Biography
Frauke Lodders, born in 1984 in Kassel, initially aspired to be an actress in her youth. At 17, she applied to an acting school but was not accepted due to her age. In a 2024 interview, she revealed that it was a film student, for whom she worked as a babysitter at the time, who encouraged her to study film direction. Lodders took this advice to heart: after completing her technical high school diploma in business informatics, she applied for a spot at the Kassel University of Art in the Visual Communication department, specializing in Film and Television and was accepted. During her studies, she directed several short films.
In November 2012, she completed her studies at the Kassel University of Art with a Master of Fine Arts (with honors). Her final project was the 83-minute feature film "Morpheus", about a young woman who enters a frightening dream world while in a coma. However, the film didn’t premiere until three years later, at the Shanghai International Film Festival in 2015, and won the Best Fantasy/Horror award at Worldfest Houston 2016 (USA).
Between 2011 and 2015, Lodders also worked on the feature-length documentary "Hip Hop braucht kein Mensch, aber Mensch braucht Hip Hop", which had its world premiere at the Neiße Film Festival 2015. In addition to her production company, Frauke Lodders Film, she co-founded Jumping Cat, a production company specializing in documentaries, with Fabian Schmalenbach in 2017.
Lodders’ documentary "Unzertrennlich" ("Inseparable"), about sibling relationships where one sibling is seriously ill or has a disability, was awarded at the Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival in 2018, nominated for the Hessian Film Award, and released in theaters in early 2019.
In 2019, at the Hessian Film Award, Lodders received the Best Script Award for her screenplay of "Gotteskinder" ("In Good Faith"), which had yet to be filmed. The film was eventually shot in October 2022 and premiered at the Max Ophüls Prize Film Festival 2024, where it won the Youth Jury Prize. It went on to win additional festival awards, including at the exground filmfest 2024. In January 2025, "Gotteskinder" was released in German theaters