Thomas Fritschi currently teaches video production at DMACC. He pursued journalism right out of high school. Frisrichi said, “I became a photojournalist in eastern Europe before I came back to the states and studied journalism at California State University of Sacramento. After completion of my degree, I got a job at a local NPR affiliate station where I started writing and producing stories for radio.” With Thomas’s passion for his job, he wanted to expand his horizons. “I really wanted to do more than just write and use audio to create stories, I really wanted to show visuals. I combined all those things together and started making documentaries,” said Fritschi. He went to the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, where he earned his master’s in documentary and filmmaking.
Fritschi came back to the states and started his career as a teacher for many small schools when he found an advertisement for teaching at the Art Institution of California-Sacramento. He started teaching a film and photography class there until he transferred into film and video production full time. Fritschi said, “I taught everything from documentary, narrative, sound, acting, and everything else and in between.” The places he hastaught around the United States include Grand View College, Iowa Central College, San Joaquin Delta College, Linden High School, and many others. He taught at a college outside of the US in England for a time.
His passion was instilled early on. Fritschi said, “I had such good teachers to begin with, not only in high school but in my undergraduate as well as my master’s degree and the chance to work with Katie Mac who worked on a large film that I really enjoyed. Really for me it is curating talent in others and helping them develop and grow as my teachers have done for me.”
One of his students, James Briggs, said, “Thomas is a great teacher and knows a lot about what he has been teaching, and there are always examples that are really helpful. He has helped me gain the knowledge that I haven’t learned yet.”
In Fritschi’s past pursuits, he created a narrative film. “The first film I made was about Lee Harvey Oswald who was the assassin of John F. Kenedy, and his origin story. That was my first film and was aired on PBS. It was also an official selection at the Waterford Festival in Ireland,” Fritschi said.
Fritschi started a documentary in the UK about the depressing truth about our public educational system failing. Fritschi said, “The feature documentary I started, wasn’t recorded in video and was abandoned in 2014. Now, I am rewriting it as an aspiring story about the hidden wonders of education and about the best schooling system that is based in Finland.” Currently, he spends his extra time playing in the Mid-Iowa baseball League or MIBL and writing a book about a film piece he had done in the past, a memoir about his experiences and his family history, being a part of a larger documentary project he started with a friend in Ireland in 2024 about trauma and their effects on the human brain, while devoting time to the students he teaches and the lessons he gives to all his pupils. Briggs said, “He always has a strong personality from the time in class that I’ve known him. He allows you to in a way fail, but to grow from the mistakes you make.”
