Carla Juri

Biography

Carla Juri was born in Locarno, Switzerland in 1985. From 2005 to 2007, she studied acting in Los Angeles and subsequently joined the city's Theatrical Arts Theatre Company. In 2008, she moved to London, where she studied at the Actors Centre until 2010. During her acting school years, she already appeared in several film and TV productions. She received the Swiss Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of a lively woman who gets involved in a tragic accident in "180°" (CH, 2010). She went on to play a young wealthy woman who falls in love with a disfigured boy from a poor family in Xavier Koller's "Eine wen iig, dr Dällebach Kari" (CH, 2011). Her performance garnered her the 2012 Swiss Film Award for Best Actress. The following year, she was honoured as one of the European "Shooting Stars" at the IFF Berlin.

Drawing much attention by the media, Carla Juri was cast as the female lead for "Feuchtgebiete" ("Wetlands"), the screen adaptation of the eponymous best-selling novel. In the film, she portrays a young woman who has an unconventional attitude towards body hygiene and sex, and who desperately wants to reunite her divorced parents. Her performance in this role garnered her the Actor's Award at the Locarno IFF and a nomination for the German Film Award.

Shortly afterwards, Juri played a student who becomes the target of a cruel prank at the Auschwitz memorial in the acclaimed drama "Finsterworld" (2013). She next was one of the leads in Bettina Oberli's tragicomedy "Lovely Louise" (CH/DE 2013), and had a starring role in the British thriller "Fossil" (2014).

Carla Juri played the muse of famous sculptor Constantin Brancusi in Peter Greenaway's "Walking to Paris" (IT/CH/FR) and German painter Paula Modersohn-Becker in Christian Schwochow's biopic "Paula", which opened in cinemas December 2016. She also belonged to the ensemble of the German-American youth film "Morris from America", which was released in Germany in November 2016.

She also had prominent roles in the western "Brimstone" (DE/NL/BE 2016) and especially as a mysterious memory designer in the Hollywood production "Blade Runner 2049" (2017). Juri played a leading role in the novel adaptation "Intrigo: Dear Agnes" (2019), followed by a leading role as the mother of a Jewish refugee family in Caroline Link's "Als Hitler das rosa Kaninchen stahl" ("When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit", 2019).

Further notable roles came in the British horror film "Amulet" (2020), in which Juri played a young woman controlled by her mother, who is believed to be possessed by a demon, and in Bradley Rust Gray's drama "I'll Be Your Mirror" (US, 2022), in which Juri played a young European widow who, while staying in Japan, finds herself caught between the melancholy of her loss and a sense of new possibilities sparked by seeing her life from a different perspective. In Eric Lamhène's drama "Breathing Underwater" (LU/BE, 2023), she played Emma, an abused woman who unexpectedly becomes pregnant and seeks refuge in a women's shelter, where she struggles alongside the other residents to reclaim her independence and make a fresh start. In 2024, Juri starred in Jeroen Houben's musical drama "Torch Song" (NL, 2024) as Liz, a former pop singer who travels to the Netherlands following her mother's death to reconnect with her estranged half-brother, disrupting his life when she finds a new muse for her music in his girlfriend. Juri performed all of Liz's songs herself, recording them live during filming. In Rosanne Pel's "Donkey Days" (NL/DE, 2025), about two very different sisters who continue to compete for their mother's attention even as adults, Juri played their mother as a young woman in flashbacks. The film premiered in competition at the Locarno Film Festival.  

In 2025, Juri appeared opposite Corinna Harfouch in Jutta Brückner's "Im Spiegel meiner Mutter" ("In My Mother's Mirror") as Mel, a young assistant who seems to know an uncanny amount about archaeologist Ursula Scheuner's past and her late mother.