- Born
- Ulrich Seidl is an acclaimed Austrian film producer, director, and screenwriter widely recognised for his distinct and uncompromising voice in contemporary European cinema. Operating through his Vienna-based production company, Ulrich Seidl Filmproduktion, he has spent decades championing bold, challenging storytelling. His work as a producer focuses heavily on exploring complex social themes, hidden human desires, and the thin boundary between fiction and reality.
As a producer, Seidl is best known for driving highly celebrated international film festival favorites. His notable production credits include the critically acclaimed psychological horror film Goodnight Mommy (2014), the historical drama The Devil's Bath (2024), and the satirical drama Veni Vidi Vici (2024). He also produced the feature films Luzifer (2021), Lillian (2019), and the drama Moon (Mond) (2024).
Beyond supporting external filmmaking talents, he acts as the primary producer for his own acclaimed directorial projects. These include the award-winning Paradise Trilogy comprising Paradise: Love (2012), Paradise: Faith (2012), and Paradise: Hope (2013) as well as his interconnected feature dramas Rimini (2022) and Sparta (2022). Through his dedication to raw visual realism, Seidl remains a highly influential executive figure in independent global cinema.
- IMDb mini biography by: Nizam Miah
- SpouseVeronika Franz(? - present) (2 children)
- All his movies are characterized by a disturbing documentary style to make them more authentic.
- Lives in Vienna.
- Retrospective at the 12th New Horizons Film Festival (2012).
- The Prom (2002) was the reason, why I was kicked out of the Wiener Filmakademie [filmschool in Vienna]. The teachers didn't like the structure and editing and expected that the film would hurt the reputation of the academy.
- [press conference for Import Export (2007) at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival] There are no limits. As for limits, you can only set limits in the situation you find yourself and you have to set them for yourself. So as a director I was responsible for the people working with me who were in front of the camera; I have to leave them their dignity and I have to know just how far I can go and how much I can ask of them and how much I can't ask of them. So it's my own responsibility but there's no well-defined limit. This film talks about frontiers a lot, it talks about boundaries, limits. But I didn't go further than Dog Days (2001) in this new film. I've told another story, a story which has got lots of value, but in a broader context, in the European context, and I concentrate all this in two stories because I think Europe is being reunified - it's grouping together. But I think that in Ukraine, things are very different from in western Europe. You shouldn't forget that this is a film, and the actors know exactly what is the intention behind the scene they're shooting but we work with a degree of improvisation and spontaneity and there are things which are not decided in advance, but when we decide to get involved in this work, I decide on it with my actors. I decide on an objective with them, and then everybody is in agreement; everybody is prepared and ready to achieve this objective.
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