Professional
2026 – 20 years of Hechtfilm; release of Music is a Frame (4th feature-length documentary)
2025 – Project DIENEUn – Arbeit wider das Unrecht project with Alte Oberschule Pieschen
2025 Jury member, MOVE IT! Human Rights Film Festival
2022 – 2024 – Jury member, Art Prize of the State Capital Dresden
2023 – Take Heart Scholarship “Tellerrand,” HELLERAU European Centre for the Arts
2022 – Take Heart Scholarship “Self-Portrait before Singing Landscapes,” HELLERAU European Centre for the Arts
2022 – In Transition. Go. Stay. Dance. Third feature-length documentary with Hechtfilm Filmproduktion UG
2022 – 2023 – Structural funding, Fonds Darstellende Künste “Reconnect” with TILL&LUBICH
2022 – Co-founding of TILL&LUBICH GbR as the formal consolidation of an artistic duo
2021 – VG Wort scholarship for La Montanara
2021 – present – Board member, Kultur- und Wohngenossenschaft eG
2020 – Scholarship from the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony for initial research on La Montanara
2017 – First joint production with Anna Till: Parallel Situation
2016 – Start of work on Music is a Frame. The World of MANOS Tsangaris
2015 – When Will It Finally Be Summer Again? Director (co-directed with Michael Sommermeyer). Second feature film with Hechtfilm, released in cinemas by Barnsteiner Filmverleih
2014 – Research associate at the German Hygiene Museum; co-curator of the special exhibition Dance! How We Move Ourselves and the World
2012 – Come Together. Dresden and February 13, Director. First feature film with Hechtfilm, released in cinemas by Barnsteiner Filmverleih
2011 – Co-founding of Hechtfilm Filmproduktion UG with Michael Sommermeyer and Ralf Jakubski – my professional home to this day
2009 – 2019 – Board member, friedrichstadtZentral e.V. (later Zentralwerk e.V.); development of festivals and various formats, followed by relocation
2008 – 2011 – Research associate within the EU research project Cultural Heritage and Identities after Conflict at the Institute of Sociology, TU Dresden, in collaboration with the University of Cambridge (Project Lead)
Reflection: Television and I? Not quite… film is better.
2003 – 2004 – LE Vision Leipzig: assistant roles including transcription, translation, and production assistance for Yury Winterberg (screenwriter) and Jan Peter (director). Production: Witches, Magic and the Truth (ARD / arte)
Reflection: Television and I? Not quite…
Academic
2014 – Dissertation published by V&R Unipress
2013 – Hilmar Kopper Prize for the dissertation
2012 – PhD in Modern and Contemporary History, Goethe University Frankfurt and University of Trento: The Creative Subject in the GDR. Performative Art in Context
2005 – 2008 – Doctoral scholarship, International DFG Graduate School “Political Communication from Antiquity to the Present”
2002 – Double diploma degree; thesis: Expressivity of the Body around 1900: A Cross-Cultural Study between Italy and Germany (award-winning)
1998 – Advanced studies in Sociology (Diplom), Dresden – first cohort of the European double-degree program
1996 – Studies in Sociology, University of Trento
1996 – Abitur, Liceo Scientifico Galileo Galilei, Trento
Formative
2014 – Birth of our daughter
2011 – New York with Amelia Mira Saul; collaboration on her MFA thesis at NYU Tisch School of the Arts
2006 – Guest student with Lutz Dammbeck at HfBK
2006 – OEKOMEDIA Festival Award (Best Youth Film) for Growing Promises
2006 – First collaboration with Nikolaus Woernle
2005 – 2009 – Camera work for The Forsythe Company
2005 – Two-month journey through Central America – inspiration for my first film
2003 – Discovery Campus: assistant roles (hospitality, copying, observation)
1997 – Two months in Cuba; teaching aerobics, gym, and yoga classes; stepping in as a salsa instructor
1995 – One month at the Goethe-Institut in Bavaria; ZMP German exam; realization of living abroad
1988 – 1996 – Track and field athletics
1977 – present – Member of the Alpine Association
1977 – Born in Trento, Italy
CV
Barbara Lubich is an italian filmmaker, sociologist, historian and curator. Her artistic research culminates in cinematic and performative works, which she realises in interdisciplinary constellations.
Lubich has been working as a filmmaker at the intersection between documentary and art film since 2002. Born in 1977 in Trento, Italy, she studied sociology in Trento and Dresden (Germany), received her doctorate in history in Frankfurt am Main and dealt with an entanglement of theory and practice of aesthetic phenomena in the GDR. Her artistic work began in the late 1990s in dance, while further developing her work own work with the camera. So by today she focuses on the direction of conceptual work for cinematic, multi-media and participatory formats. In 2011 she co-founded hechtfilm Filmproduktion, a collective of filmmakers, together with Michael Sommermeyer and Ralf Jakubski.
From 2006 she worked as a camerawoman for the Forsythe Company and simultaneously as a research assistant at the Institute for Sociology at the TU Dresden University, on the European research project CRIC Cultural Heritage and Identity after Conflict. She was a fellow of the Hellerauer Akademie für experimentelles Musiktheater (2009-2010), and in 2010 she was Artist in Residence at the UBU Gallery New York.
2022 she completed her third feature-length documentary about three dancers from the German East IM UMBRUCH – Go stay dance. 2026 she realeased her a new film about the composer Manos Tsangaris MUSIC IS A FRAME which premiered on july the 15th at SEE THE SOUND Filmfestival Cologne.
She works as a mentor of graduates in Art Academies such as Palucca Hochschule für Tanz Dresden, Department of Applied Theater Mozarteum University Salzburg, Academy of Fine Arts Dresden, HZT Berlin or in interdisciplinary EU Projects such as TESTART and Cantieri in movimento.
She is a founding member of Kulturort Zentralwerk Dresden and shapes the artistic programme as a board member of its cultural association since the beginning in 2006. She has been on the board of the Zentralwerk Kultur- und Wohngenossenschaft eG since 2021.
Zentralwerk Dresden is a cooperative transforming 7,000 square meters into a living and working space for artists. From 2009 to 2019, Lubich served as chair of the Zentralwerk association and curated its cultural program, receiving the Dresden City Award (2013) and the Arras Prize (2019). After that her work for the association developed toward a coninous engagement in fundraising, realisation of projects and artistic direction. Her work there emphasizes collaboration, including long-term engagement with the community.
Since june 2026 she is a member of the curatorial board of the TRIAS Foundation for Land, Ecology, and Community Living.
Works by Barbara Lubich have been presented internationally at venues and cinemas such as KunstfilmBiennale Köln, Kasseler Dokumentarfilm und Videofest, DOK Leipzig – International Festival for Documentary and Animation Film, At.tension Theaterfestival, Viva Festival, Festival de Videodanca Bueonos Aires, Danca em Foco Festival Rio de Janaeiro, Pool Festival Berlin, OSTRALE, Deutsches Hygiene Museum, HELLERAU – European Centre of the Arts, Kampnagel Hamburg, Zo – Centro di Culture contemporanee Catania , Albertinum – Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and were broadcasted on arte and phoenix. And she is a participant in the ARTIST SUMMIT (initiated by HOOD Kollektiv), Tanzplattform ESSEN 2018 and Tischgesellschaften (initiated by Antje
Pfundtner in Gesellschaft, 2019 – 2021).
Barbara Lubich wurde 1977 in Trento, Italien geboren und arbeitet seit 2002 als Filmemacherin. Sie studierte Soziologie in Trento und Dresden, promovierte in Geschichtswissenschaft in Frankfurt am Main und Trento und beschäftigte sich dabei mit der Verschränkung von Theorie und Praxis ästhetischer Phänomene in der DDR. Ihre künstlerische Arbeit begann Ende der 1990er-Jahre im Tanz und entwickelte sich weiter in Richtung Kamera. Heute liegt ihr Schwerpunkt auf Regie und auf Konzeptarbeit für verschiedene filmische und künstlerische Formate.
2006 bis 2009 arbeitete sie als Kamerafrau für die Forsythe Company. Parallel war sie Stipendiatin der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (2005-2008) und anschliessend als wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am Institut für Soziologie der TU Dresden in einem europäischen Forschungsprojekt zu kulturellem Erbe und Erinnerungskultur tätig. Sie war Stipendiatin der Hellerauer Akademie für experimentelles Musiktheater (2009-2010). 2010 war sie Artist in Residence der UBU Gallery New York. Mit Michael Sommermeyer gründete sie 2011 hechtfilm als Filmproduktion UG, ein Zusammenschluss für unabhängiges Filmschaffen und brachte neben anderen Produktionen drei eigene abendfüllende Dokumentarfilme in die deutschen Kinos.
Zudem ist sie als künstlerische Leiterin und Kuratorin für diverse spartenübergreifende Projekte tätig und Gründungsmitglied des Kunst- und Kulturkollektivs friedrichstadtZentral, heute Zentralwerk (Förderpreis der Landeshauptstadt Dresden 2013, ARRAS Preis 2019).
Ihre Arbeiten wurden vielerorts präsentiert: KunstfilmBiennale Köln, Kasseler Dokumentarfilm und Videofest, DOK Leipzig – Internationales Festival für Dokumentar und Animationsfilm, At.tension Theaterfestival, Viva Festival, Festival de Videodanca Bueonos Aires, Danca em Foco Festival Rio de Janeiro, Pool Festival Berlin, OSTRALE – Ausstellung für zeitgenössische Kunst, Deutsches Hygiene Museum, HELLERAU – Europäisches Zentrum der Künste, Albertinum – Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Kampnagel Hamburg, Zo – Centro di Culture contemporanee Catania , TV-Ausstrahlungen auf arte und phoenix. Sie nahm am ARTIST SUMMIT teil (initiiert von HOOD Kollektiv), der Tanzplattform ESSEN 2018 und beteiligt sich an den Tischgesellschaften (initiiert von Antje Pfundtner in Gesellschaft, TANZPAKT 2019 – 2021).