Director / Producer
Dominik Rausch is an award-winning director / producer, who is passionate about bringing innately human and inspiring stories to life with a vivid visual style that entertains while simultaneously evoking deeper thoughts and emotions. His latest work as a director for 2024 Critics Choice Award nominated series “Death in the Dorms” (a collaboration between Hulu Originals, ABC News, and IPC) can be seen on Hulu.
He is represented by Paradigm Talent Agency and recently joined the Television Academy directors peer group after marking a milestone in having directed on over 65 episodes of true crime one-hour episodes for networks including Hulu, Oxygen/NBCUniversal, FOX and ABC.
His development of original materials includes a half-hour series with Broadway Video Entertainment (“Saturday Night Life,” “30 Rock,” “Portlandia”) that sold to Comedy Central; as well as a half-hour series taking a new approach (a comedic one!) to bringing climate change to a wider audience in collaboration with a former International Trade Specialist at the Department of Commerce under President Obama.
Rausch was born and raised in Germany. Shortly after moving to Los Angeles in 2007, he received a scholarship from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Dominik launched his career in digital media with a focus on pioneering branded entertainment – this included producing “Easy To Assemble” (sponsored by IKEA and starring Illeana Douglas, Jeff Goldblum, and Keanu Reeves), which with over 17 million views world-wide was ranked by Ad Age among the Top 5 Branded Deals of 2009 alongside blockbuster movie “Transformers” and NBC’s “Chuck.”
Other brands he has worked with include Trident Gum, Ace Hardware, Party City, and Walmart. Platforms and companies that his projects have been distributed on or developed for include Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, 20th Century Fox Digital, NBC/Universal, Sony Crackle, Horizon Media, YouTube and Funny or Die.
In 2011, Rausch was nominated for “Variety’s Digital 25” and his work, by then, had received Streamy Awards and a NATPE Digital Luminary Award in addition to being a Webby Award Honoree.
A recent detour from his focus on directing in one-hour TV took him to Bogotá, Colombia, where production of RuPaul’s “Drag Race Germany – Season 1” for Paramount+ took place in the summer of 2023. As part of the producing team, Rausch was able to help oversee production and post for a project that, after having come out late in life, was near and dear to his heart as it would bring meaningful and highly anticipated representation to the LGBTQIA+ community in the German-speaking TV market and the country he grew up in.
Representation on the big and small screen is a cause that has only grown in importance for Rausch, not only through opportunities like shaping an American franchise featuring LGBTQIA+ talent for German television, but also through advocating for increased diversity in casting, which afforded him the eye-opening experience to work with members of the deaf community for an episode of Oxygen’s “Accident, Suicide or Murder – Season 4.”