Peter Zach was born in Graz, Austria in 1960. After completing school he took a media course at the Karl-Franzens University in Graz, where he then studied Sociology and Ethnology till 1985.
In 1984 Peter co-founded the film journal BLIMP.
From 1987 to 1988 he also worked as a camera man for ORF cultural features. The following year he worked as an editor for the WDR’s »Aktuelle Stunde« show. Peter Zach has been living and working in Berlin as a writer, director and camera man since 1990.
Zach has made numerous feature-length documentaries, including the documentary nominated Austria's best film in 1994: Malli – Artist in Residence, about the Vienna Jazz musician Walter Malli who works as house manager in the Schönbrunn Palace by day and makes music by night. Furthermore he made »Aus der Mitte« in 1995, a film about young, artistic life in Berlin Mitte shot five years after the fall of the Wall. In 2000 Zach made »Der Abendlaender«, an essayistic documentary about the »writer of writers« Helmut Eisendle and, in 2002, »Die Netzarbeiter«, a film about the development of start-up companies in Berlin at the end of the boom. In 2007/2008 they are followed by »The City named Desire«.
Zach has also made many short films, worked as a cameraman on »Carmina Burana« (2000) by Oliver Hermann and »Zuhause ist wo ich bin« (2004) by Stephan Settele, and was executive producer of »This Year in Czernowitz« (2004) by Volker Koepp. Furthermore, Peter Zach was responsible for the script and executive production management of Sasha Waltz’s film »Allee der Kosmonauten«, which won the 1999 Grimme Prize, and, more recently, for the script to Othmar Schmiderer’s »Back to Africa« (2005/06). Zach was a jury member for the Austrian Carl Mayer script prize from 1995 to 2004.