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Sobo Swobodnik was born in 1966. He was raised in the Swabian Alb and graduated from school in Aalen. He went on to study acting in Munich, worked as director and actor at several theatres and as a journalist for public radio.
Since 1997, he has published numerous plays and novels, including children's books, the novel "Fallers Held" and a series of thrillers. Over the years, his writings garnered Swobodnik several scholarships and awards. Already in 2004, Sobo Swobodnik presented his first feature film "being grossmutter" at the Max-Ophüls-Preis Festival. This was followed by the documentary "Wir kommen uns beschweren" (2008), the drama "Ab jetzt sind wir anders" (2009) and the short "Keine Zeit für Helden" (2010). "Der Papst ist kein Jeansboy", a portrait of the eccentric performer and celebrity Hermes Phettberg, was awarded the 2011 Documentary Film Award in Saarbrücken.
The following year, Swobodnik's documentary "Unplugged: Leben Guaia Guaia" premiered at the Munich Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award. The film about two unconventional street musicians was released in July 2013.
In May 2015, "Silentium - Vom Leben im Kloster", a film about everyday life in a historic convent, opened in Germany. Shortly afterwards, his 2011 documentary "Der Papst ist kein Jeansboy" was also finally released. At the 2015 Documentary Film Festival Munich, Swobodnik presented his next film "Lebe schon lange hier", for which he observed a street crossing in Berlin from a window over the course of one year. At the Hofer Filmtage 2015 he presented "BErliN - Aus diesem Trallala kommst du nicht raus" (2015), about the 85-year-old Berlin eccentric artist Ben Wagin.
Swobodnik remained very active over the next few years. At the beginning of 2016, he presented "SEXarbeiterin" at the Horizontale Festival in Constance, about the sex worker Lena Morgenroth; at the Munich DOK.fest in 2017, "6 Jahre, 7 Monate und 16 Tage - Die Morde des NSU" was awarded the Documentary Film Music Prize. In October 2017, "Der Konzertdealer", a documentary about the everyday life of concert organizer Scumeck Sabottka, was released in cinemas. In 2018, "Therapie für Gangster", a cinematic portrait of the everyday life of addicts in prison, had its theatrical release.
Swobodnik then presented the very personal documentary film "Bastard in Mind", about the diagnosis and treatment of his life-threatening brain aneurysm, at the DOK.fest Munich in 2019. He was awarded the Robert Geisendörfer Prize in 2019 for the TV short documentary "See You", about the special world of perception of a 23-year-old student who went blind at the age of 15. In October 2019, "Lebe schon lange hier", which he had already made in 2015, was released in cinemas.
In the summer of 2020, his next documentary film was released: "Gegen den Strom - Abgetaucht in Venezuela" is about the alleged German left-wing terrorist Thomas Walter, who went underground in 1995, received asylum in Venezuela in 2017 and has been living there ever since. At the Munich DOK.fest@home, "Klassenkampf" premiered, a documentary with staged scenes in which Swobodnik portrays the milieu he grew up in in southern Germany. The film was released in October 2021. "Bastard in Mind" from 2019 finally - delayed by the pandemic - hit theaters in May 2022.
In addition to his work as a filmmaker, Swobodnik has been writing novels, most recently "Alles ist anders" (2019).