Biography
Sarah Neumann was born in 1988 in Görlitz (then part of the GDR). After completing her high school education, she initially studied film and theater studies at the Free University of Berlin. In 2010, she began making her first short films and gained practical experience in production coordination and line production at UFA Fiction in Potsdam, including work on the feature film "Wir sind jung. Wir sind stark" ("We Are Young. We Are Strong", 2014).
In 2015, she started her directing studies at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, where she directed several short films. Concurrently, Neumann worked as a dramaturge at UFA Fiction in Ludwigsburg until 2019. In 2021, she began working on her graduation film "Jenseits der blauen Grenze" ("Beyond the Blue Border"), an adaptation of the autobiographical young adult novel by Dorit Linke, which tells the story of two teenagers fleeing the GDR in the summer of 1989. The film premiered in January 2024 at the Max Ophüls Prize Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award, the Ecumenical Jury Prize, and the award for Best Acting Newcomer (Willi Geitmann). "Jenseits der blauen Grenze" was released in theaters in the fall of 2024.