Christopher Munch

Christopher Munch is an American writer-director-producer. Self-taught in filmmaking and a native of Southern California (by way of Boston), he began making films as a youngster. He is the son of astrophysicist Guido Münch and writer Louise Fernandez. He cites such American independents as Robert M. Young and Victor Nunez, along with the drama presented by Lindsay Law as part of the PBS series "American Playhouse," as inspirations in the early '80s, and later John Cassavetes and Gregg Araki, each of whom embodied a type of personal storytelling and production model to which Munch was drawn. Five of Munch's feature films played at Sundance, and his first, The Hours and Times (1991), a speculative biopic of Beatles' manager Brian Epstein, won a special jury prize there. A micro-budget "kitchen-table" production that was shot in Spain, The Hours and Times went on to wide critical acclaim in the U.S. and England. An impossible dream was the overarching theme of Munch's second feature, the sprawling period drama Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day (1996), based on a true story Munch had read as a child of a young trolley mechanic who tries to save a doomed short-line railroad to Yosemite National Park. Its award-winning cinematography -- by Munch's frequent collaborator, Rob Sweeney -- was inspired by the early landscape photography of Carelton Watkins, while the film's title was suggested by the landmark poem of Octavio Paz, Piedra de Sol. More than a decade later, Munch returned to wilderness filmmaking with Letters from the Big Man (2011), a New York Times Critics' Pick that featured a lauded central performance by Lily Rabe. Shot in remote parts of southern Oregon, and set against the backdrop of a controversial fire salvage, it received wide attention for its groundbreaking, realistic take on the mythology of sasquatch-bigfoot. Munch's other notable features have included The Sleepy Time Gal (2001), which starred Jacqueline Bisset in the acclaimed role of a mother at the end of her life seeking to reconnect with a daughter given up for adoption at birth. Munch has occasionally worked as an editor for other directors he admires, and he cites this work as having strengthened his writing and directing skills. He is a past Guggenheim fellow, recipient of the Wolfgang Staudte Prize at Berlin, winner of the "Someone To Watch" Independent Spirit Award, and has been featured in two Whitney Biennial exhibitions.