The daughter of an Algerian father, Anne Zohra Berrached was born and raised in the German Democratic Republic (also known as East Germany). Following specialized secondary school in art, she earned a university degree in social pedagogy. She worked for two years in London as a drama teacher before spending one year abroad in Cameroon and Spain.[1]
Career
In 2009, Berrached directed her debut short film Der Pausenclown (The Class Clown) about a Lebanese neighbour and comedian who lived in Berlin-Neukölln. Later, the movie was broadcast on the German television network WDR. In the same year, after an unsuccessful attempt to enroll in Film University Potsdam, she enrolled in Filmacademy Baden-Wurttemberg in Ludwigsburg, a noted film school in Germany.
Her first feature-length film Zwei Mütter [de] (Two Mothers) is about a lesbian couple who audition men to collect their sperm for having a child. In 2013, the film received the FGYO-Prize Dialogue en perspective at the 63rd Berlin Film Festival.[2]
In February 2016, Berrached presented her second film, 24 Wochen (24 Weeks), at the 66th Berlin Film Festival. 24 Weeks was her final degree project before she graduated from film school. The movie is about a pregnant comedian (Julia Jentsch) and her husband (Bjarne Mädel) deciding over a legal abortion for their unborn child diagnosed with down syndrome. This was the first film to address the topic of legal late-term abortion and was considered taboo for over 90% of women in Germany facing a similar situation.[citation needed] The film received the Guild German Filmartist (Gilde Deutscher Filmkunsttheater) award for best picture and the Silver Lola for Best German Film at the 2017 German Film Awards.
In 2018, she was appointed to the international jury of the 53rd Chicago Film Festival. In 2021, alongside M. Night Shyamalan and Connie Nielson, she was appointed to the international jury of the main competition at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Her third feature film, Die Welt wird eine andere sein (international title: Copilot), was funded in part by the Arte Grand Accord grant. Filmed in Florida and Lebanon, the relationship drama is based on the biography of Lebanese terrorist Ziad Jarrah. With an estimated budget of six million euros, the film was the largest feature Berrached has directed to date. The film was selected for the Panorama section of the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival. It won the first prize in both the Feature Film Competition and the Popular Jury Competition at the 2021 Lucca Film Festival.
She directed three episodes of the ARD television crime series Tatort. Tatort: Der Fall Holdt reached an audience of 10.22 million viewers when it was first broadcast in 2017.
Berrached has taught workshops on directing for the Goethe-Institut in Cairo, the Festival International de Cine de Guadalajara in Mexico and the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in Germany.
