University of Fribourg is a university in the city of Fribourg, Switzerland.The roots of the University can be traced back to 1582, when the notable Jesuit Peter Canisius founded the Collège Saint-Michel in the City of Fribourg. In 1763, an Academy of law was founded by the state of Frobourg...

. He made his first documentary

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

, Die Stellvertreterin (The Representative) in 1981. Since 1984 he has been working as an independent filmmaker. He also works regularly with the Swiss National German-speaking television, the Schweizer Fernsehen DRS.