As if it were yesterday ...
12/28/2023
There are days that you never forget: birthdays, wedding anniversaries, or even days like September 11, 2001, when everyone probably remembers exactly where they were when they learned that planes had flown into the World Trade Center towers in New York.
Tomorrow marks the tenth anniversary of another of these very special and incisive days. The news of seven-time F1 world champion Michael Schumacher's skiing accident was broadcast up and down the airwaves from morning to night. Initially, it didn't sound quite as fatal as it later turned out to be. Michael's state of health was kept under wraps by his family from the beginning until today, i.e. for ten long years. We want to respect that.
ARD will be broadcasting a documentary about the exceptional talent from Kerpen tonight and tomorrow evening. Divided into the five themes "Gravel Pit", "Living Room", "Red", "Time Out" and "Man", it will look back on the seven-time world champion. To mark the sad tenth anniversary, Bayrischer Rundfunk has put together a lavishly produced documentary series about Michael's life and career.
Formula 1 reporter Andreas Troll, who wrote and directed "Being Michael Schumacher", allows many contemporary witnesses to have their say, describing Michael's difficult path from the bottom to the top in their own words. Fascinating footage from Schumi's early karting days to the end of his F1 career (2012) was pulled from various archives.
Accompanied by a professional cameraman, the author also visited yours truly in person. I can say with a clear conscience that Michael Schumacher is the person I have photographed the most, or perhaps better, the most often in my photographic career over all these years, even more than my own children. Thousands and thousands of slides of him fill my archive, which also contains all of his F1 races from my perspective. Even today, the first question I am always asked when I give a presentation or make a public appearance is: "Do you know how Michael Schumacher is doing?"
That's why this documentary is not only worth seeing for Schumi fans, no, it shows once again the great Schumi hype and makes it clear why the fate of the 91-time GP winner continues to touch so many people around the world.
"Being Michael Schumacher" will be broadcast for the first time today (28.12.2023) and tomorrow evening (29.12.2023) from 23:25 on ARD.
