Biography
Justine Bauer was born in 1990 in Crailsheim into a family of farmers. She studied Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts (HGB) in Leipzig, followed by postgraduate studies in fiction film directing, screenwriting, and literary writing at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM). In 2020, she received a literature grant from the Baden-Württemberg Art Foundation. Her novel project "Die Brombeeren mit Wanzenspeichel" earned her the Rolf Dieter Brinkmann Scholarship from the City of Cologne in 2022.
At the Berlin student film festival Sehsüchte in 2021, Bauer won the Best Screenplay Award for her autobiographically inspired script "Milch ins Feuer", which tells the story of a young farmer torn between self-discovery and family tradition. The following year, the project was nominated for the First Steps Award. Filming for "Milch ins Feuer" ("Smell of Burnt Milk") took place in 2023, with a mostly non-professional cast and in the Hohenlohe dialect.
The film, which was Bauer’s graduation project at KHM, premiered in summer 2024 at the Munich Film Festival, where it received the Förderpreis Neues Deutsches Kino for Best Production (awarded to Semih Korhan Güner and Justine Bauer). Further festival appearances and accolades followed, including the Emerging Director Award (MFG Star) at the TeleVisionale Baden-Baden and the Film Development Award of the Baden-Württemberg Dialect Prize. "Milch ins Feuer" was released in cinemas in summer 2025.