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Constanze Klaue was born on August 10, 1985, in East Berlin (then part of the GDR) and grew up in Berlin and Brandenburg. After completing her Abitur, she first studied German Studies at TU Dresden before pursuing jazz vocals in Cologne and Osnabrück. Under the pseudonym Erna Rot, she released her own jazz albums in 2014 and 2017 and toured across Germany.
After gaining practical filmmaking experience at a Cologne-based advertising film production company, Klaue began studying directing and screenwriting at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM) in 2014. Her short documentary "Alfreds Kurgarten" (DE/AT 2017), about the owner of an aging hotel with a café in the Black Forest, won Best Student Documentary at the Close Up Festival in Reykjavik.
In addition to her work in film, Klaue remained active as a writer. In 2015, her autobiographical essay "Unsere Heimat" was recognized by the German Society and the Federal Ministry of the Interior. In 2017/18, she received a working scholarship from the Academy for Children's Media, during which she wrote her first novel, "Ausgerechnet Mops!", which won the Baumhaus/Boje Media Award.
Klaue's 30-minute graduation film at KHM, "Lychen 92" (2019), a coming-of-age story set in East Germany during the post-reunification period, premiered at the Max Ophüls Prize Film Festival in January 2020, where it won Best Medium-Length Film. That same year, "Lychen 92" also received the First Steps Award in the same category. Shortly afterward, in autumn 2020, "Ausgerechnet Mops!" was published as a children's book to highly positive reviews.
Between February and June 2023, Klaue directed her first feature-length film, "Mit der Faust in die Welt schlagen" ("Punching the World"), based on the novel by Lukas Rietzschel. Spanning 15 years, the film follows two brothers growing up in rural Saxony, one of whom gradually drifts into right-wing extremism. It premiered at the 2025 Berlinale in the Perspectives section, with a theatrical release following in April 2025.