Dr. Uwe Boll was born June 22, 1965 in Wermelskirchen, Germany. As a child, he produced a number of short films on Super 8 and video. He studied literature and social sciences in Cologne, film and economics and Siegen. He earned a doctorate in literature from the University of Cologne in 1995. He has written the film industry exposé ‘German Fried Movie & Barschel-Mord in Genf. Oder wie man in Deutschland einen Film drehen muss’ (’How to make a movie in Germany’) and his dissertation ‘Die Gattung Serie und ihre Genres’, on themes of serial TV.

A self-proclaimed leading expert on adapting successful video games for the big screen, Boll owns the rights for several well-known franchises. Film critics however are less enthusiastic about Bolls output. The Internet community has latched onto the name “Uwe Boll” and equated it with everything that is wrong with cinema, making one of the most hated directors of our entire generation.

While the critical flack directed at Boll’s interpretations remains unrivaled, Germany’s prolific director, producer and writer has at the same time garnered a cult following among film fans worldwide. Having produced, directed and distributed a number of big screen adaptations of video game licences, he has now reinvented himself as a mainstream-shunning, boundary-breaking indy director.

Boll started experimenting with film as early as 1984, when he recorded a 7-minute 8mm film called FOREST and was working on scripts called ERIC AND KANE and THE SHINE OF THE WIND. In 1985, he completed a 95-minute VHS video with the title DEATH. In 1986, he finished another 76-minute VHS video with the title THE VALLEY OF THE ANCIENTS. In 1987, he was working on a script called THE TRIP, which he unsuccessfully pitched to German production companies. 1988 saw the first collaboration with fellow writer, producer and director Frank Lustig for an 8mm film called LEBERWURST – which is the name of a German sausage. The 7-minute 16mm film SUICIDE was completed in 1989, as well as the 67-minute VHS video THE STUDENT.

Soon afterwards in 1990, he began working on GERMAN FRIED MOVIE together with Frank Lustig, which would receive moderate success in the first German screenings of an Uwe Boll movie. He worked on BARSCHEL – MURDER IN GENEVA? over the course of 1991 and 1992, his third German film with Frank Lustig. After the commercial failure of their production, he parted ways with Frank Lustig and went on to direct RUN AMOK in 1993, which at that time with reflected Boll’s frustration with the film industry and his personal failures in general its bleak and violent imagery. He started working as a producer and later unexpectedly did get the chance to direct his screenplay of the campus comedy THE FIRST SEMESTER in 1996. Unfortunately, this movie was also met with less than satisfying sales and it looked like Boll’s career was finally finished.

However, Boll had further developed the funding schemes he had used since the days of GERMAN FRIED MOVIE to attract investors and was used his skills and contacts as a producer to start a career overseas. This resulted in three films penned by himself and writer Robert Dean Klein, which were directed at US-based and international audience. The newly founded Boll KG company managed to get actors with at least some recognition to play roles in screenplays and production took place in tax friendly Vancouver, British Columbia, in Canada. SANCTIMONY (2090), BLACKWOODS (2002) and HEART OF AMERICA (2002) were moderately successful and prooved that the small Boll KG was up to the task of managing film funds. After the thriller SANCTIMONY failed to get a theatrical release, the proceedings of the business partnership with distributor Regent Entertainment resulted in a lawsuit that Boll KG won. The thriller BLACKWOODS received a number of positive reviews, the school violence drama HEART OF AMERICA however did not get the wide attention the producers had hoped it would garner. Much of this failure is attributed to Gus Van Sant’s ‘Elephant’ receiving rave reviews during the same year.

HOUSE OF THE DEAD (2003) marked a turning point in Uwe Boll’s career. Not only was the adaptation of Sega’s video game commercially more successful than any film Boll KG had ever produced, Uwe Boll became to receive publicity, first in online media, when video game fans and critics immediately latched on to the adaptations of their beloved franchises, later in mainstream publications, in which journalists reflected on the unordinary career of a German maverick director who was working outside the Hollywood studio system. All of Boll KG’s later video game adaptations, ALONE IN THE DARK AND BLOODRAYNE in 2005, IN THE NAME OF THE KING: A DUNGEON SIEGE TALE, POSTAL and BLOODRAYNE 2: DELIVERANCE in 2007 as well as FAR CRY and ALONE IN THE DARK 2 in 2008, flopped at the box office and then went on to sell well on video, assumedly due to the immense publicity the critical and quite often personal backlash had created for Uwe Boll. He has now become not quite a household name, but a well-known and often interviewed filmmaker how works outside conventional norms and processes. The joint-stock company Boll AG and its wholly owned subsidiary Boll World Sales currently produces and distributes worldwide a portfolio of films by Uwe Boll and other directors.

In recent time Uwe Boll has moved on to direct original independent films developed by himself and close collaborators. This resulted so far in the decidedly anti-mainstream slasher SEED in 2007, the Vietnam war movie TUNNEL RATS in 2008 and the prison drama STOIC in 2009. He is currently working on no less than nine new projects and nothing seems to indicate he plans on giving up what he loves most – making movies.