Roger Walch (*1965) is a Swiss born filmmaker and musician who has been living in Japan for more than 15 years.

Education and early career:

Roger obtained his MA degree in Japanese Studies and Social Anthropology from the University of Zurich (Switzerland) in 1996. He studied documentary filmmaking with Swiss director H.U. Schlumpf in Zurich and 16 mm filmmaking with Japanese director Katsu Kanai at the Image Forum Institute in Tokyo. Before coming to Japan, Roger worked as a movie theatre manager for an arthouse cinema in St.Gallen, Switzerland, and was editor-in-chief for a cultural magazine.

Filmmaking:

Roger directed his first short-film "Yuwaku 1". in 2002. "Yuwaku 2" (21 min, J 2004) was nominated for the Best Picture Award at the CO2 Short-Film Festival in Osaka 2005. The documentary film "Even a large River starts with a Drop of Water" won the Friendship Prize at the International Documentary Film Festival of the Aichi Expo 2005 in Japan and was broadcasted by Japanese and Swiss TV stations. In 2006 Roger was invited to show his art video "Teahouse of a Homeless Prince" at the Festival du The (Tea Festival) in Paris, France. In 2007 he was commissioned to make a documentary about Japanese photographer Iwaki Tadao.
Roger directed the 63 minute long narrative feature film "Tengu" (starring Ted Taylor, Mimori Sento and legendary Japanese actor/singer Kan Mikami) in 2009. In 2010 the narrative "Children of Water" (51 min) followed.

TV Work:

In the past years Roger has been working as a camera operator for several European TV documentaries and reports for channels like FR 3, FR 5, ARTE, TSR and MDR. He has also been shooting and directing a couple of music videos.

Journalism:

Apart from being a Filmmaker, Roger is a Freelance Writer and has been publishing articles about Japan and Japanese culture in newspapers and magazines such as NZZ, Tagblatt, Saiten, Kansai Time Out and News.ch. Speaking fluent Japanese, he was a part-time commentator for the Fuji TV show "Nippon @ World".

Influences:

Roger admires Japanese filmmakers Seijun Suzuki, Shuji Terayama and Shohei Imamura for their esthetic vision and their imaginative movies.