"The interest I have in Pratt from my adolescence till now is due to my fascination with a life that I feel was both physically rewarding and emotionally intriguing. Pratt traveled, created, drank, had sex, rode horses and danced his way to the end of his days. He opened mysterious doors behind which he found treasures that he tried his hardest to understand, putting them into the form of drawing. These esoteric discoveries became more and more important over the years, overshadowing physical pleasures. This is the mysterious journey of a man, an artist, towards an absolute. A journey made up of several stages, each one more profound than the last. My commitment to developing a trilogy on the life of Hugo Pratt therefore corresponds to a profound need, an attempt to experience a human evolution." [Stefano Knuchel]
Stefano Knuchel (Locarno, 1966) spent his childhood traveling around Europe with his family. He studied music, acting and dance, self-taught. In 1987 he received his diploma as a Big Band arranger. In 1988, he became a deejay for the Italian-language Swiss Radio Rete 3. In 1998 he moved to Swiss Television as a writer and presenter of experimental programmes and started working as a critic. In 2004, he founded the production company Venus and Beyond and directed his first documentary, Nocaut, which was presented at the Locarno Film Festival (Semaine de la critique). In 2009 his documentary Hugo en Afrique was selected for the Horizons competition at the Venice Film Festival. Quand j'étais Cloclò (2017) is an autobiographical documentary in which he recounts the tragicomic wanderings of his own family.
