Michael P. Aust
Business graduate (Dipl.-Kfm.) Michael P. Aust is a German curator, organiser of cultural events and film producer born in 1965. His focal point of interest lies in the intersectionality of art forms, especially in the relationship of music and moving pictures. He heads the filmmusic festival and conference SoundTrack_Cologne that he founded in 2004 – with 850 accreditations Europe’s leading filmmusic industry event – as well as SoundTrack_Zurich since 2020. Parallel from 2014-2019 he was festivaldirector of Braunschweig International Filmfestival that grew to 28.000 admissions under his direction.
Aust has worked in the film industry for more than 25 years with producer credits for 21 feature films and feature-length documentaries, including “101 Reykjavik”, “Stumbling Block”, “Low Lights”, “Parallax Sounds Chicago”, “Eva Hesse” and “The Sound of Cologne”, focusing on music and art. His directorial debut “Can and Me”, co-produced by WDR, will hit the cinemas in autumn 2022. Michael curates exhibitions and festivals e.g. DuKunst Media Art Festival 1992, Klangvisionen sound art exhibition 1994, StadtKlangNetz conference on cultural education 2007-2014, European Film Music Day at Cannes Film Festival 2009-2016, the highly successful The Art of Pop Video exhibition (MAKK Cologne 2011, Odessa Art Center 2012, Liverpool FACT 2013), Next Level Conference on video games 2012, PLAY!CGN exhibition and conference on video games in art 2013, Digital Distri-bution conference 2014, BIFF Film Criticism LAB: on the Future of Film Criticism 2015, Hostile Sisters - Interdependencies of Theatre and Film conference 2016, FxM Film meets Music Festival 2018+19. His latest project is the 30-month Re-Educating Digitisation funded by Erasmus+.
He is a voting member of the German Film Academy, Filmbüro NW and of the World Soundtrack Academy and Board Member of KulturNetzKöln and MusicFilmFestivalNetwork. He is Managing Director, Owner and Producer at TelevisorTroika GmbH, a Cologne-based company established in 1993 for film production, art events and public relations in arts.