Bernt Capra, also known as Amadeus, was raised on a farm in the Austrian Alps and financed his college education at the Vienna Technical University with part time jobs as a ski instructor and tourist guide.

When he finally got his masters degree in architecture, the Austrian army wanted to draft him and he escaped to Los Angeles where he was offered a scholarship for urban design.

He graduated and got a job with a Century City architect, but since all of his friends at the time worked in the film business he, too, soon found himself behind a drafting table at Warner Bros.

After a few years in Hollywood he was drawn back to Europe and lived in Rome where he financed his experimental films with acting jobs. Those films got him his first directing assignments with Austrian TV (“The Saint Severin Story”, “Empedocles”, “The Secret Vienna”).

But after a few years as documentary filmmaker in Austria Bernt was back on the beach in Malibu, this time married and with a baby son, and he has lived here ever since. In the meantime he made himself a name as a Hollywood production designer with such movies as “This is Spinal Tap”, “Bagdad Café”, or “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?”, and with “Hollywood Horror”, and “Mindwalk” he also continued his directing career.

In 2005 Bernt also won an Emmy for designing HBO’s “Carnivale”.