Ruedi Gerber founded ZAS Film AG in Zurich in 1992. Gerber started out as a stage actor in the early 1980s, playing a wide range of theaters in the German-speaking world (Mannheim, Basel, Wuppertal etc.), initially as a member of a theater company and later in the independent and experimental drama scene. From 1986 to 1990 he studied film at the Tisch School of the Arts in New York and graduated with honors.