National Competition for Women Directors of Photography

Katharina Dießner, IFFF award winner in 2016 for the documentary film Arlette – Courage Is a Muscle, was born in 1978 and studied ethnology at the Freie Universität Berlin. She startet to work as assistant cinematographer and gaffer in 2000. From 2007 to 2015, she studied cinematography and film at the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin. While studying, she made a large number of shorts, documentary films and feature films that were presented at international film festivals. The film When Suddenly the East Lies in the West (Director: Ki Bun) won several international awards in 2012/13. Kineski zid – Great Wall of China (directed by: Aleksandra Odić) ran successfully at the 68th Berlinale and her current feature film Arthur and Claire (directed by: Miguel Alexandre) opened in cinemas across Germany in March 2018.

Eva Testor, born 1967 in Hall in Tirol, studied Camera Technology and Cinematography at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, Department of Film & Television under Prof. Christian Berger. She works as a freelance cinematographer in Vienna. Since 2000, in collaboration with long-term partners such as Mirjam Unger (Fly Away Home), Sabine Derflinger (Day and Night) and Gabi Schweiger (Women’s Lust), Testor has provided the camera work for many successful big-screen and television films. In 2016, she was awarded the Golden Romy for best TV camera work for the series Suburbia Women (Season 1, episodes 1-5, directed by Sabine Derflinger). She is currently shooting the new documentary by Gabi Schweiger Viva la Vulva. Alongside her cinematographer work, Eva Testor also writes screenplays and prose.

Films by Eva Testor (DoP, Selection)
Vorstadtweiber 2015 – 2016 | Maikäfer Flieg! 2015 | Lichttage Lichtnächte – Christian Berger im Film 2014 | Oh Yeah, She performs! 2012 | Die Lust der Frauen 2010 | Tag und Nacht 2009 | Little Alien 2008 | Vienna’s Lost Daughters 2007 | 24 Wirklichkeiten in der Sekunde – Michael Haneke im Film 2004 | Crash Test Dummies 2004 | Richtung Zukunft durch die Nacht 2001

Sophie Maintigneux has been active as a freelance cinematographer since 1984. She has worked with directors such as Eric Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard, Michael Klier, Jan Schütte and Helga Reidemeister, and she has been director of photography on more than seventy fiction films and documentaries and has received numerous awards, including the German Camera Award for the documentary Ladies and Gentlemen over 65 and for Die dünnen Mädchen. In 2017, she received the The WIFTS Cinematographer Award. Her most recent works are the feature film Mario (directed by Marcel Gisler) and the documentary film outside directed by Johanna Sunder-Plassmann and Tama Tobias-Macht). Since 2011, she is Professor of Cinematography at the Cologne Academy of Media Arts.