Award-winning documentary filmmaker Jens Schanze was born in Bonn in 1971. In 1987, he spent a year living in the USA. In 1990, he embarked on a degree in Forestry at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and, in 1992, began working in television as an assistant director. In 1994, Schanze spent a year in Bolivia working on a project for Conservation International before he began his studies at the University of Television and Film in Munich in 1995. Through the production company Mascha Film, which he co-founded with Judith Malek-Mahdavi in 2002, he has directed numerous prizewinning documentaries including WINTERKINDER (2005) and PLUG & PRAY (2010). In 2014, he became a Professor of Film and Video Design.
Materia Prima 2026
Director
Proud of You 2020
Director
La Buena Vida - The Good Life 2015
Director, Writer, Producer, Assistant Editor, Executive Producer
Plug & Pray 2010
Director
Strange Homeland 2007
Writer, Director, Editor, Producer
Winterkinder 2005
as Self, Director, Writer, Producer, Editor
Waste Land 2001
Director, Writer, Editor
Das kleine Kaufhaus 1999
Director
Got You 2023
Supervising Producer
Credits from TMDB.