TOP AUSTRIAN DIRECTORS!
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Andreas Prochaska was born on 31 December 1964 in Vienna, Austria. He is a director and editor, known for The Dark Valley (2014), The Unintentional Kidnapping of Mrs. Elfriede Ott (2010) and The Three Musketeers (1993). He is married to Astrid. They have four children.
Highly recommended by me :
DAS FINSTERE TAL / THE DARK VALLEY (2014)
IN 3 TAGEN BIST DU TOT 2
IN 3 TAGEN BIST DU TOT
DAS WUNDER VON KÄRNTEN / A DAY FOR A MIRACLE (TV Movie)
Wenn du wüsstest, wie schön es hier ist (TV Movie)- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Originally planning to become a lawyer, Billy Wilder abandoned that career in favor of working as a reporter for a Viennese newspaper, using this experience to move to Berlin, where he worked for the city's largest tabloid. He broke into films as a screenwriter in 1929 and wrote scripts for many German films until Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. Wilder immediately realized his Jewish ancestry would cause problems, so he emigrated to Paris, then the US. Although he spoke no English when he arrived in Hollywood, Wilder was a fast learner and thanks to contacts such as Peter Lorre (with whom he shared an apartment), he was able to break into American films. His partnership with Charles Brackett started in 1938 and the team was responsible for writing some of Hollywood's classic comedies, including Ninotchka (1939) and Ball of Fire (1941). The partnership expanded into a producer-director one in 1942, with Brackett producing and the two turned out such classics as Five Graves to Cairo (1943), The Lost Weekend (1945) (Oscars for Best Picture, Director and Screenplay) and Sunset Blvd. (1950) (Oscars for Best Screenplay), after which the partnership dissolved. (Wilder had already made one film, Double Indemnity (1944) without Brackett, as the latter had refused to work on a film he felt dealt with such disreputable characters.) Wilder's subsequent self-produced films would become more caustic and cynical, notably Ace in the Hole (1951), though he also produced such sublime comedies as Some Like It Hot (1959) and The Apartment (1960) (which won him Best Picture and Director Oscars). He retired in 1981.- Director
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Fritz Lang was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1890. His father managed a construction company. His mother, Pauline Schlesinger, was Jewish but converted to Catholicism when Lang was ten. After high school, he enrolled briefly at the Technische Hochschule Wien and then started to train as a painter. From 1910 to 1914, he traveled in Europe, and he would later claim, also in Asia and North Africa. He studied painting in Paris from 1913-14. At the start of World War I, he returned to Vienna, enlisting in the army in January 1915. Severely wounded in June 1916, he wrote some scenarios for films while convalescing. In early 1918, he was sent home shell-shocked and acted briefly in Viennese theater before accepting a job as a writer at Erich Pommer's production company in Berlin, Decla. In Berlin, Lang worked briefly as a writer and then as a director, at Ufa and then for Nero-Film, owned by the American Seymour Nebenzal. In 1920, he began a relationship with actress and writer Thea von Harbou (1889-1954), who wrote with him the scripts for his most celebrated films: Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922), Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924), Metropolis (1927) and M (1931) (credited to von Harbou alone). They married in 1922 and divorced in 1933. In that year, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels offered Lang the job of head of the German Cinema Institute. Lang--who was an anti-Nazi mainly because of his Catholic background--did not accept the position (it was later offered to and accepted by filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl) and, after secretly sending most of his money out of the country, fled Germany to Paris. After about a year in Paris, Lang moved to the United States in mid-1934, initially under contract to MGM. Over the next 20 years, he directed numerous American films. In the 1950s, in part because the film industry was in economic decline and also because of Lang's long-standing reputation for being difficult with, and abusive to, actors, he found it increasingly hard to get work. At the end of the 1950s, he traveled to Germany and made what turned out to be his final three films there, none of which were well received.
In 1964, nearly blind, he was chosen to be president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival. He was an avid collector of primitive art and habitually wore a monocle, an affectation he picked up during his early days in Vienna. After his divorce from von Harbou, he had relationships with many other women, but from about 1931 to his death in 1976, he was close to Lily Latte, who helped him in many ways.- Director
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Wolfgang Murnberger was born on 13 November 1960 in Wiener Neustadt, Austria. He is a director and writer, known for Himmel oder Hölle (1990), Come Sweet Death (2000) and Ich gelobe (1994).Highly recommended by me :
QUINTETT KOMPLETT (1998)- Writer
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- Actor
A true master of his craft, Michael Haneke is one of the greatest film artists working today and one who challenges his viewers each year and work goes by, with films that reflect real portions of life in realistic, disturbing and unforgettable ways. One of the most genuine filmmakers of the world cinema, Haneke wrote and directed films in several languages: French, German and English, working with a great variety of actors, such as Juliette Binoche, Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Toby Jones, Ülrich Muhe, Arno Frisch and the list goes on.
This grand figure from Austrian cinema was born in Germany on 23 March 1942, from a German father and an Austrian mother, with both parents being from the artistic world working as actors, a career that Michael also tried but without much success. At the University of Vienna he studied drama, philosophy and psychology, and after graduation he went on to become a film critic and TV editor. His career behind camera started with After Liverpool (1974), which he wrote and directed. He went on to direct five more TV films and two episodes from the miniseries "Lemminge" (1979)_.
The years spent on television works prompted him to finally direct his first cinema feature, during his early 40's, which is somewhat unusual for film directors. But it was worth waiting. In The Seventh Continent (1989), Haneke establishes the foundation of what his future cinema would be about: a cinema that doesn't provides answers but one that dares to throw more and more questions, a cinema that reflects and analyses the human condition in its darkest and unexpected ways outside of any Hollywood formula. Films that exist to confront audiences and not comfort them. In it, Haneke deals with the duality of social values vs. internal values while exposing an apparent perfect family that runs into physical and material disintegration for reasons unknown. It was the first time a film of his was sent to the Cannes Film Festival (out of competition lineup) but he managed to cause some commotion in the audience with polemic scenes that were meant to extract all possible reactions from the crowd.
His next ventures at the decade's turn was in dealing with disturbed youth and the alienation they have in separating reality from fiction, trying to intersect both to drastic results. In Benny's Video (1992), it's the disturbing story of a teen boy who experiences killing for the first time capturing the murder on tape, impressed by the power of detachment that films and videos can cause to people; and later on the highly controversial Funny Games (1997), where two teens hold a family hostage to play sadistic games just for their own sick amusement. The film cemented Haneke's name as one of the greatest authors of his generation but sparkled a great debate with its themes of violence, sadism and the influence those things have in audiences. At the 1997's Cannes Film Festival, it was the film that had the most walk-out's by the audience. In between both films, he released 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994) and Kafka's The Castle (1997), the latter being one of the rare times when Haneke developed an adapted work.
In the 2000's, he strongly continued in producing more outstanding works prone to debate and reflection in what would become his most prolific decade with the following films: Code Unknown (2000), The Piano Teacher (2001), Time of the Wolf (2003), Caché (2005), an American remake shot-by shot of Funny Games (2007) and The White Ribbon (2009). His study about romance versus masochism in The Piano Teacher (2001) was an intense work, with powerful performances by Isabelle Huppert and Benoit Magimel, that the Cannes jury in the year were so impressed that Haneke managed to actually reverse their award rules where it was decided that film entries at the festival couldn't win more than one main award (the two lead actors won awards and Haneke got the Grand Prize of the Jury, just lost the Palme d'Or). With The White Ribbon (2009), an enigmatic black-and-white masterpiece following the inception of Nazism in this pre WWI and WWII story focusing on repressed children living in this small village where strange events happen all the time and without any possible reasoning, Haneke conquered the world and audiences with an artistic and daring work that won his first Palme d'Or a Golden Globe as Best Foreign Language Film and received an Oscar nomination for the same category plus the cinematography work of Christian Berger.
2012 was the year that marked his supremacy in the film world with the release of the bold and beautiful Amour (2012), a love story with powerful real drama and one where Haneke removed most of his usual dark characteristics to present more quiet and calm elements without losing input in creating controversy. The touching story of George and Anne provided one the greatest moments of that year and earned Haneke his second and consecutive Palme d'Or at Cannes and his first Oscar nominations for Best Direction and Best Original Screenplay - and it was one of the several nominees for Best Picture Oscar, winning as Best Foreign Language Film.
After abandoning a flash-mob film project, he returned to the screen with Happy End (2017), a film dealing with the refugee crisis in Europe and again he debuted his film at Cannes, receiving mildly positive reviews.
Besides his film work, Haneke also directs theatre productions, from drama to opera, from Così fan tutte to Don Giovanni.- Actor
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Born in Wels in 1961, grew up in Vienna. Started writing and directing while still in school. His first film was aired on television in 1978. In 1980 he started studying screenwriting and directing at the Vienna Film Academy. Two films completed during his studies received international prizes and were screened at the Stadtkino, an arthouse cinema in Vienna. Spielmann graduated in 1987. Soon afterwards, he wrote and directed four cinema and made-for-TV films in succession.
In 1999, after several years of silence, his next feature film Die Fremde was Austria's nomination for the Foreign Language Oscar. This was followed by 'Spiel im Morgengrauen', a made-for-TV movie, and in 2004 the feature Antares.
Antares was shown internationally at more than 30 festivals, at arthouse theaters in many countries including France, the USA, and Germany. It was nominated by Austria to compete for the Foreign Language Oscar. Its explicit sex scenes spark heated debate among Academy members.
Since 2005 Spielmann has also written and directed for the stage.
In 2006 he was awarded the Upper Austrian State Prize for Culture in the category of film. The same year he founded the production company Spielmannfilm.Highly recommended by me :
REVANCHE- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
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Initially grew up wanting to be a violinist, but while at the University of Vienna decided to study law. While doing so, he became increasingly interested in American film and decided that was what he wanted to do. He became involved in European filmaking for a short time before going to America to study film.- Director
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Otto Ludwig Preminger was born in Wiznitz, Bukovina, Austria-Hungary. His father was a prosecutor, and Otto originally intended to follow his father into a law career; however, he fell in love with the theater in his 20's and became one of the most imaginative stage producers and directors. He was only 24 when engaged by Max Reinhardt to take over his theatre where he produced all kids of plays. He directed his first film in 1931, and came to the US in 1936 to direct 'Libel' on the Broadway stage. He then moved to Hollywood where he signed with Fox becoming the first independent producer / director .He alternated between stage and film until the great success of Laura (1944) made him an A-list director in Hollyood.
For two decades after "Laura was released in 1944, Preminger ranked as one of the top directors in the world. His powers began to wane after Advise & Consent (1962), and by the end of the decade, he was considered washed-up. However, such was the potency of his craftsmanship that he continued to direct major motion pictures into the 1970s, with Rosebud (1975) getting scathing reviews. His last directorial effort was The Human Factor (1979), which won him respectful notices.
Otto Preminger died on April 23, 1986 in New York City from the effects of lung cancer and Alzheimer's disease. He was 80 years old.- Director
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Stefan Ruzowitzky was born on 25 December 1961 in Vienna, Austria. He is a director and writer, known for The Counterfeiters (2007), The Inheritors (1998) and Hinterland (2021). He has been married to Birgit Sturm since 1999. They have two children.- Director
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- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Nikolaus Leytner was born on 26 October 1957 in Graz, Styria, Austria. He is a director and writer, known for The Tobacconist (2018), Ein halbes Leben (2009) and Ein Anfang von etwas (1995).Highly recommended by me :
DREI HERREN- Writer
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David Schalko is an author, director and CEO of Superfilm. He made a name for himself in Austria with "Sendung ohne Namen" (program without a name), which established a completely new genre in television from 2002 onwards. Numerous award-winning formats followed as part of ORF Thursday Night, such as "Willkommen Österreich" (since 2007).
Schalko is regarded as the most style-defining television producer of his generation in the German-speaking world. His most important fictional film works include "Aufschneider/Carve the Joint" (Ö 2010) with Josef Hader, the mockumentary "Das Wunder von Wien/ The miracle of Vienna " (Ö 2008), and the feature film "Wie man leben soll/The Way to Live" (Ö 2011) based on a novel by Thomas Glavinic.
Schalko's international TV breakthrough came with the award-winning mini- series "Braunschlag" (Ö 2012), which became the most successful series in
Austria in 20 years and was screened at the Cologne Conference alongside renowned HBO and BBS productions in the category "10 most important works worldwide". Schalko's second series "Old Money" (Ö 2015) attracted high international attention and was also awarded at the 13th Sichuan TV Festival in Chengdu in 2015.
In 2018, Schalko adapted Fritz Lang's classic film "M - A City hunts a Murderer" from 1931, and wrote the screenplay together with Evi Romen. The six-part series celebrated its world premiere at the Berlinale 2019. In 2020, a co-production with Sky Deutschland resulted in the mini-series "Me and the Others", which celebrated its world premiere at the Berlinale 2021. Schalko is responsible for the script as well as the direction of the series. As an author, he made a name for himself with the novel "Weiße Nacht" (Jung&Jung Publisher, 2009). Jörg Haider's aide Stefan Petzner filed a lawsuit against the novel. The trial was followed internationally with great attention. It was followed in 2013 by the novel "Knoi", which finally established Schalko as a novelist. His following novels "Big Bones" (2018), "Bad Regina" (2020) and "What the day brings" (2023), were published by Kiepenhauer & Witsch.- Producer
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Antonin Svoboda was born in 1969. He is a producer and director, known for The Edukators (2004), Forever Never Anywhere (2007) and Cry Baby, Cry (2017).- Director
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- Cinematographer
Elisabeth Scharang was born on 3 February 1969 in Bruck a.d. Mur, Styria, Austria. She is a director and writer, known for Woodland (2023), Vielleicht in einem anderen Leben (2011) and Mein Mörder (2005).- Director
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Franz Antel was born on 28 June 1913 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. He was a director and writer, known for Der Bockerer 2 (1996), Der Bockerer (1981) and Solang' die Sterne glüh'n (1958). He was married to Sibylla Antel, Sibylla Thin, Elisabeth Freifrau von Ettingshausen, Hannelore Bollmann and Hilde Louise Wittke. He died on 11 August 2007 in Vienna, Austria.Highly recommended by me :
DER BOCKERER Quadrilogy- Director
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Studied communications and political science (Ph.D., thesis on "TV Entertainment"). Worked for years as a rock musician (2 Gold Records), journalist and TV producer. Debuted as feature film writer/director with Mother's Day (1994). Leads the Austrian Box Office Hit Charts with Hinterholz 8 (1998) and Poppitz (2002). Special interest in black comedies like 3faltig (2010) and period films - e.g. Zwölfeläuten (2001) or Im Reich der Reblaus (2005).