About
Johanna Lietha is an awarded screenwriter and director working in the fields of fiction feature films and drama series.
Her creative approach lies in stories told with humanism, heart and humor. She focuses to create truthful yet entertaining fiction and believes that we can make great films through authenticity and enthusiasm.
She was born and raised in Switzerland, studied in the UK, and is currently based in Austria. She works in Vienna, Zürich, Berlin, London and elsewhere.
LOVECUT – Fiction Feature (2020)
Winner of Best Screenplay at Max Ophüls Film Festival 2020
Sex tapes and Skype dates, club nights and dinners with the parents. In a series of episodes, LOVECUT follows six young adults in their search for love, relationships, and physicality. The internet’s anonymity and short-lived nature shape the realities in which the young people try out relationships and explore their own identities. A flickering drift through a phase of life that releases wild energies—productive as well as destructive.
IN DEVELOPMENT
HEART BEATS
Children’s Film | 85 min. | AT, CH | Written & Directed by JohannaLietha | Production: berg hammer film (AT) & tellfilm (CH)
12-year-old half-orphan Lia reluctantly moves to a new town with her father and keeps both her new patchwork family and her classmates at bay. She causes heavy trouble until a self-made drum set and the family of a schoolmate enable her to express her suppressed grief with her own rhythm.
LEVITATE
Drama | 90 min. | Written & Directed by Johanna Lietha
Aki, a volunteer death care worker, looks after terminally ill former comedian Karl in the last phase of his life. She slips into the role of his long-dead wife, who appears to her as a spirit, and is able to free herself from her own ghosts of the past.