Virgil Widrich was born in
Salzburg, the son of physician and politician
Gerheid Widrich and journalist
Hans Widrich, who served for nearly three decades as head of press at the
Salzburg Festival. He grew up in a 500-year-old house on the Mönchsberg, surrounded by artists and filmmakers such as
Peter Handke and
Wim Wenders, who were frequent visitors. At the age of 13 he received his first
Super 8 film camera and began making short films, including
My Homelife,
Gebratenes Fleisch and
3 mal Ulf (1980). This was followed by
Auch Farbe kann träumen (1981) and
Monster in Salzburg (1982), his first project involving actors and
stop motion animation. After finishing school at the Akademisches Gymnasium in Salzburg, Widrich briefly attended the Vienna Film Academy before working as assistant to cinematographer and director
John Bailey. In 1990 he went to
Hollywood to collaborate with Bailey on the science-fiction comedy
The Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe. In 1993 he co-organized a new festival for Austrian film, later known as the
Diagonale. From 1997 onwards he concentrated on his own projects again. His short film
tx-transform, co-directed with
Martin Reinhart, was presented at
Ars Electronica. He then wrote and directed his feature film
Heller als der Mond ("Brighter than the Moon", 1999), followed by the internationally acclaimed short
Copy Shop (2001), which received 43 awards and an
Oscar nomination. His next short,
Fast Film (2003), was screened at over 500 festivals and received more than 35 international prizes. '' (2001) by Virgil Widrich. and
Laurence Rupp in
Night of a 1000 Hours (2016). In 2001 Widrich founded the multimedia company
checkpointmedia GmbH, which develops installations and digital media for museums and cultural institutions. Among his early large-scale projects was the redesign of over 100 interactive media stations for the
Technical Museum Vienna (1999). He later co-founded the production company
Amour Fou Film (shareholder until 2007) and served as chairman of the
Austrian Film Directors’ Association from 2004 to 2007. Widrich is a member of the
Academy of Austrian Film and, since 2024, of the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. From 2007 to 2010 he was Professor for Digital Arts at the
University of Applied Arts Vienna, where he has led the post-graduate master programme
Art & Science since 2010. He is also active in artistic research, directing projects such as
Liquid Things (2011–2014),
Data Loam (2017–2020) and
Radical Matter (2021–2025). Widrich has three sons with film director
Anja Salomonowitz. One of them,
Oskar Salomonowitz (2008–2020), known for his role in the film
This Movie is a Gift, died in an accident in 2020. == Exhibitions ==