Thomas Rigler

Thomas Rigler is an award-winning filmmaker, New Media and TV development executive who produces and devises content strategies for film, television and emerging media platforms. He’s consulted for Talpa Content USA, PBS-Now, Sony Pictures Television, MSN Germany, DDB Juniper Group, Nixle.com and E! Networks among others.

Thomas Rigler recently joined the producing and consulting partnership Gerber Rigler with veteran producer and new media visionary Brian Gerber. 

Thomas recently developed and is set to produce and co-direct ‘The Trainer,’ a feature length documentary film for Austrian Public Television ORF and Lotus Film Vienna about author and music legend Günter Brödl, to premiere in October 2010.

Thomas oversaw the successful launch of the broadband video channel the Vine @ Eonline, one of the first broadband properties from a US cable network, as well as VOD channels for Comcast’s E! and Style Networks, and served as senior producer during the start of several internationally localized Comcast Channels. Thomas executive produced and directed hundreds of hours of television, broadband, mobile and VOD programming for E!, style, Food Network, Fine Living, CNET, ZDF, Arte, ORF, Pro7 and 3SAT.
Educated at the writing and directing program of the National Film Academy in Vienna, Austria, Thomas got his start writing and producing for local theater, eventually directing documentaries about German and US theater events for German pubcaster ZDF and Arte. Thomas produced numerous television profiles on A-list actors, directors and musicians for lifestyle cable network E! that aired across the globe, as well as 10 episodes of ‘Infamous’, a scripted take on true crime genre for E! Entertainment’s primetime slate. He is the award-winning director of Glenalbyn Drive, a documentary about proponents of the 1980’s art world and various subsequent experimental films on fine arts.
Thomas serves as the Vice President of the Board for the International Documentary Association and as an industry mentor at the American Film Institute’s Digital Content Lab. He is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Producers Guild of America and the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.
Thomas conceived and runs AustenAddict.com, an online destination promoting the bestselling Plume / Penguin book Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict. He writes on new media production for his own Broadband Jungle Blog, Vator.TV, Handelsblatt.com and Documentary Magazine.