He was born in Kitzbuhel, a town in Tyrol, Austrian Alps. His father, Anton Hubertus Sauper is a writer and painter. Maria, his mother, is a passionate singer and works occasionally on humanitarian missions in the Balkans. He has lived in the UK, Italy, the USA, and for the past twenty years in France. He studied film directing in Vienna (University of Performing Arts) and in Paris (University Paris VIII). His thesis Film as Testament, a study of the three last films of the directors Cyril Collard, Andrey Tarkovsky and Joris Ivens, was published in Vienna. He teaches Film in Europe and the USA. The last two documentaries he wrote and directed were awarded twelve international film prizes. As an actor, he has appeared in several shorts and two feature length films: In the Circle of the Iris (1992) by Peter Patzak and Blue Distance (1994) by Peter Schreiner.
Filmography
1993 On the Road with Emil (short)
1994 Also schlafwandle ich am hellichten Tage/ So i Sleepwalk in Broad Daylight (fiction)
1995 Lomographer's moscow (short)
1998 Kisangani tagebuch/ Kisangani Diary
2001 Seules avec nos histoires/ Alone with Our Stories
2004 Darwin’s nightmare
2014 We Come as friends
