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German-American filmmaker From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Katja Esson is a German-American filmmaker based in Miami, Florida. She was born and raised in Germany.[1][2]
Her documentary Ferry Tales received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary (Short Subject) in 2004.[3] She is the only female German filmmaker ever nominated for a documentary at the Academy Awards.
Esson was born Katja Kümmerle, in Hamburg, Germany. After graduating from secondary school in Hamburg, she moved to the United States to study film,[1] earning a Bachelor in Motion Pictures and Theater at the University of Miami, Florida.[2]
Esson began working in the film industry as a director's assistant on German features,[2] and a production assistant in Miami.[4] She moved to New York in 1994.[1] She was married to Cuban painter Tomas Esson.[5]
Since the year 2000, she has worked as a writer-director. Her documentaries have screened internationally on numerous festivals in the US,[6][7] Asia and Europe, and have won international awards.[2] In 2011, her film Poetry of Resilience won the award for Best Short Documentary at the Woodstock Film Festival.[8][9] In 2012, her film Skydancer was nominated for three awards at the Shanghai Television Festival (Best Documentary, Best Director, Best Camera).[4]
Her films have also been broadcast on PBS, HBO and channel Thirteen,[2] as well as Arte and ARD in Europe.[2][10][11]
In 2004, she started her own production company, Penelope Pictures.
In 2007, Esson received the Simons Public Humanities Fellowship[12] and was nominated for a Rockefeller Media Grant.[2]
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