Hugo Max is a British-Austrian filmmaker, musician and painter.

Premieres of Hugo’s films have been hosted by Modern Art Oxford, Close-Up Film Centre and the Sheldonian Theatre. His work has screened at festivals in the UK, Germany, Canada, Japan and South Korea.

Hugo performs live improvised scores to silent films on solo viola, regularly soundtracking screenings at London’s Prince Charles Cinema and Picturehouse Cinemas across the UK. In 2024 he presented his first nationwide tour accompanying a selection of classic silent horrors and thrillers. His performances have captivated audiences at many of the UK’s most beloved cinemas including Bo’ness’ Hippodrome, Oxford’s Ultimate Picture Palace and Aldeburgh Cinema and have been programmed as part of Bath’s Archaeo-Heritage Film Festival, Hippfest’s ‘Taste of Silents’ Season and Picturehouse reDiscover. Delving behind-the-scenes of his unique process scoring silent cinema, Hugo has featured on BBC Radio Scotland’s ‘The Arts Mix’, Hippcast and BBC Cambridgeshire’s ‘Meet the Maker’ and has contributed articles to The Strad and Little White Lies. He has lectured on improvisation and multidisciplinary practice at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

Drawn to parallels between filmmaking and collective musicmaking, Hugo has been concertmaster of Echo Ensemble, OUPhilharmonic and the Oxford Baroque Players. As a chamber musician he has performed at venues including the Royal Albert Hall’s Elgar Room, St. Martin-in-the-Fields and the Holywell Music Room where he curated a triptych of multidisciplinary concerts between 2022-24.

Solo exhibitions of Hugo’s paintings have been held at London’s Phoenix Cinema and Oxford’s Dolphin Gallery. He has co-curated and displayed work in group exhibitions at Fusion Arts, The Ruskin School of Art and Magdalen College, Oxford where he graduated in 2023 with a degree in Fine Art. Hugo is currently based at the Friedl Kubelka School for Independent Film in Vienna.

Hugo is the author of three artist’s books: Kosher Giraffe Trilogy (2024), The Dissonance Book (2023) and The Stanley Series (2020).