Biography
Paul Poet was born in Abqaiq, Saudi-Arabia on October 3rd 1971 and has been living in Vienna since 1984. He worked as a music promoter, DJ, critic and singer in the underground scene. At the same time, he studied philosophy and communications at Vienna University.
In 1996, he made his directorial debut with the short "Hoch Zeit". During the following years, he shot numerous music clips and directed a row of TV features on musical topics. His video "TripHopping in the Planet Drug" (1999), in which he paid homage to cult directors like Jess Franco, was screened with great success at several international festivals. From 1999 to 2001, he developed and curated formats for the innovative web portal Webfreetv.com, on which he also hosted the first European online film festival "Internet Film Award".
In 2002, Paul Poet completed his first feature-length documentary "Auländer raus! Schlingensiefs Container" about a public performance happening instigated by artist Christoph Schlingensief in Vienna in 2000. Poet continued to work as a director, especially for the stage, and in 2012, he presented his second cinema release "Empire Me – Der Staat bin ich!". Apart from being a director and writer, Paul Poet is also a prolific journalist writing for several media in Austria and Germany.