Johnny Klimek (born 18 August 1962) is an Australian musician, music producer, and composer, best known for his innovative work in the underground electronica music scene and for his film scores.
Life and career Klimek was born in Melbourne, Australia. His mother, Luisa née Cester (born 29 January 1916 in Pasiano di Pordenone) was a daughter of the couple Eugenia and Ernesto Cester. In the summer of 1940, she left Friuli-Venezia Giulia for Australia. After the Second World War, she married Alfons Klimek (died 1998) and gave birth to eight children: Eugenia, Lydia, Naomi (born 1953), Greta, Alfons junior, Robert, and twins Jayney and Johnny (born August 1962). Her sister, Fanny Cester, emigrated to Australia in 1937 and married racing cyclist Nino Borsari in 1940. The Klimek family lived in various Melbourne suburbs including Kew, Oakleigh and, from 1969, Clayton. Klimek's younger cousins, Nic and Chris Cester, were founding mainstays of Australian hard rocker band, Jet (2001–12).
Johnny worked in a number of local garage bands before emigrating to Berlin in 1983, where he started the pop rock band The Other Ones with his sister Jayney and brother Alf. He became active in the Berlin underground trance/ambient/techno scene, and collaborated with Paul Browse of the band Clock DVA on a short-lived musical project, Effective Force. He served as the bass player for singer Nina Hagen's 1996 tour.
Klimek has produced numerous film scores with composer Reinhold Heil, beginning with the 1997 film Winter Sleepers. Since then, they have become regular collaborators of its director, Tom Tykwer, and have provided the score to almost all of his films since, including the score to Perfume, Story Of A Murderer. Klimek, Heil, and Tykwer were nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score for their critically acclaimed score to the latter's 2012 epic science fiction film Cloud Atlas. He has also worked on television series such as Without a Trace, Deadwood, The Newsroom, and Sense8, thriller films such as Run Lola Run and One Hour Photo, horror films such as Land of the Dead and Blood & Chocolate, and action films like Killer Elite and I, Frankenstein. He has won 5 ASCAP Awards, and has been nominated for 2 Saturn Awards, and for 1 Primetime Emmy Award.
Filmography Feature films Year Title Director Notes 1997 Winter Sleepers Tom Tykwer 1998 Run Lola Run 1999 Friedemann Fromm 2000 Ants in the Pants Marc Rothemund The Princess and the Warrior Tom Tykwer Detlev Buck 2001 Tangled Jay Lowi 2002 One Hour Photo Mark Romanek Bang Bang You're Dead Guy Ferland 2003 Swimming Upstream Russell Mulcahy 2004 Iron Jawed Angels Katja von Garnier 2005 Sophie Scholl – The Final Days Marc Rothemund The Cave Bruce Hunt Land of the Dead George A. Romero Deck Dogz Steve Pasvolsky 2006 Perfume: The Story of a Murderer Tom Tykwer 2007 Blood & Chocolate Katja von Garnier Anamorph Henry S. Miller 2008 Blackout Steve Pasvolsky One Missed Call Eric Valette 2009 The International Tom Tykwer 2010 Oliver Kienle Three Tom Tykwer Tomorrow, When the War Began Stuart Beattie 2011 Alien Exorcism Varo Venturi Killer Elite Gary McKendry 2012 Cloud Atlas Lana WachowskiTom TykwerLilly Wachowski Open Heart Kief Davidson Short film 2013 Wolf Creek 2 Greg McLean 2014 I, Frankenstein Stuart Beattie Kill Me Three Times Kriv Stenders 2016 A Hologram for the King Tom Tykwer Lord of Shanghai Sherwood Hu The Darkness Greg McLean 2017 This Crazy Heart Marc Rothemund Jungle Greg McLean This Is Congo Daniel McCabe 2018 Breaking In James McTeigue 2021 The Matrix Resurrections Lana Wachowski Themes by Don Davis,Composed with Tom Tykwer 2023 Weekend RebelsMarc RothemundComposed with Hans Hafner 2025 The Light Tom Tykwer Opening film of Berlinale 2025
Television Year Title Notes 2002 Without a Trace 6 episodes 2004–2006 Deadwood 31 episodes 2007 John from Cincinnati 10 episodes 2008 The Two Mr. Kissels Television film 2011 Locke & Key Television pilot 2012 Awake 12 episodes 2013 The Newsroom 13 episodes 2014 Mind Games 2015–2018 Sense8 24 episodes 2017–2020 Babylon Berlin 28 episodes 2019 Jett 9 episodes 2020 Messiah 10 episodes2026The Party5 episodes
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