Biography

Jessica Hausner was born on October 6, 1972 in Vienna, Austria. She is a director and writer, known for Little Joe (2019), Lourdes (2009) and Amour Fou (2014).

1991-1994 Academy for Film in Vienna.

[press conference for Little Joe (2019) at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival] The film is a sort of genre film but it is also not at all! I think the idea was to have a happy end and not like in some of the horror films, for example Body Snatchers [Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)], in the end the whole world is infected and it's very bad, dark and depressing. And I think what I wanted to do is a sort of, "Let's live with the zombies, we'll be fine!"

[Cannes press conference for Little Joe (2019)] I never really made very Austrian films - I always try to make films that have an international audience because the films I'm doing are not naturalist films - they're not even realism films - they're very stylish, styled. I'm interested in doing fairy tales actually, and I think they should hold good for which country ever; and it's also not really a film that's in the future, it could also be in the past. Those are elements that are important to me - I prefer to do something that has a more existential point of view.

[press conference for Club Zero (2023) at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival] I wouldn't even say that it's a film about eating disorder - maybe it's even more about a very strange faith or nutrition religion that evolves between Miss Novak and her students. I was interested in showing how much an idea can influence the actions of us humans, I think we all in a way have our ideas and we believe in some things - that's how we are able to make our decisions. But if those ideas are becoming manipulated or even radical it can be dangerous or devastating and I wanted to show how strong an idea is one's head can become - it becomes a new reality for the people who believe.