Gallery
All Pictures (2)Biography
Judith Keil was born in Straubing on April 12, 1973. She took up studies in journalism, drama, film and television at the FU in Berlin in 1993 and has worked as an assistant director on both stage and film productions. The first joint documentary with Antje Kruska, "Ausfahrt Ost", was nominated for the Grimme television Award in the year 2000, an award which they won in 2003 for their second documentary, "Der Glanz von Berlin", which was shown in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino section of the Berlinale in 2002.
Her next documentary "Dancing With Myself" (2005, co-director Antje Kruska) also premiered at the Berlin IFF. In it, the filmmakers portray three individuals, aged between 18 and 63, from different social backgrounds who share a passion for dancing. At the Leipzig DOK Festival, "Dancing With Myself" won the Discovery Channel Award".
Keil and Kruska went on to make their first dramatic feature: "Wenn die Welt uns gehört" tells the story of three teenage outcasts in a small East-German town who become Satanists. The film premiered at the 2009 Hofer Filmtage and received very positive reviews, yet it wasn't released theatrically.
The two filmmakers next contributed the segment "Gestrandet" – in which they portray a refugee from Cameroon who tries to settle in rural East-Germany – to the TV documentary series "20xBrandenburg" (2010). Keil and Kruska eventually returned to the subject for their next feature-length project: "Land in Sicht" shows the everyday experience of three refugees living in a small town in Brandenburg. After premiering at the 2013 DOK Festival Leipzig, the film was released in Germany in January 2014.