"Mr Bachmann and His Class" director
Maria Speth is a writer, director, and producer of features and documentaries. Her graduate thesis film and debut feature THE DAYS BETWEEN premiered at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in 2001, where it won the VPRO Tiger Award. It was also honored with the Grand Jury Award at the Créteil International Women’s Film Festival and the MFG-Star Award for emerging directors in Germany in 2001.
Her second feature MADONNAS (D 2007) won the Hessian Film Prize in 2007. The lead actress Sandra Hüller won the “Silver Astor” award for best actress at the Festival Internacional de Cine in Mar del Plata.
In 2009, Maria Speth founded Madonnen Film and produced her first documentary, 9 LIVES, which she wrote, directed, and edited, and for which she received the DEFA Foundation Award at the 2010 International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film. In 2011, she was awarded the Incentive Prize for Film and Media Arts from the Academy of Arts in Berlin. In 2012, Maria received the German Metropolis Award as best director of a documentary.
Her feature DAUGHTERS (D 2014) premiered at the Berlinale and was released theatrically in Germany. In 2015, Maria received script development funding from the German National Film Fund FFA for her project STADT ALLEN DORF that she shot as MR. BACHMAN AND HIS CLASS until July 2017. Mr Bachmann will be released theatrically in Germany by Grandfilm following its premiere at Berlinale 2021.
She is currently working on a feature film FOR KATE her project ONE LIVES BECAUSE ONE IS BORN, both supported with funds through the German Federal Government.
