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Britta Hammelstein was born on August 8, 1981 in Friedberg, Hesse. She completed her acting training at the Otto-Falckenberg-Schule in Munich from 2002 to 2005. After that, she appeared in a number of stage productions, among others at the Theater Freiburg. At the same time, Hammelstein began working in television and film. After her first small roles, she gained recognition among a wider audience for her role as the daughter of the title character in the TV series "Der Winzerkönig" (AT 2006-2008).
From 2008 to 2011 she was a member of the ensemble of the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin. In the 2011/2012 season she moved on to the Munich Residenztheater. In addition to her extensive theatrical work, Hammelstein continued to appear in television and film productions. She played a leading role in two episodes of the (short-lived) crime series "Hannah Mangold & Lucy Palm" (2011/2013) as the young investigator Lucy Palm. In the TV movie "Helmut Schmidt - Lebensfragen" (2013) she portrayed the young Loki Schmidt, wife of the former German chancellor.
In 2013, Hammelstein took on a recurring role in the Hamburg episodes of the crime series "Tatort" as a colleague of the unconventional detective Nick Tschiller (Til Schweiger). Also in 2013, she had a significant role in the highly acclaimed drama "Freier Fall" ("Free Fall", 2013) as the close friend and colleague of a secretly homosexual police officer. In the dark family drama "Wir Monster" ("We Monsters", 2014), she played the new partner of a divorced man determined to cover up the murder of his teenage daughter at any cost.
Hammelstein also had a strong television role in the thriller "Auf kurze Distanz" ("Point Blank", 2016) as an undercover investigator in the world of corrupt sports organizers. In the same year, she starred in her first leading film role in "Ferien" directed by Bernadette Knoller as a directionless law student who faces unexpected challenges while on vacation on a North Sea island. "Ferien" premiered at the Max Ophüls Prize Film Festival in January 2016 and was released in July 2016.
She was part of the ensemble in the award-winning drama "Der Hauptmann" ("The Captain", 2017), where she played the wife of Nazi war criminal Karl Schütte. In "Mackie Messer - Brechts Dreigroschenfilm" ("Mack the Knife – Brecht's Threepenny Film") she portrayed the actress Lotte Lenya, and in the comedy "Petting statt Pershing" ("Good Girl Gone Bad (That's It, Helmut)", 2018) she played the alternative-minded life partner of a free-spirited provincial teacher.
On television, she played major roles in several "Tatort" episodes and in the darkly humorous provincial comedy "Heute stirbt hier Kainer" (2021), she played the lead role of a lonely farmer. She received the Hessian Television Award for this performance. In addition, Hammelstein was part of the ensemble in the miniseries "Faking Hitler" (2021), which depicted the affair surrounding the forged Hitler diaries in 1983.
On the big screen, she appeared in the comedy "Kommt ein Vogel geflogen" (2023) as a harried animal shelter manager with a Jewish family whose new pet parrot suddenly starts uttering Nazi slogans, causing a commotion.