Biography
Barbara Wallbraun was born in 1983 in Eichsfeld, Thuringia, in the former GDR. She studied cultural and media education at the University of Applied Sciences in Merseburg and realized her first documentary film projects there. She also went to Finland for a semester to study at the Media Culture Department of the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi.
In the mid-2000s Wallbraun began working as a freelance film and media educator. In 2005 she was a volunteer initiator and organizer of the Leipzig short film travelling cinema 'Mauerstreifen' (until 2013); in 2011 she organized the second edition of the queer Leipzig film festival 'Paranoid Paradise'. She was also one of the founding members of the 'Netzwerk Medienpädagogik Sachsen' (Network for Media Pedagogy in Saxony).
Over the years Wallbraun has been working as studio production manager with the regional broadcaster MDR, as production assistant with a Leipzig production company and as set runner for various film productions. She also has been giving lectures on topics such as "Lesbians in the sights of the State Security" and "How a documentary film is made".
The documentary "Uferfrauen - Lesbisches L(i)eben in der DDR" ("Uferfrauen – Lesbian Life and Love in the GDR", 2019) is Wallbraun's first theatrically released feature film. At the Lesbian Gay Film Days Hamburg the film won the audience award for Best Documentary. The film in which Wallenbraun portrays the lives of six lesbians in the former GDR, was released in cinemas in summer 2020.