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Robert Cibis, born on 21 March 1973 in Lippstadt, shot his first short film "Der deutsche Mittagstisch" (1991, together with Martin Horn) at the age of 18. From 1992 to 1997 he studied film studies in Rome and Paris. In France he met filmmaker Lilian Franck, with whom he founded the production company OVALmedia in 1998. Cibis gained practical experience as a second assistant director to Michael Haneke for "Code Inconnu" (FR 1999). In 2001/2002 he took part in the master class 'Atelier Ludwigsburg-Paris', a postgraduate programme with a focus on film production at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg and the Paris Film Academy La fémis.
Together with Lilian Franck, he shot the short documentary "Halbe Chance?" (2002), for which the duo was awarded the Young Talent Prize of the Franco-German Journalists' Prize. Over the next few years, Cibis and OVALmedia produced a series of TV documentaries by other directors, but also made their own films, such as "Kapital: Mensch - Das Geschäft mit der Arbeit" (2004, TV, together with Lilian Franck) and "Ekelhaft gesund" (2009, TV, together with Michaela Kirst). Together with Franck, Kirst and Matthias Luthardt, Cibis realized the documentary "Jesus liebt Dich" ("Jesus Loves You", 2008), about modern Amercian and German missionaries who tried to convert fans from all over the world during the Football World Cup 2006 in Germany. The film premiered at the Berlinale 2008 in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino section.
Also with Lilian Franck, Cibis shot the cinema documentary "PianoMania" (2009) about Stefan Knüpfer, piano tuner and concert technician at Steinway & Sons, and his collaboration with great pianists such as Lang Lang, Alfred Brendel and Pierre-Laurent Aimard. At the Locarno International Film Festival "PianoMania" was awarded the Semaine de la Critique Prize, it won the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival and the German Film Prize in the category Best Sound Design.
Despite his success as a director, Cibis then continued to work exclusively as a producer of TV documentaries such as "50 Jahre Pille" ("The Pill: Atom Bomb of Contraception", 2010, Director: Michael Kirst) and documentaries for the big screen such as "Free Lunch Society: Komm Komm Grundeinkommen" ("Free Lunch Society - Come Come Basic Income", AT/DE 2017, Director: Christian Tod) and "trustWHO" (DE/AT 2017, Director: Lilian Franck). Already in 2014 he had begun working on the documentary drama "Fuck Fame - Die Geschichte von Elektropop-Ikone Uffie", again together with Lilian Franck. The film about the eventful history of YouTube celebrity Uffie was released in June 2019.