Sebastian Ugovsky-Strassburger
- Director
- Composer
- Cinematographer
Sebastian "Gilmano" Ugovsky-Strassburger is a German novelist, essayist, writer, screenwriter, play wright, theater and film director, cinematographer, composer, music producer and conductor with notable stations and stopovers of work in Paris, London, Napoli, Berlin, New York, Los Angeles, Moscow and many other places in the world. He is the son of the German theater and film actress Karin Ugowski and the recently died theater and film director Helmut Straßburger and has German, Jewish and Silesian ancestry. His prior fields of work are writing and staging concerning and referring issues addressed to the society. His work as a film maker can be assigned to a new generation of independent film d'auteur. Resulting from a classical music education in a school program for highly gifted, he is also certified as a classical pianist, multi-instrumentalist and is certified with perfect pitch (absolute hearing).
Back in the days, the very young and enthusiastic writer of early words and composer of first pieces of classical music grew up like a circus child, in the side wings of an old well-known Berlin theater, where his parents were playing and staging. Novels, prose, screenplays, stage plays, lyrics, treatises, essays: Writing became an early way of run-in, examination, analysis and involvement at surroundings in his young life long before being grown. Early reviewers of his writings like Peter Brasch (brother of director and author Thomas Brasch ("The Passenger", Tony Curtis) and brother-in-law of Katharina Thalbach who was co-acting with his father in the film "Das Blaue Licht" (_The Blue Light (1976)_), and step-uncle of Anna Thalbach) encouraged him to go on with his way of looking at the world and describing of things with a pen, leading to an intransigent court jester of current affairs and human nature. Brasch encouraged his writing and realized the urgency in his fiction writing and the impressiveness regarding his descriptions of observations and his sense for subtle meta-messaging, leading the reader to rethink common sense or prejudices in the human culture. The same with his staging's. Strongest motivation seems to be an unstoppable child-like inner asking of the big "why", and contributing to it with craft, keeping up diversity and public dialogue while wrapping it all with compelling stories.
His first stage writing "The Triangle" about a young Jewish boy living in the 1930's of Berlin, written with only 14 years, was translated in French, premiered and performed in the Banlieues of Paris as a street performance when he was only 15. In this young age he shows already his diversity and complex disposition for issues in the human society and confrontation and solution orientated thinking by staging and directing his first stage play and directing his young class mates as actors in his Berlin school years. A final performance of his graduating class, successful against all odds, because they had no artistic disposition at all. He early got sense for humanity, philosophical, political and social issues, matters, milieu studies and disaffection, what lead to his very involved writing series of treatises and essays over decades. His empathy "for others" and his idea of a better world is always retrievable in all of his work and in his uncompromising stand against mono cultural thinking, career thinking and against the believe in the "survival of the fittest" principle, especially in its purest and most imprudent simplicity without reflection and lack of careful and thoughtful consideration often shown as excuse for threads of inhumanity. A repeating topic in his writings is the human misconception and unawareness of the finite nature of life and the final death and the unawareness of the all involving responsibility for the future.
From first stage performances professionally playing classical piano and violin and by singing in choirs in Radio already with 4 years, his first poetry written with 12, his first stage play written with 14 up to his first performance as a Blues/Soul-Jazz singer and songwriter with 15, his first screen appearance as an actor with 16, his work stations as a writer in Paris and his appearance in the music production scene in London (UK) and in L.A. (US) in the 2000's in his 20's, he's gone a long way spreading over many artistic works, countries and milieu studies before he came back to Berlin building multiple recording studios, writing multiple screen plays and stage plays and producing multiple social engaged documentary films. His music (as a producer and composer) can be found all over the world, even in motion pictures and feature films in Europe and US (f.e. Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) or The Equalizer (2014), a film with Denzel Washington and Chloë Grace Moretz), in theatre staging's, in church choir performances, orchestra works, computer games and Urban music artist releases all over the next decades (often credited as "Gilmano", a pseudonym Spanish musicians gave him in the 2000's in his recording studios watching him by loop recording all parts of a band in one recording take by switching the instruments he plays and singing all choir voices in one shot).
Based on his personal background his work spreads over a comprehensive overall spanning variety of artistic expressions, what he commonly combines in his art works, mostly motivated by his questions and issues addressed to the human society. For his work as a film maker in the way of independent film d'auteur, screenplay development, directing, cinematography, music scoring and film editing coalesces and is implemented by the same single person showing a unique handwriting in his works. A concept, which was finally only a matter of continuity and time in his development. And it is based on what he calls "the re-traceable liability for a far-reaching statement" and files this as an issue with our society nowadays, where we often can't really backtrack when something goes wrong because of the disseminated liability and irresponsibility between each other and multiple departments.
Sebastian "Gilmano" Ugovsky-Strassburger is founder of the German music label Reqqord music (formally Slo' Jam) supporting artists with worldwide success, is founder and project lead of the German film production company Maursegler films and the founder of the VFX/GFX/Post department Maroqqo digital media in Berlin. He is active supporter and board member of several Open Source movements, supporter of the Green Hosting movement to decrease emission by the grow of the internet, is activist for gender equality and emancipation of Third World countries and actively supports environmental protection.
Back in the days, the very young and enthusiastic writer of early words and composer of first pieces of classical music grew up like a circus child, in the side wings of an old well-known Berlin theater, where his parents were playing and staging. Novels, prose, screenplays, stage plays, lyrics, treatises, essays: Writing became an early way of run-in, examination, analysis and involvement at surroundings in his young life long before being grown. Early reviewers of his writings like Peter Brasch (brother of director and author Thomas Brasch ("The Passenger", Tony Curtis) and brother-in-law of Katharina Thalbach who was co-acting with his father in the film "Das Blaue Licht" (_The Blue Light (1976)_), and step-uncle of Anna Thalbach) encouraged him to go on with his way of looking at the world and describing of things with a pen, leading to an intransigent court jester of current affairs and human nature. Brasch encouraged his writing and realized the urgency in his fiction writing and the impressiveness regarding his descriptions of observations and his sense for subtle meta-messaging, leading the reader to rethink common sense or prejudices in the human culture. The same with his staging's. Strongest motivation seems to be an unstoppable child-like inner asking of the big "why", and contributing to it with craft, keeping up diversity and public dialogue while wrapping it all with compelling stories.
His first stage writing "The Triangle" about a young Jewish boy living in the 1930's of Berlin, written with only 14 years, was translated in French, premiered and performed in the Banlieues of Paris as a street performance when he was only 15. In this young age he shows already his diversity and complex disposition for issues in the human society and confrontation and solution orientated thinking by staging and directing his first stage play and directing his young class mates as actors in his Berlin school years. A final performance of his graduating class, successful against all odds, because they had no artistic disposition at all. He early got sense for humanity, philosophical, political and social issues, matters, milieu studies and disaffection, what lead to his very involved writing series of treatises and essays over decades. His empathy "for others" and his idea of a better world is always retrievable in all of his work and in his uncompromising stand against mono cultural thinking, career thinking and against the believe in the "survival of the fittest" principle, especially in its purest and most imprudent simplicity without reflection and lack of careful and thoughtful consideration often shown as excuse for threads of inhumanity. A repeating topic in his writings is the human misconception and unawareness of the finite nature of life and the final death and the unawareness of the all involving responsibility for the future.
From first stage performances professionally playing classical piano and violin and by singing in choirs in Radio already with 4 years, his first poetry written with 12, his first stage play written with 14 up to his first performance as a Blues/Soul-Jazz singer and songwriter with 15, his first screen appearance as an actor with 16, his work stations as a writer in Paris and his appearance in the music production scene in London (UK) and in L.A. (US) in the 2000's in his 20's, he's gone a long way spreading over many artistic works, countries and milieu studies before he came back to Berlin building multiple recording studios, writing multiple screen plays and stage plays and producing multiple social engaged documentary films. His music (as a producer and composer) can be found all over the world, even in motion pictures and feature films in Europe and US (f.e. Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) or The Equalizer (2014), a film with Denzel Washington and Chloë Grace Moretz), in theatre staging's, in church choir performances, orchestra works, computer games and Urban music artist releases all over the next decades (often credited as "Gilmano", a pseudonym Spanish musicians gave him in the 2000's in his recording studios watching him by loop recording all parts of a band in one recording take by switching the instruments he plays and singing all choir voices in one shot).
Based on his personal background his work spreads over a comprehensive overall spanning variety of artistic expressions, what he commonly combines in his art works, mostly motivated by his questions and issues addressed to the human society. For his work as a film maker in the way of independent film d'auteur, screenplay development, directing, cinematography, music scoring and film editing coalesces and is implemented by the same single person showing a unique handwriting in his works. A concept, which was finally only a matter of continuity and time in his development. And it is based on what he calls "the re-traceable liability for a far-reaching statement" and files this as an issue with our society nowadays, where we often can't really backtrack when something goes wrong because of the disseminated liability and irresponsibility between each other and multiple departments.
Sebastian "Gilmano" Ugovsky-Strassburger is founder of the German music label Reqqord music (formally Slo' Jam) supporting artists with worldwide success, is founder and project lead of the German film production company Maursegler films and the founder of the VFX/GFX/Post department Maroqqo digital media in Berlin. He is active supporter and board member of several Open Source movements, supporter of the Green Hosting movement to decrease emission by the grow of the internet, is activist for gender equality and emancipation of Third World countries and actively supports environmental protection.
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