Johanna Heer, born in Vienna, is a director, cinematographer, filmmaker and artist.

Johanna Heer came to prominence in the '80s, when she was an Avant-Garde Director of Photography on international feature films. Based in New York City, she was invited to photograph such arthouse films, like SUGARBABY (Zuckerbaby, 1985) in Munich, directed by Percy Adlon, starring Marianne Sägebrecht, DECODER (1983) in Hamburg, by Muscha and Klaus Maeck, DOG’s NIGHT SONG (Kutya éji dala, 1982) in Budapest, directed by Gábor Bódy, and SUBWAY RIDERS (1979-81) in New York City, directed by Amos Poe, a film which she also produced. These films were exhibited at numerous international film festivals, they were also selected for the Forum, Berlinale, where they premiered for four consecutive years at the Delphi Filmpalast.

Johanna Heer declared "Cinematography is Painting with Light", and "Each Frame is a Painting". In her work on feature films, Johanna Heer transcended the story with empathy and passion into visuals through lighting and camera movements: "Colors connect with the unconscious; they unmask, bring the hidden to the surface".

Following the success of SUGARBABY at the New York Film Festival in 1985, film historian Annette Insdorf interviewed Johanna Heer for the Sunday issue of The New York Times (Nov 17, 1985) for a feature article, "In 'Sugarbaby', Style Enhances Content". In the May 1986 issue of American Cinematographer Johanna Heer's work as Director of Photography was profiled by the film critic Joel L. Weinberg.

SUGARBABY, distributed in the USA by Donald Krim/Kino International, was a critical as well as a commercial success. The film was theatrically released in all major cities in the USA; e.g. in New York City it had a long theatrical run at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas uptown before it continued to be shown at Quad Cinema downtown.

Johanna Heer's groundbreaking documentary filmessays include DER ANDERE BLICK (THE OTHER EYE, 1991) about life and work of G.W. Pabst, and DIE KUNST DES ERINNERNS (THE ART OF REMEMBRANCE - SIMON WIESENTHAL, 1995). Both films were produced and directed by Johanna Heer in collaboration with Werner Schmiedel, and photographed by Johanna Heer.

For THE ART OF REMEMBRANCE, composer John Zorn provided the original soundtrack; the film was short-listed for an Oscar® in 1996.

Other samples for Johanna Heer's engaged work are the video installation ON MEMORY (in collaboration with Werner Schmiedel), which was commissioned by MAK, Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, in 1988.

Johanna Heer's video art work include GOLD (1983-85), a 3-part-video, and GOLD - SUDDENLY GOLD IMAGES (1985). The multi-media installation GOLD - SUDDENLY GOLD IMAGES was commissioned by the World Wide Video Festival for the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague (NL), and the three part video GOLD was acquired by the Neue Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.).

In DANCING EMPIRE (2010-2018, series, c-prints), Johanna Heer uses camera movements to transform her cinematic color language into vibrant still photography.

Johanna Heer’s work has been invited to international film festivals, such as the London Film Festival; the New York Film Festival; the Berlin Film Festival (Forum and Panorama); the Deauville Film Festival, France; Figueira da Foz, International Film Festival, Portugal; the Rotterdam International Film Festival, Netherlands; the World Wide Video Festival in The Hague, Netherlands; the Denver International Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Colorado; the Jerusalem Film Festival, Israel; the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle; the Budapest Film Week, Hungary; the Diagonale, Salzburg, Austria; the Bombay (Mumbai) Film Festival, India; the Montreal Film Festival, Canada; the Sao Paulo Film Festival, Brazil; Fort Lauderdale Film Festival, Florida; the Viennale, Vienna, Austria; the Jewish Film Festival, Vienna; the Valladolid Film Festival, Spain; the San Francisco International Video Festival, California; the Videonale, Bonn, Germany; Kind of Blue Jazz Film Festival, Milan, Italy.

Johanna Heer’s fims were screened at Museums, like The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Museum of the Moving Image in New York, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,Texas; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), Boston; MAK Museum Vienna; the Filmmuseum and the Metro Kino in Vienna; Deutsches Filmmuseum in Frankfurt am Main; the Munich Filmmuseum; the New York Public Library, New York City.

In 1991, Johanna Heer was the first woman to be appointed as Guest-Professor to teach Cinematography at the Film Academy Vienna, Austria (Filmakademie Wien).

She also taught at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien), the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York, and she has been invited to give lectures and presentations at colleges, universities and museums in the USA, Canada, and in Europe.