The Inheritors

Stefan Ruzowitzky was born in Vienna in 1961. He studied Theater and History and attended film courses and seminars by such industry figures as Syd Field, Zdenek Mahler and Vilmos Zsigmond. In the first half of the 1980s, he worked in the theater as a director and wrote radio plays for the Austrian broadcaster ORF. From 1987, Ruzowitzky worked as a freelance director and author for television, commercials and music videos. In 1996, he made his feature directorial debut with “Tempo”, which won the Max Ophuels Award in 1997. His second feature, “The Inheritors” (“Die Siebtelbauern”, 1997), was sold to 50 countries and shown at numerous film festivals around the globe, winning many prizes including a Tiger Award in Rotterdam. The Inheritors was also Austria’s entry for the Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film in 1999. Since then, he has made the successful thriller “Anatomy” (“Anatomie”, 2000), “All the Queen’s Men” (2001) and “Anatomy 2” (“Anatomie 2”, 2002). In 2008, Ruzowitzky’s “The Counterfeiters” (“Die Fälscher”) – a drama based on the true story of Nazi concentration camp prisoners who were forced to produce fake foreign – won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. —german-films.de