Documentary

About

Lorenz Huber is a freelance videographer based in Istanbul and Zurich. Over the last ten years, he has developed himself from a corporate shooter in Switzerland to an international news and documentary cameraman and editor working with a range of different networks and newspapers like CNN International, the New York Times or Eurosport. 

While constantly working as a freelancer he also did a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Communications at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences. After finishing his studies in 2017 he spent half a year in Tajikistan to shoot reports for the Swiss Caritas and then relocated to China where he stayed from 2018 to 2021. In his three years in East Asia, he intensively covered topics like the suppression of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang, the massive protests in Hong Kong, and of course the coronavirus. During this time Lorenz started to diversify from news coverage into documentaries, working together with the BBC's Panorama or with Arte on various projects.

In late 2021 Lorenz Huber returned to Europe and then after a quick stop in Buenos Aires set his focus on the Middle East. In the spring of 2022, he relocated to Istanbul where he started to work closely together with the CNN International Bureau, shooting news, features, and business for the network. This included the intense monthlong coverage of the devastating Turkey-Syria earthquake, which struck in early 2023 and was the most deadly quake to hit the region in modern history. Together with the CNN team, Lorenz was also among the first foreign reporters to get access to the opposition-held region of Northwest Syria, where they reported on the impact of the disaster on the already war-torn Idlib province and its people.

After Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th of that same year and Israel started its devastating military campaign Lorenz joined the CNN operation that covered the war. The four months-long assignment included embedded trips into the Gaza Strip where he was reporting alongside correspondent Jeremy Diamond.

More than one million Uyghurs - 're-educated' through forced labour, imprisonment and sterilisation. It is a silent genocide happening behind the walls of these camps. What is the government's plan in Xinjiang? ARTE takes viewers into this region where surveillance has turned into the total control of an entire population.

TVs, computers, video games, and smartphones are omnipresent in our life. What can the latest science tell us about the effect that this constant exposure to screens has on us? Which parts of society are affected the most? What kind of consequences does this exposure have for young children and adolescents and their future? Experts, contemporary witnesses, and researchers provide answers to these questions.

For Raphaël Hitiers documentary about the impact on screens on our life Antoine Védeilhé of Keyi Productions and I were shooting the scenes in China (starting at 35:55).

In the picturesque little town of Beypazarı, everything is about carrots. Beypazarı lies in the middle of vast fields, where around 60% of Turkey's carrots grow every year. In the town center, tourists can buy a wider range of carrot products like soap against wrinkles or carrot döner, or just take selfies in front of the huge carrot statue in the town center.

For once it was not Beijing leading the list of China’s most popular tourist destinations during its national holiday, Golden Week. This year it was Wuhan attracting the biggest number of travelers. It is seen as honorable to visit the town and to support its economy which suffered so much under the long lockdown. From the epicenter of the pandemic to tourist hotspot, Wuhan has come a long way. Months of propaganda created a national pride for the “hero city” that went through so much and managed to emerge (under the capable hands of the Communist Party of course) as a completely safe place for tourism.

For the Wall Street Journal’s piece about the national tourism to the former epicenter, I visited Wuhan during the golden week.

Story and Editing by Sharon Stone of the Wall Street Journal.

Fixed by Jie Xiong

Yevgeny Savin is the current president of independent Russian football club Krasava. Savin has openly spoken out against Russia and the war in Ukraine, standing in solidarity with Ukranians. In this episode of The Power of Sport, he speaks about the importance of standing up for what you believe in.

For China’s self driving car startups the Covid-19 pandemic turned out to be more of an opportunity than a crisis. Their main competitors in the US are still paralyzed by the impact of spiraling virus cases in the country. Road-testing, which is essential for the development of the technology has come to a halt. China on the other hand has recovered quickly. Its autonomous vehicle industry is now pushing ahead, ramping up production and profiting from the latest 5G infrastructure, financed and installed by the government.

 

For the Wall Street Journal’s piece about China’s push in the race for autonomous vehicles I visited the sites of AutoX in Shanghai and Shenzhen.

 

Story and Editing by Clément Bürge of the Wall Street Journal

It’s the world’s biggest afforestation program: China’s Green Belt initiative. One of China’s many environmental problems is the spread of the Gobi desert. It already covers a quarter of the Countries area and it keeps growing. In an attempt to stop the desertification, the Chinese government started in the Seventies to plant millions of trees in its northern provinces, using local farmers living in these areas. The project is still ongoing and in many places, it seems to have been successful. 

Story by Claudia Stahel

Camera and editing: Lorenz Huber

When the Province of Xinjiang opened its borders after the pandemic lockdown last September, Yvonne Murray from RTÉ, Anna Fifield from the Washington Post and I went to Kashgar. The city in the heart of Xinjiang used to be dominated by a rich Islamic culture and history. It is home to the country’s largest mosque and the vast majority of the population is of Uighur ethnicity. It is no surprise that a number of China’s reeducation camps, where hundreds of thousands of Uighurs are detained, are located here. We found some of the former camps deserted and spotted vast new prison-like facilities seemingly waiting to go in service. The outcome of this trip was three TV pieces on RTÉ and Channel 4, two major stories in the Washington Post and a radio piece on RTÉ.


One of Tajikistans biggest problems is the massive deforestation taking place on it's slopes. In an effort to return this dangerous trend Caritas Switzerland in Tajikistan implemented an afforestation programme. This film was made as a communication tool for Caritas Switzerland, documenting the ongoing process of afforestation.