Valentin Hitz

Director, Assistant director, Screenplay
Stuttgart

Biography

Valentin Hitz was born in Stuttgart in 1969. Raised in Zurich, he studied film under Peter Patzak and Axel Corti. In 1998 he graduated with "Rat Race", a futuristic thriller about a black market for human organs. The film screened at several festivals, winning the Silver Spire Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival and receiving a special jury mention at the Viennale. In the following years, he directed commercials and image films (for example for the Austrian Red Cross) and created video art and installations (including works at the Documenta Seoul 2000 and the gallery Neurotian in Berlin).

Hitz' sophomore feature film "Kaltfront", a psychological thriller in which a group of adolescents flees to a remote farm in the mountains after an attempted burglary goes violently wrong, premiered at the 2003 Max Ophüls Preis Film Festival. Hitz, who also taught acting at the Bruckner University in Linz, received the "Wiener Dramatik" stipend in 2008. As an assistant director, he worked on films by Jessica Hausner ("Lourdes", 2009), Titus Selge ("Tatort - Architektur eines Todes", 2009, TV), and Barbara Albert ("Die Lebenden" – "The Dead and the Living"). Moreover, he continued to work with video and made film clips for stage productions.

In September 2016, Valentin Hitz presented his next feature-length film at the Zurich Film Festival: Echoing his previous film "Rat Race" and set in Vienna in the near future, the science-fiction drama "Stille Reserven" envisions a society where people must ensure themselves against being used as artificially kept alive organ donors after their natural death. Winning the festival's Goldenes Auge trophy, the film later also won the awards for Best Female Supporting Actor (Marion Mitterhammer), Best Set Design (Hannes Salat) and Best Cinematography (Martin Gschlacht) at the 2017 Austrian Film Awards.

 

Filmography

2015/2016
  • Director
  • Screenplay
2011/2012
  • Assistant director
2008/2009
  • Assistant director
2008/2009
  • Assistant director
2003/2004
  • Script supervisor