Profiles: Erwin Goggel | Proimágenes Colombia

Erwin Goggel Imfeld was born on January 8, 1949, in Sopo, Cundinamarca province. He has dual Colombian and Swiss citizenship, and speaks German, French, English, and Spanish. In the 1970s, he became one of the pioneers of Colombian filmmaking, with a long list of credits as a producer, director, and cinematographer on more than 20 feature films.
 
Goggel studied economics at the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia and obtained a degree in scenography and stage design from the Schauspiel Akademie in Zurich, Switzerland. During his career, he has received numerous awards for his acting, production, directing, screenplays, and cinematography, including first prize at the Latin American Theater Festival of Manizales for Canto del Fantoche Lusitano, Celestina, and the feature film Con su música a otra parte, (1984) by Camila Loboguerrero. He also acted in Daniel Winograd’s short film En el espejo (1978).
 
Goggel has served as a producer, camera operator, and director of photography on his many productions. He directed the short films Lucero siempre me espera (1977), Maromas, la muerte de un infame (1978), and Música para un amigo (1981). He was co-director of Balada de la primera muerte (1979) along with Sebastián Ospina and was director, director of photography, and camera operator for the short film Buses (1982). He was director of photography on short films including Arturo Navarrete (1982) and Celador o imagen (1986), by Jorge Echeverri; Detrás del día (1982), by Luís E. Hoyos; Los cuentos del capitán III (1982), by Jorge Nieto; Pepos (1983), by Jorge Aldana; El curandero de Cocalito (1985), by Luís Alberto Restrepo and Jorge Aldana; Agua ardiente (1986), by Luís González; Maletas (1981) and Con amigos así (1986), by Luís Alberto Restrepo; A 300 metros retén (1987), co-directed with Jorge Aldana; and Bochinche en el Barrio de Arriba (1987), by Alberto Vides and Luís González.
 
He has participated as a producer and in other roles in numerous feature films, including Lumbalú, baile del muerto (1992) and Jorge Echeverri’s La voz de las alas, for which he was producer and director of photography. Goggel also served as executive producer and camera operator for the acclaimed Colombian film The Rose Seller (1998), directed by Víctor Gaviria, which was screened in the Official Competition at Cannes, won Best Director at the Viña del Mar Festival, and was nominated for the Audience Award at the San Sebastian Film Festival. He produced and co-directed alongside Sergio Navarro and Víctor Gaviria the documentary Cómo poner a actuar pájaros (1998), which features interviews with the young stars of The Rose Seller. He produced and directed Del Palenque de San Basilio (2003), a mosaic of four episodes documenting life in black communities in Colombia’s Caribbean coast region, which won the Critics Award for Best Film at the 44th Cartagena International Film Festival (Colombia, 2004). He produced Juan Camilo Ramírez’s documentary Intervención (2005) and Juan Fischer‘s Buscando a Miguel (2007), nominated for Best Film at the Beijing Film Festival. He was also producer and camera operator for Carlos Gaviria’s Portraits in a Sea of Lies(2010), winner of the Best Ibero-American Film and Best Actress awards at the Guadalajara International Film Festival (Mexico, 2010) and Official Selection at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival (Germany, 2010).
 
Most recently, he has been executive producer of Víctor Gaviria's The Animal's Wife (2017); of the documentary about the film, Buscando al animal, by Dani Goggel; and of the short film Content, also directed by Dani Goggel.

Last updated: March 2017.