Born in 1965 in Vienna, Werner Boote started out as a cable boy. He studied drama and theater arts, journalism and sociology at the University of Vienna and at the film academy.
After years of being an assistant director (to Robert Dornhelm, Ulrich Seidl, Bud Spencer, Marvin Chomsky and others) Boote began making his own films in 1993. His initial focus was on music, including the videos Anouk - Sacrifice (1999) and Andrea Bocelli - Tuscan Skies (2002). Numerous award-winning music documentaries followed, for example Kurt Rydl - The Gladiator (2007), which was nominated for the FIPA European Film Award.
In 2009, his first feature film, Plastic Planet, arrived in Austrian cinemas and won the Golden Romy for "Best Documentary Feature". It went on to appear in over 90 countries and accomplished countless changes in legislation, industry and society. "It is one of those rare call-to-action documentaries that roused viewers to do something against plastics." (Variety)
In the movie Population Boom (2013), Boote did away with the widespread worldview of overpopulation and called for distributive justice. The film was crowned with the Green Me Award for the Best Green documentary in Berlin.
After the evocative documentary Everything´s Under Control (2015) about the self-evidence of pervasive surveillance, his new box-office-hit The Green Lie hit theaters in 2018 and premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale).
He is an experienced business speaker, who inspires audiences to explore and take action to drive change.
From 1993 to 2002 Werner Boote lived and worked in Amsterdam. He now resides in Vienna.