Silvana Santamaria is an award-winning German-Italian filmmaker, residing in Berlin. She graduated in 2010 from the renowned Film Academy Baden- Württemberg in Film Directing. Already during her studies, Santamaria gained international attention with her directorial works “Status:geduldet”, the Winner of the “Young European CIVIS Prize” and nominated at Dok Leipzig in German competition, “Nowhere. Kosovo” -Winner of the Max-Ophüls-Prize for Best Documentary and her short fiction film “Standstill” which premiered at San Sebastian Film Festival. After graduation, she directed the short Fiction film “Her letter for his Wedding”, starring Corinna Harfouch and Sylvester Groth, nominated at the Max-Ophüls-Preis for best short and was shortly after released on ARTE.

 

At the same time, she shot the third and last documentary of her Trilogy about Migration (Trilogy named “Integration”(Status:Tolerated), “Deportation” (Nowhere.Kosovo), “Migration” (Alice in the Land of Hope) with the feature documentary “Alice in the Land of Hope”
which was shot in 2011 in Lampedusa and Palermo. She released in the same year her first Fine Art Photography work at the Academy of Arts in Berlin with the name “Migration and Work”, which were a result of her research in Senegal and Palermo. In 2013 she cofounded the film production company SOILFILMS, where she successfully
writes, directs, and produces feature films. The company is female driven and has a passion for telling stories that raise awareness of diversity, social and political topics.

Since 2007, Santamaria has worked regularly with broadcasters like ARTE, ZDF, BR, 3Sat, SWR, and German and int. Film Funds. With her films, she won important national and international awards which were screened in A-Festivals worldwide such as Cannes, Venice, Karlovy Vary, Warsaw, San Sebastian, Shanghai, etc.

 

In 2019 she was one of seven uprising European female producers selected for the EWA Network Mentorship Program and was mentored for one year by producer Carlotta Calori from Indigo Films (La GRANDE BELEZZA, YOUTH, THIS MUST BE THE PLACE). In the same year, her film “SHARAF” was selected at Venice Film Festival for
the Copro Market. During the festival, Santamaria’s directorial fiction Debut “A PART OF ME” was bought by MBC and was released in over 22 countries on TV and through the screening platform SHAHID. The film premiered in 2018 at the Carthage Film Festival, one of the most important film festivals in Africa and the Middle East and the oldest film festival of the African Continent. 2021 Santamaria was selected for the EAVE Marketing Workshop. In the same year, she attended once more the Venice Coproduction Market with the film “The Mother of all lies”, which won 2 awards at the Venice Film Festival 2021 in the program “Final Cut in Venice”. Santamaria is a member of the European Film Academy. Her latest work PAMIR had its World
Premiere at Cannes Film Festival 2022 (Director’s Fortnight) and was awarded and screened in some of the most prestigious film festivals worldwide. It won Best Film in the Critics Week at Cairo Film Festival 2022 and was nominated for the European Film Award in the Discovery section. “SHARAF” premiered at the Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah in December 2021 and won two awards at Carthage Film Festival in Tunis in 2022 and premiered at HOF in Germany. The Film had its German cinema release on the 26 of January 2023. 2023 she was the German representative, selected by German Films, of the Producers on the Move program at the Cannes Film Festival.