Hungarian film director, producer, screenwriter. He graduated from the Academy of Drama and Film as a film director in 1963. Afterwards he was working for the MAFILM News and Documentary Studio (1964-1976).

He was the member of the Balázs Béla Studio (BBS) which first was a film club (1951) and later, it was reestablished as an experimental documentary film studio (1961). The Studio opened its doors to “outsiders” from various fields, like artists or sociologists, who had not been involved officially in film production earlier. They contributed to a different view on a documentary film which one of the main examples is Schiffer’s film Cséplő Gyuri (1978). Like this BBS turned into a center of experimentalism with many of the influential representatives of the Neo-avantgarde scene as well.

Schiffer made several films about the Roma which were reflecting the results of István Kemény’s sociological researches in the seventies about the Roma in Hungary. Schiffer joined Kemény’s research team first as a car driver in 1970 and soon as a documentary film maker. He learned about the Roma in this way for many years.

In his films he followed the research themes and talks about the Roma in the aspect of housing, employment and education. Schiffer’s first major documentary about the Roma was Black Train/Fekete vonat. He was awarded with several prizes such as the Balázs Béla Prize (1971).