Kolja Brandt

kolja brandt, born 1969 in berlin and raised in berlin-kreuzberg, is director of photograpy since 1997. 1993 he started working for the italian television as a news cameraman, parallel he worked as lighting technician and focus puller for student movies. he also did a lot of camera operating in big sport events.

1995 kolja shot his first short feature on 16mm; followed by a lot more and his first tv feature in 1997. he then worked for two years as a dp for the stunt unit of a big action series.

in 2001 kolja started shooting music promos and commercials; thats where he met detlev buck, the director of his first feature “knallhart (tough enough)” (2005). in 2007 “nordwand (northface)” followed; koljas second feature won 2009 germanys academy award for best camera. he reteams with “northface” director philipp stölzl in 2009 to shoot “goethe!”, a period feature about a year in the life of germanys famous poet and writer johann goethe.

in 2011 kolja shoots again with stölzl, “the expatriate”, an independent hollywood production starring aaron eckhart and liana liberato.

kolja also likes to shoot documentaries, which he does more frequently in the last 2 years. in 2011 “joschka and herr fischer” is released, pepe danquarts documentary about germans former foreign minister.

apart from german he is fluent in spanish and english.
kolja has two sons and lives in berlin.