Ulrich Seidl was born in Vienna in 1952 and grew up in Horn in the Waldviertel. He studied at the Vienna Film Academy and made his directing debut in 1980 with the short film Einsvierzig. Ulrich Seidl has won numerous international film prizes for his documentaries such as Good News, Tierische Liebe and Models. In 2012, Paradies: Glaube won the jury’s special prize at the Venice Film Festival. Seidl’s first feature film, Hundstage, had already been granted the same distinguished award at the same festival eleven years before. 

In 2003 he founded the Ulrich Seidl Filmproduktion GmbH, and ever since he has also been producing his own films. Import Export was admitted to the competition of the 60th Film Festival in Cannes in 2007. This was followed by the Paradies Trilogy in 2012: Paradies: Liebe, Paradies: Glaube, and Paradies: Hoffnung. These three films were shot within four years and premiered at the International Film Festivals in Cannes, Venice and Berlin. Im Keller had its premiere in August 2014 as part of the Venice Film Festival.

So far, Ulrich Seidl has worked in theatre twice: in 2004 his piece Vater unser was premiered at the Volksbühne Berlin, and in 2009 Seidl developed and directed Böse Buben / Fiese Männer for the Munich Kammerspiele and the Wiener Festwochen, based on texts by David Foster Wallace.

His photography exhibition Paradies: Liebe Glaube Hoffnung was shown in 2013 at BAWAG PSK Contemporary in Vienna, at C/O Berlin and as part of the Melodist International Film Festival in Kiev and the Photography Month in Bratislava.