Biography
Ute Adamczewski studied architecture and shot her first Super 8 films during this time. After graduating, she began to realise videos and installations as an artist, which were shown at various festivals, museums and galleries, such as the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Shanghai Art Biennale and the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich. She worked as an editor on André Siegers’ documentary film "Souvenir" (2014). Her video works "Neue Ordnung" (2013) and "La Villa Radieuse Chinoise" (2015) were co-produced by KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. As Adamczewski says, the "perception of the built" is of great importance in her cinematic works: "I'm interested in how society is reflected in the material."
This aspect also comes into play in her first feature-length film: the documentary film essay "Zustand und Gelände" ("Status and Terrain") shows places and squares in Saxony that were used as so-called "early camps" by the Nazis in 1933. The images are combined with reports from survivors and quotes from bureaucratic documents from that time. At the DOK Leipzig 2019 festival, "Zustand und Gelände" was awarded the ver.di prize and the Golden Dove. At the FID Marseille it received the Prix Premier for Best Debut Film, and at the Achtung Berlin Festival 2020 the prize of the ecumenical jury. In summer 2021, "Zustand und Gelände" was released in German cinemas.
In addition to her work as an artist and filmmaker, Ute Adamczewski teaches as a guest lecturer at the University of Hildesheim in 2021.