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Stefan Ruzowitzky | |
|---|---|
 Stefan Ruzowitzky, 13 April 2008 | |
| Born | (1961-12-25)25 December 1961 (age 63) Vienna, Austria |
| Occupation | Film director |
| Years active | 1996 – present |
| Spouse | Birgit Sturm |
Stefan Ruzowitzky is an Austrianfilm director andscreenwriter.
Ruzowitzky was born inVienna. He studied drama and history at theUniversity of Vienna and started directingmusic videos, for example for'N Sync, andcommercials.[citation needed]
In 1996, Ruzowitzky presented his firstfeature film,Tempo, about a group of youths living in Vienna. He was subsequently awarded with theMax Ophüls Preis.
His next feature film,The Inheritors, set in the ruralMühlviertel inUpper Austria, was released in 1998, and was awardedBest Picture at theInternational Film Festival Rotterdam as well as at theFlanders Film Festival. It also won a prize at theInternational Film Festival inValladolid.
In 2000 he directed the successful Germanhorror filmAnatomy, starringFranka Potente, and in 2003 the equally well-received sequelAnatomy 2. Ruzowitzky's first international co-production,All the Queen's Men (2001), starringMatt LeBlanc andEddie Izzard, was received poorly by both critics and viewers.
In 2007 Ruzowitzky'sThe Counterfeiters premiered at theBerlin International Film Festival and was nominated for aGolden Bear.[1] The film is based on the memories ofAdolf Burger, aJewish Slovak typographer andHolocaust survivor involved inOperation Bernhard.[2]The Counterfeiters, nominated on behalf ofAustrian cinema, won theOscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the80th Academy Awards on 24 February 2008.[3]
In 2013, he directed the 90-minute non-fiction dramaDas radikal Böse, which, by means of authentic letters and interviewing psychology, military, and history experts seeks to explain the mentality of "ordinary" members ofEinsatzgruppen andWehrmacht soldiers that carried out the Holocaust. It was mainly based uponChristopher Browning's 1992 bookOrdinary Men, which assigns the efficiency of the German killing machinery to social mechanisms of conformism and peer pressure rather than racial hatred.
Hisvampire horror filmThe Last Voyage of the Demeter is based onBram Stoker'sDracula tale,[4] and thepsychological thrillerBraincopy.[5][6]
On 2 May 2014,Deadline Hollywood announced that Ruzowitzky would direct Screen Gems' action-thrillerPatient Zero based on an original script byMike Le. The film starsMatt Smith andNatalie Dormer.
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| Year | Title | Director | Writer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | Tempo | Yes | Yes |
| 1998 | The Inheritors | Yes | Yes |
| 2000 | Anatomy | Yes | Yes |
| 2001 | All the Queen's Men | Yes | No |
| 2003 | Anatomy 2 | Yes | Yes |
| 2007 | The Counterfeiters | Yes | Yes |
| 2009 | Lilly the Witch: The Dragon and the Magic Book | Yes | Yes |
| 2012 | Deadfall | Yes | No |
| 2013 | Radical Evil[7][8] | Yes | No |
| 2017 | Cold Hell | Yes | No |
| 2018 | Patient Zero | Yes | No |
| 2019 | 8 Tage | Yes | No |
| 2020 | Narcissus and Goldmund | Yes | No |
| 2021 | Hinterland | Yes | No |
| 2025 | Icefall | Yes | No |
In 2010, Ruzowitzky directed his first opera production,Der Freischütz, for Vienna'sTheater an der Wien. The cast included hisCounterfeiters starKarl Markovics in the non-singing role ofSamiel; the production was conducted byBertrand de Billy.
