Peter Zeitlinger is an accomplished filmmaker whose career encompasses cinematography, directing, producing, writing, editing and visual effects. Zeitlinger has worked with Werner Herzog since 1995. Their intensive collaboration has yielded many successful documentaries as well as dramas like Bad Lieutenant, Rescue Dawn and Queen of the Desert. Zeitlinger's work has garnered hundreds of awards and nominations.

Werner Herzog discovered Zeitlinger when he was still a film student. His outstanding camera work in Ulrich Seidls "Prepared for losses" impressed Herzog so much that he hired him for his documentary "Death for Five Voices" which was Werner's first film after a period of creative break caused by the death of his actor Klaus Kinski. The film won the Prix d Italia. From that moment on Peter and Werner worked together on Hollywood Productions. Rescue Dawn was released by MGM. Peter's meticulous attention to detail and the whole context, his unique visual style of the camera movements added immeasurably to the quality of the films. In 2006 he and Werner Herzog were selected for the US-Antarctic Program by the US National Science Foundation as writer and artist for "Encounters at the End of the World" The film was nominated for the Academy Award. Their two films Bad Lieutenant and Son my Son competed against each other in the same competition of Venice Film Festival 2009. Peter Zeitlinger was the first non Italian cinematographer to be honored with the Cinematography Award Gainni di Venanzo, for the best Italian film, This Award was created by Carlo di Palma to promote the art of Italian cinematography. 2023 Werner Herzog and Peter Zeitlinger won the prestigious cinematographer-director Duo Award in Torun.

Childhood: Peter Zeitlinger was born in Prague. Due to the turbulence during the Soviet occupation in 68 and the political instability he left the country with his mother and moved to the neighboring and neutral country of Austria. Not even 10 years old young Zeitlinger had to learn a new mother tongue. Being forced to express himself in a new way, he started painting and sketching a lot.

At the age of thirteen Zeitlinger discovered the possibility of making images move. A friend's father had an 8mm camera and kept it in his gynecologist's practice. When during the heights of puberty he and his friend secretly observed the gynecologist at work, they discovered the camera. During the night he would sneak into the practice and borrow the camera. For many nights he used the surgery light in the practice and worked on his own animated films before he sneaked out of the practice at the crack of dawn. One night he was discovered by his friend's father but strangely enough he was not told off! Instead, the wealthy doctor was so deeply moved by the animated films that he gave his camera to the "poor refugees' child". Now it became possible for Zeitlinger to work in the outside world during the daytime. For one of his first films "We Walked" he was awarded a youth film festival prize and was given a camera with zoom and audio recording features. That was when filming really lifted off. Until he was accepted at the Academy for Film he had produced a good 70 short or animated films. His first animated film "Der Geburtstag" (The Birthday) was his ticket to university, because being a taciturn person he otherwise would not have survived among all the talkative chatter boxes.

During university studies Michael Snow and Peter Kubelka became his admired and most influential teachers. Zeitlinger had been impressed by Kubelkas all-encompassing concept of art. Kubelka introduced him to the interrelations between music, cooking and film making. All of these three forms of expressing life obey the same rules: composing (i.e. montage, composition) and perceptions in the course of time (dramatic plot). In addition to the courses at the academy Zeitlinger also attended lectures about aesthetics by Lachmayer and ethics by Prof Mader who read at the Vienna philosophical institute. He also studied Management of Arts under Jungblut and Dieter Ronte trying to graduate as an MA. The theoretical essays by Zeitlinger, first published in the University newsletter brought about a remarkable uproar amongst his teachers, because in "Abschaffung der Montage" (Abolishing Montage), which was based on profound philosophical knowledge, Zeitlinger meticulously managed to proof that a "Filmgrammatik" (Grammar of Films) does not exist. Although he was not enrolled in directing it was the lecturers from the directing department (A. Stummer and A. Corti) who strongly spoke out in favor of him being admitted to the exams, which were quite threatened at the time. Zeitlinger graduated with excellency.

During his university years he had already written a number of scripts. One of the scripts co-written with Erhard Riedlsperger was "Tunnelkind" (Tunnel Child). The film is set at the Czech-Austrian border where the Iron Curtain was erected during the late 60s. Borders and marginalization are recurring topics in his work. Although many of the films he had produced during his university years were awarded several prizes it was due to the highly bureaucratic structures in Austria that it first seemed impossible for a young graduate from university to work as a Director of Photography (DOP). Normally, years of assistance and begging were to be endured first. After a debate sparked off by Zeitlinger the directorate of the film institute decided to allow an exception to the rule: for the first time a first-time director was allowed to select the DOP of his choice, for his first full-length film. The media, as well as the film business and the fellow students were keen to observe the making of this film at the Czech-Austrian border. On a daily basis the latest shots were assessed by a committee even before the director or the DOP had seen them, and the committee then had to grant permission to continue with the project. An experienced replacement crew was kept on call to take over, in case the project would fail. After one week at work the replacement crew was sent home. A little later the film was invited to the International Berlin Filmfestival. The film tells the story of a little girl who manages to convince the chief builder at a construction site for the electric fence to build the fence above a secret tunnel in order to leave an escape into freedom. During the production of Tunnelkind the Iron Curtain for Czechoslovakia was abolished. Reality seemed to catch up with fiction. The Berlin Film Festival was also dominated by the liberalization of the Stalinist countries and the film was applauded as dealing marvelously with current affairs.

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Werner Herzog and Peter Zeitlinger in Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)

Peter Zeitlinger in Queen of the Desert (2015)

Nicole Kidman, Werner Herzog, Holly Earl, James Franco, and Peter Zeitlinger in Queen of the Desert (2015)

Nicole Kidman, Werner Herzog, Peter Zeitlinger, and Robert Pattinson in Queen of the Desert (2015)

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans

Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)

Peter Zeitlinger

Peter Zeitlinger

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