Writer/Director

Carolina Hellsgård is a writer-director, born in Sweden and based in Berlin.
She studied experimental media design at the Berlin University of Arts and film directing and
screenwriting at Cal Arts in Los Angeles. Her award winning films have screened in
numerous international film festivals including Berlinale, TIFF, Montreal WFF, Mostra Sao Paulo,
Gothenburg IFF, Clermont-Ferrand, Filmes de Femmes, Filmfestival Max Ophüls Preis and the Oberhausen Short Film Festival.

Her critically acclaimed debut feature film WANJA premiered at the Berlinale 2015 and was
nominated for Berlinale Best First Feature Award. It won Best Screenplay (Valletta FF) and
Best Feature Film Debut at the Biberacher Filmfestspiele. It was theatrically released in Germany
in the summer of 2016.

Her second feature was the the horror film ENDZEIT – EVER AFTER (Kleines Fernsehspiel / ARTE, produced by GrownUp Films), premiered in the Discovery section at TIFF 2018.
It was picked up by NY based Juno Films for theatrical release in the US 2019, and screened as a part of the Mariette Rissenbeek Carte Blanche Series @ MoMA, NY https://www.moma.org/
It was theatrically released in Germany in the fall of 2019 to critical acclaim, FAZ called it "a course in romantic viewing" https://www.faz.net and EPD "something you rarely see in German cinemas" https://www.epd-film.de

Hellsgård's third feature film project SUNBURNED (produced by Niko Film) premiered at the Rome Film Fest / Alice Nelle Citta in October 2019.It screened at Max Ophüls Preis and Gothenburg IFF in January 2020. It will be theatrically released on the 23rd of April 2020.

2015-17 she was a Dorothea Erxleben Fellow and a lecturer at the Braunschweig University of Art (HBK). Furthermore she has been awarded the Berlin Senat working Grant in 2015, and the Berliner Künstlerinnen Grant in 2009 and 2016.

In 2017 she was a Villa Aurora Fellow in Los Angeles. 2019 she resided in Rome as a Nipkow / Medienboard Artist-in-Residence Fellow https://air.nipkow.de/fellows/
2020 she was nominated for the SI-STAR Filmpreis https://clubmainz.soroptimist.de/projekte/si-star-filmpreis/si-star-2020/

She is being represented by the Felix Bloch Erben Agentur in Berlin
http://felix-bloch-erben-agentur.de

Director's Statement

I make films about people who are isolated and don't belong. My characters desperately seek 
inclusion in the society, in a group or as a couple; it's all about their daily fights and dreams. 
It's about showing their lives and ongoing struggles, and ultimately to create understanding 
and love for them.

More info: http://hellsgard.com/