Gallery
All Pictures (2)Biography
Anatol Schuster was born in 1985 in Darmstadt. He studied Literature and Philosophy in Regensburg and Avignon, France, where he dedicated a lot of his time towards poetry, theatre and photography. It was here where he first started shooting short experimental films. In 2009 he began his directing studies at the University of Television and Film Munich (HFF) where he started developing his style and shot numerous more experimental short films. Alongside his studies he worked as a freelance director, cameraman and editor. Among those jobs, he worked as second assistant director for Edgar Reitz' "Die andere Heimat" ("Home from Home: Chronicle of a Vision", 2012) and as a gaffer for the short film "Behinderte Ausländer" (2013, Director: Alireza Golafshan).
In 2014 Schuster wrote and directed the 40-minute short film "Ein idealer Ort" ("A Perfect Place"), which was awarded as the best film in the section "Perspektive Deutsches Kino" at the 2015 Berlinale. He continued making short films and released his first cinematic feature, the lesbian love story "Luft", which also happened to be his graduation film, in 2017. In 2018 "Luft" was awarded as the best narrative film at the Tel Aviv International LGBT Film Festival and Schuster himself was recognized as a promising new director. In 2017 he was given a Wim Wenders Scholarship for the development support of his film "Stille", which is still in development.
In 2018 Schuster shot the film "Frau Stern", which tells the story of an old jewish German lady who is fed up with life and wishes to die, but rediscovers the joys of life through the help of her granddaughter. The film premiered at the 2019 Filmfestival Max Ophüls Prize. Furthermore, it was awarded with the prizes for best feature film, best actresses (Ahuva Sommerfeld and Kara Schröder) and the Prize from the "Verband der deutschen Filmkritik" (German Film Critics Society) at the 15th achtung berlin Festival. The theatrical release followed in August 2019.