September 2024 in Vienna.
Tuschinski's paternal family is of Bukovinian nobility and received the aristocratic title "Ritter von" during the Austrian-Hungarian era. During WW2, the family lost their property and had to flee their home town of Czernowitz. Both of Alexander Tuschinski's parents were born in Romanian Sighișoara and emigrated to West Germany in 1983, where Tuschinski was born in 1988. As a child, he watched silent films, slapstick-films and early sound films on VHS cassette with his father Paul Tuschinski (1945-2009), leading to a fascination with silent movie aesthetics, montage and camera tricks. In elementary school, Tuschinski acted in school theater performances. As a pupil, starting in 2006, he produced several comedic short films and music videos with his parents' Hi8 camera, including Killer Squirrels. Early on, he discovered his desire to make films with unusual structures and elements, as he felt in reality, moods and situations can switch in any moment, as well. Tuschinski originally wanted to study physics or classical composition, but changed his mind shortly before enrolling at university, realizing that film was his main passion. He then studied Audiovisual Media at Hochschule der Medien in Stuttgart.
At age 20, Tuschinski, parallel to his studies, in 2008/2009 wrote and directed the no-budget feature film comedy Menschenliebe, inspired by observations of student life and dating. The cast consisted of amateur actors found among Tuschinski's friends and acquaintances. Beside, he wrote his debut novel Das Fahrzeug. Afterward, again parallel to his studies, Tuschinski produced the documentary Quasicrystal Research and the music video Mutant Calculator. The three films went on to win numerous awards mainly in the United States, which was covered in German press and on German TV. From around 2010, Tuschinski started filming first scenes for his next low-budget feature film Break-Up. During this time, he reached out to German film director Hugo Niebeling whose films he considered influential. They became friends, and Niebeling made positive remarks about Tuschinski's works.
April 2009: Filming Menschenliebe.
In Summer 2011, Tuschinski graduated Hochschule der Medien as a Bachelor of Engineering in Audiovisual Media. His Bachelor's thesis focused on reconstructing Tinto Brass' original intentions for the film Caligula that, in the 1970s, had been changed in editing without the director's input. From October 2011, Tuschinski enrolled at University of Stuttgart to study history and literature, which he graduated as a B.A. and later M.A.
In 2012, Tuschinski restored several of Tinto Brass' 1960s films using material from the director's private archive, and they were screened at a retrospective in Hollywood. In 2014, he was called an "encyclopledic Brass expert", and an essay of his was published with the British Blu-ray release of Brass' film The Key.
Timeless, produced independently with a low budget mainly in Stuttgart in 2014/15, was Tuschinski's biggest project until then. The cast included Harry Lennix, Rick Shapiro and Angus Macfadyen, whom Tuschinski had met at film festivals, in addition to Helmut Berger and Zachi Noy. On the occasion, Lennix called Tuschinski "an avant-gardist and neo-classical director". As several people helped the production without expecting payment, sequences like a WW2 battle featuring a Soviet tank were possible despite being initially planned with fewer props and sparser settings.
August 2015: With Helmut Berger on the set of Timeless.
Parallel to this, Tuschinski assisted Hugo Niebeling in restoring and re-editing B7 - Beethoven Seven, in addition to together editing Apotheosis of Dance. Around the same time, Tuschinski's own experimental short film Gold. set the last movement of Beethoven's seventh symphony to images of nature and decay.
July 2015: Hugo Niebeling and Alexander Tuschinski editing "B7 - Beethoven Seven" in Stuttgart.
After "Timeless", Tuschinski produced and directed several short films between 2017-2019, including the silent film Woyzeck, the experimental music film Cycle-Kreislauf, as well as several documentary portraits of artists of his friend circle. Among those, Caligari in the Desert was a submission to the 91st Academy Awards, and The Songwriter of Botnang was screened at several international festivals. In late 2017, Tuschinski filmed first scenes for an upcoming feature film Revolution! including Helmut Berger's last appearance in as an actor. While the film has been shelved, some of its scenes were used in Gas-Shaped Light and in the autobiographic documentary Cutting Squares.
In 2018, Tuschinski's research into, and interest in, Tinto Brass's work on "Caligula" was examined in Mission Caligula. At the premiere in Los Angeles, Tuschinski made a joint announcement with Kelly Holland, then-owner of Penthouse Magazine and rightsholder of "Caligula", regarding a proposed new cut of the film. The announced project would have aimed for Brass to restore and finish his 1970s workprint of "Caligula" with Tuschinski's assistance. In case Brass would decline to work on the film, Tuschinski would have finished the workprint according to his reconstruction of Brass' 1970s style and plans. However, the project did not come to pass. That year, Tuschinski also published his second novel Fetzenleben, which he had written in 2014/15.
In Summer 2019, Tuschinski started filming Fetzenleben, a feature film adaption of his own novel. The film was freely adapted, focusing on a love story set in Paris and changing many aspects from the novel to fit the new setting and focus. Filming started in August 2019, the cast consisting of German and international actors. As with his prior feature films, Tuschinski improvised many scenes and edited the film himself. Additionally, he wrote and performed much of the film's soundtrack. He considers it one of his most important works.
August 2019: Firmling "Fetzenleben" in Paris.
During corona time, from 2020-22, Tuschinski produced several documentaries and a concept album Cut Squares. Eugen Zentner considers them part of 2020s German counter-culture. Early 2021, the docu-comedy Statue of Liberty documents Tomas Kurth's alias vanderkurth's life and his quest to build a "Statue of Liberty of Stuttgart" during lockdown. Throughout the film, its making is part of the documented process, giving it an experimental meta layer. The following year, Tuschinski was editing consultant for Freedom Parade - Tanz um dein Leben!, which documents the political activism of the Berlin-based group. Later in 2022, Tuschinski released his own political documentaries Aly Bayo - Ambassador of Peace, Mahnwache and ultimately the feature-length Flüstern und Lachen (Whisper and Laugh). The latter, filmed at 30 demonstrations throughout Germany, portrays musician Yann Song King, the German protest culture and what it was like for "unvaccinated" people in Germany, told from the protestors' point of view. Tuschinski produced these films entirely by himself, filming on a smartphone.
From 2023, Tuschinski began researching and publicly discussing his paternal family history, which he addresses in the autobiographical documentary Cutting Squares.
October 2022: Firmling "Whisper and Laugh / Flüstern und Lachen" in Dresden, with Yann Song King.