Biography
Christina Ebelt was born in Filderstadt in 1979. After graduating from high school, she spent one year abroad in New Zealand and then began studying screenwriting and directing in Vancouver, Canada, in 2001. Back in Germany, she worked on script/continuity and as assistant director for various film productions in Berlin. From 2004 to 2009 she studied Audiovisual Media at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. Among her fellow students was Jan Bonny, with whom she wrote the script for the highly acclaimed feature film "Gegenüber" ("Counterparts", 2007), a drama about domestic violence against a man. At the Munich Film Festival, Ebelt and Bonny were awarded the German Film Promotion Prize for their screenplay.
Ebelt's graduation short film, the surprising love story "Wanna Be" (2009), was nominated for the First Steps Award. For the TV drama "Es ist alles in Ordnung" ("Everything is alright", 2013, director: Nicole Weegmann), again on the subject of domestic violence, she co-wrote the script with Ingo Haeb. Together with the director and the main actors, the author duo was nominated for the Grimme Prize.
Christina Ebelt's feature film debut as director, the social drama "Sterne über uns" ("Stars Above Us"), celebrated its premiere at the Munich International Film Festival 2019 and was released in German cinemas in autumn. The film, about a single mother who works as a flight attendant and tries to keep her homelessness a secret, received very positive reviews. It won the Student Award at the 2020 Baden-Baden Television Film Festival, and Christina Ebelt received the Television Film Award from the Academy of Performing Arts at the same event. In 2020, Ebelt was also honored with the SI STAR Promotional Award, which aims to "promote the artistic expression of women and the recognition of their contributions to the film industry."
In 2020, Ebelt was one of the directors who directed individual episodes of the second season of the ZDFneo series "Liebe. Jetzt!". In May 2022, she began filming her next feature film, "Monster im Kopf" ("Monster Inside"), which portrays the struggle of a pregnant prison inmate who fights for the right to care for her child. The premiere took place at the Munich Film Festival in June 2023, again with Franziska Hartmann in the lead role. The film was theatrically released in November 2023.