Biography
Sven O. Hill, born in Düsseldorf in 1975, studied documentary film and camera at the FAMU film school in Prague, followed by postgraduate studies in film in Hamburg. As a cinematographer, he has been involved in numerous short feature films and documentaries. He was nominated for the German Camera Award for the image design in the short documentary "Kopfende Haßloch" ("Mapping the German", 2006, directed by Jörg Haaßengier and Jürgen Brügger).
Hill made his directorial debut in 2009 with the documentary "The Sound After The Storm" (together with Ryan Fenson-Hood and Patrik Soergel), a Swiss-German co-production. Hill was also responsible for the camera. At the Zurich Film Festival, 2009 the film won Best International Documentary.
Despite this success, Hill focused on his work as a cinematographer again in the following years. For Haaßengier and Brügger, he shot the documentaries "Exit Eden" (2010), "Vom Ordnen der Dinge" (2014) and "Master of Disaster" (2019), some of which won awards. In parallel, he realized the six-minute short feature film "Cocci" in 2016 and the short documentary "Schnipsel" in 2017, which premiered at the Landshut Short Film Festival 2019.
With "Coup", a mixture of feature film, documentary and animated film about a young bank employee who embezzles millions, Sven O. Hill made his first own feature-length film, which he scripted, directed, co-produced, shot and edited (together with Hendrik Maximilian Schmitt). The premiere of "Coup" took place at the Hofer Filmtage 2019, where the film won the Förderpreis Neues Deutsches Kino. At the Hessian Film and Cinema Award 2020, "Coup" was awarded Best Feature Film. The official theatrical release was not until summer 2021 due to the Corona pandemic.