Florian Habicht

Florian Habicht was born in Berlin and immigrated with his family to New Zealand. He studied film making at the Elam School of Fine Arts Auckland and at the Binger Filmlab Amsterdam.

Florian is responsible for some of New Zealand’s most original and innovative films. His debut feature Woodenhead (2003) a Grimm inspired musical fairytale, became a cult hit in New Zealand and was distributed in the U.S.A. by Olive Films.

In 2012 when his feature Love Story screened at the London Film Festival, Jarvis Cocker and PULP invited him to make a feature documentary / concert film about the group.

Florian is the son of acclaimed sixties photographer Frank Habicht.

Filmography

Woodenhead (2003) is renowned for the innovation of recording the entire soundtrack first, (including all the dialogue) before shooting the b&w visuals for the musical fairytale. Florian was acting on explicit instructions from Milli Vanilli, who visited him in a dream.

Documentary Kaikohe Demolition (2004) is a loving celebration of a small struggling town that became famous for some of its children attacking Santa. 

Rubbings From a Live Man, (2008) is a hybrid documentary performed entirely by the film’s subject, NZ performance artist Warwick Broadhead.

The entire narrative of Love Story (2011) was crowd sourced (on camera) from real New Yorkers and dictated the onscreen romance between Florian and Masha Yakovenko.