Biography
The son of a German father and an Ecuadorian mother, Marcel Mettelsiefen was born in Munich in 1978. After dabbling in photography while still in high school, he came to photojournalism in the late 1990s by working for the newly founded magazine "Zenith - Zeitschrift für den Orient". In the following years, he traveled to Israel and the Palestinian Territories (2000), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003) and Haiti (2004) for various press agencies.
In addition to his work as a photojournalist, Mettelsiefen began studying medicine at the Charité in Berlin in 2004, which he interrupted at the end of 2008 to realize a long-term photographic project in Afghanistan for 13 months. From December 2009 to March 2010, together with the then correspondent of stern magazine, Christoph Reuter, he investigated the devastating air raid in the south of Kunduz in September 2009. The result was the book "Kunduz, 4. September 2009. Eine Spurensuche" and a series of portraits of the families of the 92 civilians who lost their lives in the attack. For the project, which ultimately led to compensation for the families, Mettelsiefen and Reuter were nominated for the 2010 Henri Nannen Award.
In the spring of 2011, Marcel Mettelsiefen travelled to Egypt, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan as a photographer for the magazines stern, Der Spiegel and Geo. In October 2011, he returned to Libya, where he was one of the few foreign reporters allowed to photograph the body of Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi for Der Spiegel.
Since December 2011, Mettelsiefen has also been producing film reports, mainly about the Syrian crisis areas. For his film "Agony in Aleppo" (GB 2013) he received an International Emmy Award, for "Die Kinder von Aleppo" ("Syria: Children on the Frontline", DE/GB 2014) he received a Grimme Award. The 40-minute "Das Schicksal der Kinder von Aleppo" ("Watani: My Homeland", 2013-2016), for which Mettelsiefen repeatedly visited and accompanied a Syrian family over a period of three years, was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Short in 2017 and received the German Television Award. For the documentary series "Afghanistan. Das verwundete Land" (2019, co-directed with Mayte Carrasco), he received the Marler Group Audience Award at the 2021 Grimme Awards.
Mettelsiefen's other works include the TV documentary "Spanien - Das entzweite Land" (DE/FR 2022, with Roger Persiva) about a divided Spain, and the documentary "In ihrene Haenden" ("In Her Hands", 2022, with Tamana Ayazi), about one of the first female mayors of Afghanistan. The film won the Audience Award at the Camden International Film Festival and the Cinema for Peace Dove for Women's Empowerment at the Cinema for Peace Awards. "Children of the Taliban (2022, co-directed with Jordan Bryon) won the Best Current Affairs category at the 2023 BAFTA TV Awards and the Photography: Factual category at the BAFTA Craft Awards.
At DOK.fest 2023 in Munich, Mettelsiefen's documentary "Tanja – Tagebuch einer Guerillera" ("Tanja – Up in Arms") premiered, a portrait of a young Dutch woman who joined the FARC rebels after a teaching internship in Colombia. The film was released theatrically in June 2023.