Fellowship / Fellows

Sylvia Schedelbauer

  • 2019–2020
  • Arts
  • Radcliffe-Film Study Center Fellow
  • Independent Filmmaker (Germany)
Headshot of Sylvia Schedelbauer
Photo Courtesy of Tony Rinaldo

This information is accurate as of the fellowship year indicated for each fellow.

Sylvia Schedelbauer’s films negotiate the space between broader historical narratives and personal, psychological realms, mainly through poetic manipulations of found and archival footage. Her practice encompasses essay filmmaking, structuralist cinema, and metaphorical narratives, with a deep investment in the sensory agency of image and sound. Questions relating to her transnational identity have been pivotal to all her work: the concept of synchronicities, the expression of feelings of in-betweenness, and also the straddling, bridging, mixing, and merging of perceived opposites.

At Radcliffe, Schedelbauer is working on a hybrid (experimental/sensory/essayistic/documentary) film project that draws on her transnational experience. Born and raised in Japan to a Japanese mother and a German father, she is exploring the history and representation of half-Japanese subjectivities, filtered through a personal lens.

Schedelbauer holds an MFA from the Berlin University of the Arts. Her films have shown at festivals in Berlin, Buenos Aires, Cork, Hong Kong, London, Melbourne, New York, Oberhausen, and Toronto and at such events and venues as Anthology Film Archives, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, the Bienniale of Moving Images in Buenos Aires, Cinemateca Nacional del Ecuador, Contemporary Art Platform, the Dhaka Art Summit, Grazer Kunstverein, Hanoi DocLab, the Irish Film Institute, Korean Film Archive, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, National Film Archive of India, National Gallery of Art, TIFF Bell Lightbox, and the Wexner Center for the Arts. Her awards include a VG Bild-Kunst Stiftung Kulturwerk grant, the Preis der deutschen Filmkritik, and the Gus Van Sant Award for Best Experimental Film.

Our 2023–2024 Fellows

01 / 09

News & Ideas