Alumni of Angewandte Theaterwissenschaft Gießen (diploma in 1991)
Artistic director of DISKURS FESTIVAL 1989
Oliver Hardt is an award winning director, writer and filmmaker based in Frankfurt am Main. For almost 30 years, he has continously explored the multifaceted possibilities of film – as visual material, documentary tool, and storytelling medium – resulting in a body of work of political and artistic relevance. In his documentaries, Oliver explores the social and aesthetic dimensions of architecture, design and contemporary art with a strong emphasis on the achievements of the African diaspora. His roster of internationally acclaimed films includes Black Deutschland (2006), a cinematic exploration of black life in Germany; The United States of Hoodoo (2011), a road trip to the spiritual sources of African-American culture; David Adjaye – Collaborations (2015), a portrait of the Ghanaian-British star architect through the eyes of friends, collaborators, and clients; and The Black Museum (2018), a documentary feature about the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C., commissioned by ZDF/Arte. In 2023, he created the film installation Protest/Architecture as a centerpiece for the exhibition of the same title, on view at DAM – German Architecture Museum in Frankfurt, MAK – Museum of Applied Arts Vienna, and the Maidan Museum in Kyiv. In the same year, Oliver won the Hessian Film Prize for his screenplay Jumoke, which serves as the basis for his feature film debut.
Oliver ́s work has been presented internationally at film festivals such as IDFA, Doku.Arts Filmfestival Berlin, Milano Design Film Festival, International Festival of Films on Art Montreal, BlackStar Filmfest Philadelphia, Revelation International Filmfestival Perth as well as at major art and design institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Garage Museum Moscow, Haus der Kunst Munich, CAPC Bordeaux, Museum of the African Diaspora San Francisco, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, MAK–Museum of Applied Arts Vienna, and the Design Museum London.
In addition to his practice as a filmmaker and screenwriter, Oliver regularly writes texts for art magazines and curates film programs for cultural institutions such as the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt and the PalaisPopulaire in Berlin. Oliver is a member of the European Film Academy and the German section of the Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art (AICA).
