is a German actress, film director and screenwriter.
Her film Places in Cities was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. In 2019, Schanelec won the Silver Bear for Best Director, for her film I Was at Home, But, at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival. During the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival, in 2023, Schanelec won the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay, for Music.
Schanelec was born in Aalen, Baden-Württemberg, in Germany. Her artistic career began as an actress onstage; however, she is best known today for her career as a filmmaker, which began during her time at the Berlin Film and Television Academy (dffb). There, she studied under Harun Farocki and Hartmut Bitomsky, and met Christian Petzold and Thomas Arslan, with whom she comprised the so-called first wave of the Berlin School. During this time, she produced her thesis film, I Stayed in Berlin All Summer, a 47-minute featurette. Schanelec, Petzold and Arslan found support in the budding artistic scene of post-reunification Berlin, and in the production company Schramm Film, operated by Michael Weber and Florian Koerner von Gustorf. Since graduating from dffb, She has written and directed 7 features and contributed segments to the anthology films Bridges of Sarajevo and Germany 09.
