Conversations with Women Film Pioneers:
Birgit Hutter
December 10, 2025
This is a series of talks about the lives and work of women film pioneers from all branches of the industry who have left their mark on Austrian film, but due to the lack of an ongoing canonization need to be discovered again and again. Their conversation partners are filmmakers from the next generation or the generation after.
Costume Designer Birgit Hutter
Birgit Hutter studied painting at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and the Art Students League in New York. After receiving her degree in set and costume design from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, she continued her studies in theater arts. Since the 1970s, Hutter has worked internationally as a costume and set designer for film and TV as well as theater, the latter in Vienna, Hamburg, and Berlin, among other places. She has worked with film directors including John Malkovich, Uli Edel, Urs Egger, Michael Verhoeven, Raúl Ruiz, Roger Spottiswoode, Xaver Schwarzenberger, Luc Bondy, Peter Patzak, Oliver Hirschbiegel, and Axel Corti. Hutter is a founding member of the Austrian Filmdesigners Association and has received many prizes, including the 1988 German Film Award for Das weite Land (1987, Luc Bondy). In 2015, she was nominated for an American Costume Designers Guild Award for her work on Houdini (2014, Uli Edel) and in 2017, she was the first costume designer to receive the Platinum Romy Award for her life's work. (Andrea Pollach / Translation: Ted Fendt)
Idea: Julia Pühringer. Concept and realization: Julia Pühringer and Wilbirg Brainin-Donnenberg
With the support of the Vienna Chamber of Labor
This is a series of talks about the lives and work of women film pioneers from all branches of the industry who have left their mark on Austrian film, but due to the lack of an ongoing canonization need to be discovered again and again. Their conversation partners are filmmakers from the next generation or the generation after.
Costume Designer Birgit Hutter
Birgit Hutter studied painting at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and the Art Students League in New York. After receiving her degree in set and costume design from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, she continued her studies in theater arts. Since the 1970s, Hutter has worked internationally as a costume and set designer for film and TV as well as theater, the latter in Vienna, Hamburg, and Berlin, among other places. She has worked with film directors including John Malkovich, Uli Edel, Urs Egger, Michael Verhoeven, Raúl Ruiz, Roger Spottiswoode, Xaver Schwarzenberger, Luc Bondy, Peter Patzak, Oliver Hirschbiegel, and Axel Corti. Hutter is a founding member of the Austrian Filmdesigners Association and has received many prizes, including the 1988 German Film Award for Das weite Land (1987, Luc Bondy). In 2015, she was nominated for an American Costume Designers Guild Award for her work on Houdini (2014, Uli Edel) and in 2017, she was the first costume designer to receive the Platinum Romy Award for her life's work. (Andrea Pollach / Translation: Ted Fendt)
Following the screening of the film Klimt (2006, Raúl Ruiz), Anna Zeitlhuber and Julia Pühringer will talk with Birgit Hutter.
Idea: Julia Pühringer. Concept and realization: Julia Pühringer and Wilbirg Brainin-Donnenberg
With the support of the Vienna Chamber of Labor
Related materials
Photos 2025 - Birgit Hutter
For each series, films are listed in screening order.