Biography
Barbara Miller was born in Winterthur, Switzerland, in 1970. She studied law, film, philosophy and psychology at the University of Zurich. She gained practical experiences in directing as assistant director to Christian Frei on "Bollywood im Alpenrausch" (CH 2000) and the multi-award-winning "War Photographer" (CH 2001) about the war photographer James Nachtwey. Following this, she started working as freelance documentary filmmaker, until 2009 mostly for Swiss TV.
From the start, her work has been revolving around sociopolitical subject matters, e.g. in "Die Gipfelstürmer – Unterwegs mit Schweizer Globalisierungsgegnern" (CH 2002, about anti-globalization activists), "Vollfett – Abnehmen um jeden Preis?" (CH 2003, about obesity and diets) and "Jugendgewalt – Massiv aggressiv und der Frust danach" (CH 2006, about youth violence). Her other TV documentaries "Klitoris – Die schöne Unbekannte" (CH 2005), "Häusliche Gewalt - Wenn die Familie zur Hölle wird" (CH 2005, about domestic violence), "Scheidungsmütter" (CH 2007, about divorced mothers) and "Der virtuelle Seitensprung" (CH 2009, about adultery on the Internet) are among those productions that deal with topics related to relationships, family and female sexuality, another important focus of her work.
Miller's first feature film was "Forbidden Voices" (CH 2012) about female partisans in Cuba, Iran and China, who use their blogs to fight their state’s information monopoly. The film was shown at several festivals throughout the world and won the Amnesty International Award at the Human Rights Film Festival in San Sebastian (Spain) as well as the Human Rights Award at the WACC-SIGNIS Awards in Toronto. In 2013, "Forbidden Voices" was nominated for Best Documentary at the Swiss Film Prize.
Five years later, Miller’s next documentary feature "#Female Pleasure" (CH/DE 2018) premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, where it received the Premio Zonta Club Award. The film portrays five women of different cultural and religious backgrounds who fight for sexual freedom for women. It was released in German cinemas in November 2018.