Biography
Stefanie Sycholt was born in Pretoria in 1963. While studying Politics, English and Film Theory in Natal and Cape Town, she was an activist in the student Anti-Apartheid movement, worked as media officer for the National Union of South African Students and managed the Durban-based Anti-Apartheid video production team "AVA", which documented Nelson Mandela"s "welcome home rally" in 1990. After getting a post-graduate degree in film theory (her thesis being about the black film industry in South Africa), she moved to Germany and enrolled at the HFF Munich. Her screen debut "Malunde", which tells the story of a 11-year-old street kid living in Johannesburg at the end of Apartheid, won six South African Film Awards, including Best Film and Best Direction. In Germany, the film received the Prize of the Film Critics Association.
During the following years, Sycholt worked as a screenwriter and directed the made-for-TV comedy "Gwendolyn". In 2010, she returned to the cinemas with the drama "Themba", in which an South African boy hopes to escape from a life of poverty and despair by becoming a pro football player.
Stefanie Sycholt is married to an Argentinean filmmaker and has a son. She lives and works in Germany, South Africa and Argentina.