Alwin H. Küchler

Biography

Alwin H. Küchler (born in Düsseldorf in 1965) is a German cinematographer whose career spans European art-house films and large commercial productions in Hollywood. He arrived at the camera by an indirect route: he first worked as an assistant to a fashion photographer, and his interest in filmmaking grew when he helped his friend Jakob Claussen, later a film producer, on the shoot of a student film.

From 1990 to 1994 he studied cinematography at the National Film and Television School in Britain, where he met Lynne Ramsay and made several short films with her. That partnership led to his feature debut, Ratcatcher (1999), directed by Ramsay. He then worked on independent projects such as Morvern Callar and Code 46, and later on bigger films including Divergent, Steve Jobs and Hanna.

He is married to the director Ngozi Onwurah, and they have one daughter. His credits also include documentaries, series and TV movies, and his work remains a useful reference for anyone following British and European cinematography from the late nineties and the two-thousands.

Key films

• Ratcatcher (1999), his feature debut, directed by Lynne Ramsay.
• Code 46 (2003), directed by Michael Winterbottom, an example of his restrained approach to science fiction.
• Divergent (2014), one of his large-budget Hollywood productions.
• Steve Jobs (2015), directed by Danny Boyle, built around long dialogue scenes.