Phil Jutzi

Who was Phil Jutzi?

Phil Jutzi was a German cinematographer and film director.

Born Philipp Jutzi in Altleiningen as the son of a tailor, Jutzi was self-educated. In 1916 he made posters for a small movie theater in the Black Forest, having been rejected by the military during World War I because of a physical disability. In 1919 he was an administrator of the Internationale Film-Industrie company in Heidelberg, which specialized in detective movies and westerns. In 1923 he married Emmy Philippine Zimmermann, the sister of the actor Holmes Zimmermann, who acted in seven of his films; in May 1926 a daughter, Gisela, was born.

In 1925 Jutzi moved to Berlin, where he worked as a documentary cameraman for the Communist film company Welt-Film; in 1928/29 he directed the semidocumentary film Um's tägliche Brot. From 1926 he worked as a director for the leftist Prometheus Film, and on the basis of such films as Mutter Krausens Fahrt ins Glück became known as a leading director of proletarian films. At the beginning of 1928 he became a member of the Communist Party, but left it at the end of 1929.