Carl Koch (director)

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Carl Koch or Karl Koch (30 July 1892 in Nümbrecht, Germany – 1 December 1963 in Barnet, England) was a German art historian, film director and writer with many secondary credits including collaborations with his wife Lotte Reiniger, the animator of The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926). In these collaborations, Koch often managed the camera work, which was mounted above Reiniger's animation table.

Koch was an art historian,^[1] and before he met Reiniger, he made films for museums about art history and other educational matters. ^[2]

Other than his work with Reiniger, Koch is perhaps best known as assistant to Jean Renoir, who helped get Koch and Reiniger exit visas from Germany in 1936. Koch and Renoir, during the filming of La Grande Illusion (in which Koch has an uncredited role), discovered that Koch's artillery unit had actually fired on Renoir's airplane during World War I.^[3]

In 1939, Koch and Renoir began an adaptation of Tosca at Mussolini's invitation. The French government urged Renoir to take the project as a way to keep Italy on their side as the war escalated, but Renoir had to abandon this project when Italy entered the war against France. Koch completed the film as "Carlo Koch", with Luchino Visconti as his assistant.

After the war, in 1949, Koch moved with his wife to England where they settled in an artists' community called the Abbey Arts Centre in New Barnet. Together, they made 13 silhouette films for television and many others for various other producers in these later years.^[4]