Biography
Susanne Kim was born in Dresden in what was then the GDR. As a child, she lived with her parents in Syria for a while; eventually, the family fled via Hungary to Austria and from there came to West Germany. After graduating from high school in Neumarkt, Bavaria, Kim studied journalism and political science in Leipzig until 2003. At the same time, she attended the European Film College in Denmark in 2001/2002. Her first own short documentary film "Zusammengebacken" ("Baked Together", 2003) was shown at several international festivals. Afterwards she started working on her long-term project "Auf Reisen mit Frau Berge", which has not been completed yet.
In the years to come, she completed several internships in the media field, among others at the German-Jewish emigrant newspaper Aufbau in New York and at the magazine of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. In 2005 she participated in the Berlinale Talent Campus and in 2007 in the newcomer program TP2 in Erfurt. There she developed the idea for "White Box," her first feature-length documentary. In the film, she portrayed recipients of unemployment benefit II (Hartv IV) in the city of Löbau, in whose apartments a room was locked to make it unusable, since under German law Hartz IV recipients are only entitled to a certain number of square meters of living space. "White Box" premiered at the Leipzig Documentary Film Festival in 2010 and was released in cinemas in 2011.
Also in 2011, Susanne Kim participated in the Professional Media Master Class in Halle, where she made her short film "Die Bande" ("The Gang", 2011), which was also shown in the DOK Leipzig program. With "Trockenschwimmen" (2016), about seniors who still want to learn to swim despite their age, she realized her second long documentary. This was also premiered at DOK Leipzig before a theatrical release.
In 2019, Kim began work on "Meine Wunderkammern" ("Cabinets of Wonder"), a hybrid project consisting of a long documentary and a VR experience that she developed together with and for children. In it, several children are portrayed as they escape the demands of modern meritocracy in different ways. "Meine Wunderkammern" celebrated its world premiere in November at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam in the Kids&Docs competition. Further festival screenings, among others at the Munich Kinderfilmfest 2021, followed. In November 2021, "Meine Wunderkammern" was released in cinemas.