Short Biography

Stefan Ruzowitzky (born December 25, 1961 in Vienna) is an Academy Award-winning Austrian film director and screenwriter. Ruzowitzky studied drama and history at the University of Vienna. He started directing music videos, for example for `N Sync, and commercials. In 1996 Ruzowitzky presented his first feature film, Tempo, about a group of youths living in Vienna. He was subsequently awarded with the Max Ophüls Preis. His next feature film, Die Siebtelbauern, set in the rural Mühlviertel in Upper Austria, came out in 1998, and was awarded Best Picture at the Rotterdam film festival as well as at the Flanders Film Festival. It also got a prize at the International Film Festival in Valladolid.

In 2000 directed the successful German horror film Anatomy, starring Franka Potente, and in 2003 the equally well received sequel Anatomy 2. Between those two Ruzowitzky`s first international co-production All the Queen`s Men from 2001, starring Matt LeBlanc and Eddie Izzard, was received poorly by both critics and viewers. In 2007 Ruzowitzky`s The Counterfeiters premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and was nominated for a Golden Bear award. The film is based on the memoirs of Adolf Burger, a Jewish Slovak typographer and Holocaust survivor involved in Operation Bernhard. The Counterfeiters, nominated on behalf of Austrian cinema, won the Oscar at the 80th Academy Awards on 24 Feb. 2008.

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