Benjamin Diez

Benjamin "Benni" Diez is a German filmmaker and electronic musician, known for his darkly themed short films Pressure Bolt and Kingz, and his debut romantic horror comedy feature Stung.

Education and filmmaking career Born in 1979 in Starnberg, Germany, In a 2015 interview, Diez said: "I always felt like I'm a filmmaker at heart. I always made my own movies when I was young." He began teaching himself computer animation when he was fourteen, using "the very first computer animation program."

Diez worked for agencies and production companies in Bavaria, and made his own videos before enrolling at Baden-Württemberg Film Academy, in Ludwigsburg, in 2002, specialising in visual effects and animation.

Student filmmaker (2002–2007) Diez had chosen his area of specialisation knowing it was rare that a directing student "could make sci-fi and horror films"; he "consciously chose effects" despite this, and, "I was lucky enough to do whatever I wanted and still direct live action stuff for my projects." Making genre films always interested me, and it's sometimes hard, especially in Germany, when you study directing, to do crazy genre stuff. You try to go the more serious, dramatic way, which is not wrong, but would have been wrong for me. So I deliberately decided to study effects because I knew I could still direct my own stuff. Diez collaborated with fellow student Marinko Spahić on a short mixed live action animation film titled Druckbolzen (Pressure Bolt, 2003), starring and made for €250. The short played at several European international film festivals, winning an award at for sound in 2003, and the Shine Award at Bradford, for technical innovation in 2004. Diez teamed with Biehn again, as screenwriter, to make a short comic horror movie titled Martha (2004) starring and Hermann Schevtschenko. Diez and Spahić collaborated again in 2004 on a short science fiction film, 90 Grad Different, starring Steffen Wink. That summer, they began their third and longest project together, a thesis film, an alien invasion thriller with hip hop and gangster rap motifs; the title, Kingz (2007) is derived from hip hop slang. It was shown at international film festivals, winning Best Short Film at Trieste S+F in 2008 and a Méliès d'Argent in 2009. Todd Brown praised the cinematography and called Diez "an effects god"; the film "fuses a bit of gang culture with bits of horror, scifi, and martial arts action and does it all remarkably well... Landwehr gets time to show his moves and the whole thing just fits together beautifully and cries out to be made into a feature."

Commercial work While studying, Diez did post-production work on films and advertisements for, among other brands, Festina, Audi, Bosch, and Snickers. to create a new short of his own, Space Chase.

Noncommercial work for which Diez provided editing or visual effects included zombie web series Viva Berlin!, Marissa Maghavipata's short film Singularity, and feature films, notably Lars von Trier's Melancholia. The project took about three and a half years to complete.

Projects in development Diez has been named variously as a producer or co-director for the third installment of the Skyline series, Skylines, currently in production with release anticipated in 2020.

Musical career Diez has been making his own electronic music since about the same time he started making films.

Filmography Short noncommercial films and videos

Buck Bölkers (1995) Bullet – Highway Patrol (2002) Pressure Bolt (2003) Martha (2004) 90 Grad Different (2004) Kingz (2007) Bronko Bros. (2008), concept trailer Space Chase (2009)

Feature films Stung (2015) Skylines (2020)