Thomas Goltz

VIDEOs/DOCUMENTARIES

 

In addition to being a print journalist, over the years Goltz has also engaged in other media. Historically, this meant TV. His work in this regard has ranged from being a fixer for German television in Turkey in the 1980s, to stints (or sales of raw material that he shot) with Turkish, Japanese, Russian and UK/Euro TV to American outlets such as ABC/Nightline and CBS/60 Minutes. Subjects have been as varied as the search by Christian Fundamentalists for Noah's Ark atop Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey to the hard-core war reporting in Chechnya.

Along the video-way, he has also produced some feel-good pieces such as 'Mugham in Montana' (basically making a music video about Azerbaijani art music touring the American West) and an 'academic' piece resulting from the First Ever Diplomatic Simulation of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Conference at (!) Montana State University, Spring 2010. Here are some samples and Vimeo/YouTube links:

Chechnya/Samashki

 With the assistance of legendary producer Danny Schechter ('The News-Dissector') Goltz's documentary about the Samashki Massacre during the so-called 'first' Russian-Chechen war aired on the PBS 'Rights & Wrongs' program and became a finalist in the Rory Peck Awards in London in 1996. This resulted in a one-man-band, follow-up assignment for the BBC to explore the aftermath of journalistic presence in an extreme conflict zone and how 'the observer effects the observed.' The brutal film, available on Vimeo/YouTube also served as the skeleton of Goltz's Chechnya Diary book. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6qr2uw-_bc

Azerbaijan/On Aggregate

More recently, Goltz produced On-Aggregate: Champions Without A Home, an award-winning film on the Qarabag-Agdam refugee football/soccer club from Azerbaijan. It became a runner-up (one of three) at the annual SporTel contest sponsored by Prince Albert of Monaco in 2015, and has won subsequent awards. Here is the web-site link with trailer: https://vimeo.com/152029246

Black Sea/BSEC

This delightful film concerns a debate class on the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation ('BSEC') that Goltz created at Montana State University. (See 'Academic' for more information on this unique learning experience!) which was shown in Turkey, Greece and elsewhere as part of 'real' BSEC activities. See also 'Academic' on the home page.) https://vimeo.com/12782603

Mugham in Montana

In 2008, Goltz invited a group of traditional Azerbaijani musicians to tour Montana to perform their traditional art music. The result was an extraordinary tour across The Treasure State that left Cowboys and Indians gasping. https://vimeo.com/11112867 

An Oil Odyssey

Arguably, the wierdest film of the lot is a 'Music-Video' piece called 'An Oil Odyssey,' a fno-narration MTV-style treatment of a motorcycle trip down the so-called 'Pipeline To Nowhere' linking Caspian oil to international energy markets. Goltz and team brought the first symbolic barrel down the line via Soviet-era, side-car motorcycles. A photo-heavy book by the same name ('An Oil Odyssey') is available via Kindle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooAjLafg_NI