About

Benjamin Cantu is a German-Hungarian film and television director, author, producer, showrunner and casting director. From 2001-2003, Cantu studied animation at the Film University Babelsberg in Germany. He then went on to study directing at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (dffb). In 2010, he graduated with the hybrid feature film HARVEST, which was invited to the 61st Berlinale (Generation 14Plus) and won the Teddy Reader’s Award. The film was shown at numerous international festivals such as Outfest, Frameline and Viennale, as well as in German, Polish and French cinemas (Edition Salzgeber).

Parallel to his studies, Cantu began making documentaries for German and French public television. THE WORLD BELONGS TO CHAIM (ZDF/3sat), a portrait of a Jewish orthodox talmud student, was awarded the Axel Springer Prize for Young Journalists in 2007. His documentary THE BERLIN PATIENT (RBB/Arte), received the Media Prize of the German AIDS Foundation in 2012.

After completing his studies, Cantu worked for Boekamp & Kriegsheim GmbH, founded by Nils Bökamp and Felix Kriegsheim, as a creative producer, director and writer. During this time, he also co-directed the documentary BECAUSE OF WHO I AM (RBB/Arte) with Nils Bökamp, in collaboration with Amnesty International, the German Historical Museum and Schwules* Museum Berlin. 

From 2016 to 2019, Cantu worked for Lupa Film (Felix von Boehm) as a creative producer, where he worked on the development and financing of documentaries, feature films and series, including THF – CENTRAL AIRPORT by Karim Aïnouz (Berlinale Panorama, 2018), LIBERTÉ by Albert Serra (Un Certain Regard, 2019). Cantu lead the writers rooms of the series JUST PUSH ABUBA (ZDF Quantum) and HEUL DOCH – THERAPIE WIE NOCH NIE (ZDF/Arte) with the authors Jana Burbach, Niko Schulz Dornburg, Isabell Suba and Lili Tautfest.

In 2020-21, Cantu was hired by Netflix Studios as showrunner for the realization of the award-winning four-part true crime series, DIG DEEPER – THE DISAPPEARANCE BIRGIT MAYER. 

In 2023, the historical docudrama ELDORADO – EVERYTHING THE NAZIS HATE was released as Netflix Original, which Cantu directed and co-wrote. Alongside Nils Bökamp and Felix Kriegsheim, Cantu was also one of the executive producers of the film, which was shortlisted for the British Grierson Award and the GLAAD Media Award.

In 2019, Cantu founded Metanoia Casting in Budapest together with casting director Hermina Fátyol, which has since focused on international casting assignments. Together they worked on Ruben Östlund’s THE ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM IS DOWN and Ann Oren’s first and second feature films, PIAFFE and OBJET A. 

Between 2021 and 2024, Benjamin Cantu was involved in the founding of The Thursday Company alongside Nils Bökamp and Felix Kriegsheim – with the aim of establishing themselves on the international streaming market.
In 2023, Cantu wrote and directed the four-part true crime documentary series ZEIT VERBRECHEN – SPURENSUCHE in collaboration with ZEIT Verlagsgruppe and X Filme, commissioned by Paramount+.

Benjamin Cantu is a Fellow of Torino FilmLab (Script&Pitch 2013), and EAVE Producers Workshop (2018), the Salzburg Global LGBT* Forum, and a member of the Queer Media Society Germany.

In 2025 he particpates in the second edition of Torino FilmLab’s SeriesLab Story Editing program.

Cantu is a member of the development jury of the German Federal Film Board.