Christine Oestreicher

Christine Oestreicher began her film career in 1981 as a production assistant for the 50-minute documentary Chance, History, Art ..., about unconventional personalities such as Luis Buñuel, Jackson Pollock and other artists.

In 1982, Oestreicher was nominated for an Oscar by the Academy of Motion Pictures as well as a BAFTA from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts for her production of Couples and Robbers, but she did not win. Instead, the Oscar went to Paul Kemp and Shelley Levinson for their film Violet.[3][4]

In 1983, at the 55th Academy Awards, Oestreicher received the Oscar for her 25-minute comedy, A Shocking Accident, in the “Short Film (Live Action)” category.[1][2] The 1982 film, directed by James Scott, was about a bizarre incident involving a pig falling from a balcony, based on a story by Graham Greene, and was nominated at the 1983 BAFTAs.[5]

In her 1982 11-minute short fantasy film, The Cooler, Oestreicher worked with Ringo Starr and his wife Barbara Bach as well as with Paul McCartney and his wife Linda McCartney. In 1983, she produced, and James Scott directed, the television drama Every Picture Tells a Story based on Scott's life with his famous father. The screenplay was written by Shane Connaughton.[6]

The screenplay for Samson and Delilah (1985) was adapted from a D.H. Lawrence short story. Co-produced by Oestreicher and James Scott, the film tells a story about a landlady's confrontation with a man who claims to be her long-lost husband. It stars Bernard Hill and Lindsay Duncan and was directed by Mark Peploe. The film was nominated for a BAFTA award.[7][8]

Her 1987 production, High Season, featured a script by Mark Peploe and his sister Clare Peploe and starred Jacqueline Bisset, Kenneth Branagh and Irene Pappas.[7]

The 1990 comedy Strike It Rich (originally titled Loser Takes All) allowed Oestreicher to work again with director James Scott. In the film Robert Lindsay and Molly Ringwald play the leading roles in which a penniless couple tries to pay their bills by gambling successfully. The film, initially based on the 1955 novella Loser Takes All by Graham Greene, was recut and retitled by the studio with a different producer and director and included scenes not taken from Greene's story.[9]

For The Art of Remembering (2002), Oestreicher was the producer and, for the first time,[10] director of a documentary film in which 54 contemporary British letter cutters (engravers) work on a variety of media on themes of memory and loss. The film examines the artisans' work that is engraved on arches, standing stones, sundials, boulders, benches and rough-hewn stones as well as headstones and tablets. All are finely lettered and carved by hand.[11] An exhibition based on the film was later curated by Harriet Frazer and Oestreicher.[12]

• 1981: Chance, History, Art ...
• 1981: Couples and Robbers (short film)[13]
• 1982: The Cooler (short film)[13]
• 1982: A Shocking Accident (short film)[13]
• 1983: Every Picture Tells a Story[13][14]
• 1985: Samson and Delilah (short film)[15]
• 1987: High Season[7]
• 1989: Money Talks
• 1990: Strike it Rich[9][16]
• 2002: The Art of Remembering, Documentary; Direction and Production[10][11]

• 1982: Couples and Robbers, Oscar nomination, BAFTA nomination[3][4]
• 1983: A Shocking Accident, Oscar winner, BAFTA nomination[1][5]
• 1985: Samson and Delilah, BAFTA nomination[8]

• A Shocking Accident on IMDb
• Oestreicher's acceptance speech at the 1983 Academy Awards Ceremony