Born 1957 in Hamburg, Oliver Hirschbiegel went to sail the seas at first, then studied painting and graphic arts at the Hamburg Hochschule der Künste, where he then turned to film. First he celebrated successes as a performance artist, developed video magazine „Infermental" and finally wrote his first script with Das Go! Projekt (1986), which he also filmed as director.
In the ensuing years he took over the direction of several TV movies, among them Murderous Decisions (1991), Tatort – Kinderspiel (1992), the series Kommissar Rex (1994), Trickser (1997), Mortal Friends (1998) as well as the chamber piece Das Urteil (1997) which garnered rave reviews.
In 2001, after having received several rewards, the director had his breakthrough on the big screen as well with psychological thriller The Experiment – a success which was honoured with five Deutsche Filmpreise. In 2002 he followed this with another experiment: Mein letzter Film, a monologue spoken by Hannelore Elsner. Two years later, he attracted worldwide attention with the exceptional piece, produced and written by Bernd Eichinger, Downfall about Hitler's last days in the Führerbunker, based on Joachim Fest's bestseller and the records of Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge.
In 2005 he followed it with Ein ganz gewöhnlicher Jude, as Mein letzter Film before a one-hander, this time with Ben Becker, soliloquising about German-Jewish relations. 2007 Oliver Hirschbiegel finally celebrated his Hollywood debut with Invasion, a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig in the leading roles. The following features, Hirschbiegel realized in English as well: the drama Five Minutes of Heaven (2009), receiving the award for Best Direction at the Sundance Film Festival, which deals with the conflicts in Ireland, as well as most recently Diana (2013) with Naomi Watts in the title role.
In international television, Oliver Hirschbiegel was successful with the first four episodes of the series Borgia, followed in 2014 by the season finale of US series Turn (AMC Studios).
Beta Cinema
