Maren ADE

Director, Writer, Producer

Germany

In just 3 feature films, Maren Ade has established herself as one of the most important filmmakers of her generation. From her graduation film, The Forest for the Trees (2003), which she produced through her company Komplizen Film co-founded in 1999 with Janine Jackowski, Maren Ade finely observed the difficulties of human interaction through the portrait of a novice teacher. The film put her directly in the running for international festivals such as Toronto and Sundance, where she won the Special Jury Prize in 2005. Her second feature, Everyone Else, a fine analysis of a couple on vacation, brings out the violence in relationships through its naturalistic staging. The film won the Silver Bear for Best Film and the Silver Bear for Best Actress for Birgit Minichmayr at the 2009 Berlinale and was released in over 18 countries. In 2016, she made her mark on the Croisette with her scathing Toni Erdmann, in which humor redraws the lines of a delicate father-daughter relationship to better bring out the emotion of a life prevented by social conventions. The film wins the FIPRESCI International Critics’ Prize, several European Film Awards and German Film Awards. It was nominated for Golden Globe, César, BAFTA and Oscar awards for Best Foreign Language Film, and was sold in over 100 countries worldwide. Maren Ade is also a talented producer. The production company Komplizen Film, which she runs with her partners Janine Jackowski and Jonas Dornbach, has become one of Germany’s leading independent production companies, having produced or co-produced films such as About Dry Grasses by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Award for Best Actress, Festival de Cannes 2023), Maria by Pablo Larraín (2024), Sentimental Value by Joachim Trier Competition, Festival de Cannes 2025), and Yes by Nadav Lapid. She is currently developing her next feature, Das Zauberwort (The Magic Word)