Dr. Albrecht Bischoffshausen has been Managing Director of VFF Verwertungsgesellschaft der Film- und Fernsehproduzenten mbH in Munich since April 2024. After working in the legal department of Bayerischer Rundfunk, in the GEMA General Directorate in Munich and for the WDR mediagroup in Cologne, Albrecht Bischoffshausen was most recently Head of ARD's international coordination and festivals within the ARD Program Directorate. After studying law in Passau, Santiago de Compostela and Freiburg, the fully qualified lawyer spent a year at the University of Exeter/UK and at the TU Dresden. He then completed his doctorate in the field of copyright law as a scholarship holder at the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property in Munich. Mr. Bischoffshausen holds an MBA from the Steinbeis SMI in Berlin with a focus on media management with study visits to the NYU Stern School of Business and the Università Bocconi in Milan.

Anna Kühlein is a German film composer who works in Berlin and Leipzig. She studied music production with a focus on composition, piano and recording technology before successfully completing her studies in film music at the renowned Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF in 2020. Her repertoire ranges from orchestral compositions to subtle, electronic and experimental sounds. Thanks to her versatility and empathetic intuition, she creates musical atmospheres and individual soundscapes for every project. Her work in the TV sector includes the internationally successful multi-part “Ku'damm 59” (director: Sven Bohse, in collaboration with Maurus Ronner), the youth series “Wir sind jetzt” (director: Christian Klandt, 3rd season) and the ZDF Neo series “Was wir fürchten” (director: Daniel Rübesam), for which she is nominated for Best Music Fiction at the 2024 German Television Awards. Anna Kühlein wrote the music for the highly acclaimed cinema documentary “Wem gehört mein Dorf?” (director: Christoph Eder), which was nominated for Best Documentary Film in 2022, and “Anima - Die Kleider meines Vaters” (director: Uli Decker), which won the “Best Documentary Film” and “Audience Award Documentary Film” categories at the 43rd Max Ophüls Prize Film Festival. In 2022, she composed the music for Doris Dörrie's latest feature film, “Freibad”. In 2019, she received the German Film Music Award in the “Young Talent” category for her achievements in the film music industry.

Anna-Marlene Bicking completed her BA in jazz at the Berlin University of the Arts from 2008 to 2013. During this time, she was involved in many pop and jazz projects as a singer and composer. During her master's degree in film music at the Film University Potsdam, she composed music for short films, documentaries & radio plays, for example for the short films AIMEZ-VOUS GODARD, LUFT, GABI as well as the feature film UNTER UNS FRAUEN - GEBURT IN MEGENDI, which was shown at many renowned festivals and earned Bicking many nominations (see below). Bicking's most recent major film projects are “HEIMAT - SINFONIE DER KULTUREN” - a 10-part documentary film series produced by ravir film & Felix Räuber, and the ZDF early evening crime series “Blutige Anfänger” (seasons 5 & 6). Season 6 will be shown on ZDF from the end of September. Anna-Marlene Bicking also works as a music producer and songwriter, also for other artists. She has been regularly producing Sorbian pop songs for the Sorbian radio station MDR for 12 years. In addition, Bicking releases her own music and songs at regular intervals and also performs as a singer with various band projects.

Dr. Charlott Falkenhagen is a research assistant at Martin Luther University Halle and heads the music department for elementary school teachers. After studying music/English for a secondary school teaching degree and an additional degree in elementary music education, she completed her doctorate on the subject of Content and Language Integrated Learning in music lessons at Friedrich Schiller University Jena. Her teaching and research focuses on the areas of bilingual music teaching, heterogeneity-sensitive and intercultural music teaching and learning. Within her work on integrated music and foreign language learning, her publications include many aspects of the function, effect and use of film music in bilingual teaching settings. She mainly discusses films and their music from the Anglophone language area, such as Hidden Figures (2016), Sierra Burgess Is A Loser (2018) and Elvis (2022).

Out of the opera house, into the café: Fabian Kratzer's urban classical music speaks from everyday life and asks the big questions beyond the margins of a book. Composer, author, musician & daydreamer Fabian Kratzer has been enriching the media landscape since 2018 with numerous scores for film and theater. By winning the Jerry Goldsmith Award 2023 and several nominations at the Hollywood Independent Music Awards and the Hollywood Music in Media Awards, he has already made a name for himself far beyond the borders of Germany. With over 85,000 streams on Spotify, his music has also reached a wide audience, and this year's nomination at the Camille Awards impressively shows that Fabian Kratzer's music touches, shakes up and makes you think. Fabian Kratzer asks himself the big questions of life, provides impulses and stimuli for self-discovery. In his new EP Elements, he deals with the five elements that form the basis of our existence. The print media have also taken notice of Fabian Kratzer. “So it's not just film fans who should definitely remember the name Fabian Kratzer!” write Nürnberger Nachrichten and Curt Magazin headlines: “Nominated in Hollywood: Fabian Kratzer”. In his podcast FKM Artist Feat., Fabian Kratzer also discusses the industry with creative professionals from film, music, literature and design, reflects on their joint projects and thinks about changes and developments in the creative industry. In his series of novels Im Schatten des Lichts (In the Shadow of Light), he presents a world without sunlight and encourages reflection on the climate and developments in our world.

Freya Arde is an award-winning composer, guitarist and music producer and is regarded as “one of Germany's top talents in film music” (MDM magazine trailer). Her best-known works include “The Secret Life of Trees”, the book adaptation of Peter Wohlleben's bestseller of the same name, and the remake of “The Flying Classroom”, for which she was awarded the German Film Music Prize for the second time in 2023. Freya Arde studied composition and guitar at the Dresden University of Music and at the Conservatoire National in Paris. This was followed by a master's degree in film music at the Babelsberg Film University. In 2016, she was awarded the Young Talent Award of the German Film Music Prize. Since then, she has scored more than 30 feature films, which have premiered at festivals such as the Berlinale, Toronto International Film Festival and the Venice Biennale. In addition to her work for film, Freya Arde released her first EP as a solo artist “Spirit Awake” in 2020. This was followed by her single “Moon Window”, which was released via Deutsche Grammophon and achieved more than 400,000 streams. Live success was not long in coming either: in 2023 she played support for James Heather's German tour. At the end of the year, they also released a joint track, “Immortal Beloved Rework”, on the Ninja Tune label. Freya Arde's solo debut album will be released in 2025.

Hannes Henke is a legal scholar and research associate at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, where he focuses on legal issues relating to digital communication and digital cultural techniques in the European Single Market. In his award-winning dissertation (2018), he dealt with the copyright regulation of book culture in the age of the digital knowledge society. After completing his legal clerkship, he undertook various teaching and research stays in Germany and abroad. His current research focuses, among other things, on the regulation of AI and copyright issues, particularly in connection with generative AI.

After studying journalism at the University of Leipzig from 1974 to 1977, Helmut Hartung began his professional career as a journalist in GDR television, where he worked from 1977 to 1989. In 1990, he took over as head of the election editorial team in the 2nd program of German Television Broadcasting (DFF). Helmut Hartung then worked at the market and opinion research institute Infas in Bonn from January 1991 to 1996. He has been self-employed since 1997 and was publisher and editor-in-chief of the specialist media service promedia from 1997 to 2018. In 2014, the promedia publishing house moved its headquarters from Berlin to Weimar. Since January 2019, Helmut Hartung has been editor-in-chief of the blog www.medienpolitik.net and also works as a freelance author for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (F.A.Z.).

Jean Martin studied musicology, philosophy, history and media in Zurich and Berlin. From 1980 she works as a freelance composer, music critic and sound engineer. shee moved to London in 1993, where he composed music for numerous TV documentaries broadcast on BBC One, BBC Two, Channel 4 and Discovery. Also he made programmes for German public radio (DLF), including composer portraits and reports on British contemporary art music. Jean Martin was Senior Lecturer in Digital Music and Sound Arts at the University of Brighton from 2004-2020, He continues composing music and do independent research into film music and audio-visual aesthetics.

Lara started playing the piano at an early age and felt at home in both the classical and jazz/pop genres. After completing a one-year program at the Musicube Academy in Bonn (Germany), she studied “Composition for Film & Theatre” as a Bachelor at the ArtEZ University of the Arts in Arnhem (Netherlands) from 2013 to 2017. During this time, she completed an internship in the music department of the renowned Galaxy Studios in Mol (Belgium). In the following years, the studio repeatedly hired her as a freelancer for session prepping and assisting on recordings with various orchestras. After graduating, she was accepted into the Master's program “Film Music” at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf, where she was given the opportunity to compose soundtracks for several creative film projects, such as the immersive VR experience INTO THE RED (Prix Europa 2019, Student BAFTA Awards 2020) the essayistic documentary UGOKU TOKAI (IDFA 2020, DOC.BERLIN 2021, AAIFF 2021) and to record her compositions with the German Film Orchestra Babelsberg. Lara successfully completed her studies in 2021 and has been working as a freelance composer ever since. She writes music for feature films, series, documentaries, image films and autonomous music. In February 2024, she completed the music for the series RESET, which was produced by Gaumont. The broadcast took place in March on the TV channel ZDF. All episodes are also available in the ZDF media library.

Multi-award winning composer Marcel Barsotti is an impressive and exceptional talent, creating powerful individual film scores and electronic music that expand the possibilities of storytelling. The composer is known for a wide genre of international projects, from the impressive, highly awarded international drama La Línea Imaginaria (2023) to the acclaimed Constantin production The Popess (2009), the dystopian highly awarded thriller Forgiveness (2022) and the well-known Warner productions Jesus Loves Me (2012). Barsotti's numerous over 80 international awards and nominations include the Cannes World Film Festival Award, German Record Critics' Award, Rome & Madrid International Movie Award, New York Cinematography Award, Goldspire International Film Award, Atlantis Moondance Award, International Crystal Pine Award ISFM nomination, Next Generation Indie Film Award, Global Film Festival Los Angeles, three times the German Television Award, the German Film Academy Award, the German Film Critics' Award and a nomination for the German Music Writers' Award. Since 1995, Barsotti has composed the film music for more than 100 national and international films and commercials, as well as releasing over 50 soundtracks and albums. During these years he has worked with famous directors and producers such as Sönke Wortmann, Günter Rohrbach, Caroline Link, Luc Besson-Production, Carl Schenkel, Josée Dayan, Eberhard Junkersdorf and Hark Bohm. From 1982 to 1988, he studied composition, piano, conducting and clarinet at the Musikhochschule in Munich. Barsotti has been touring Europe with various of his film scores since 2022. Barsotti is currently particularly successful on Spotify with his electronic music albums, which have already won several awards, such as Earth, YOX and Transpicuous.

After studying German language and literature, theater studies and Protestant theology in Berlin, Mario Krebs began working as a freelance editor and dramaturge in the SFB's television drama department in 1977, then worked as a dramaturge and co-author with Michael Verhoeven for many years, including “DIE WEISSE ROSE“ (feature film) and ‘DAS SCHRECKLICHE MÄDCHEN’ (feature film), made documentary films for the WDR series ‘Ein deutsches Schicksal’, worked as a dramaturge for Johann Kresnik and his Choreografisches Theater in Bremen and at the Volksbühne am Rosa Luxemburg Platz in Berlin (”ULRIKE MEINHOF”, ‘KING LEAR’, ‘HOTEL LUX’). He was also responsible for numerous series productions for ARD, ZDF and RTL for many years as a producer at UFA Fernsehproduktion and Pro GmbH in Cologne. He has been a producer at EIKON Media GmbH since 2008 and has continued the ZDF crime series UNTER VERDACHT with Senta Berger, which he started in 2001 (episodes 13-30, 90' each), produced the episodes DIE GURKENKÖNIGIN, WOLFSLAND, HEIMATLIEBE, MONSTERMUTTER, HERMANN, HILDES ERBE, DER GOTT DES BANKROTTS, KOPFLOS IN COTTBUS and DAS SPIEL GEGEN DEN BALL for rbb's POLIZEIRUF 110. Together with Michael Verhoven/Sentana Film, he produced the post-war drama LET'S GO for EIKON on behalf of BR/WDR/DEGETO and was the producer responsible for the ARD event movie KATHARINA LUTHER about Katharina von Bora and Martin Luther for the partners EIKON, Tellux and Conradfilm, co-produced the feature film ZWINGLI as a German partner of Zurich-based C-Films and the German-French mini-series ALGIERS CONFIDENTIAL/EIN PAAR TAGE LICHT (4x50' ARTE/ZDF), based on the novel by Oliver Bottini, together with Watch Next Media/Paris. The international six-part political thriller series DAS ZWEITE ATTENTAT, which he developed with WDR for ARD, and the TV event movie for the 275th anniversary of the death of JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (with MDR, DEGETO, BR and ORF) were shot. Author: Christian Schnalke, director: Florian Baxmayer, film music: Martina Eisenreich, in collaboration with the Thomaner Choir Leipzig and the Ensemble Continuum Elina Albach, among others.

Micki Meuser is the chairman of DEFKOM - German Film Composers' Union, which co-initiated the German Film Music Award. He is on the board of the German Composers' Association (DKV) and a member of the GEMA supervisory board. Meuser has written the music for over 60 films, including international feature films with Daniel Craig, Kirstin Dunst or Lynn Redgrave and many feature films for ZDF and ARD, as well as music for TV series in Germany and the USA. He has produced albums and written songs for artists such as Ideal, Die Ärzte, Ina Deter, Silly, Lassie Singers, Nervous Germans and many others.

Moritz Eggert was born in Heidelberg in 1965. After studying in Frankfurt, Munich and London, he steadily expanded his compositional output, focusing on music theater (19 operas to date), vocal and instrumental music as well as conceptual and performative works. His work often explores extremes, both in the intensification of aspects of the musical material and the physicality of the performers. Contrary to the typical image of “serious” academic music, his music often uses irony, parody or satire as a means to captivate an audience, but does not shy away from emotionality or melody when necessary. As a blogger (“Bad Blog of Musick”) and author, he is a well-known critical voice in contemporary music and discusses current cultural and political issues such as #metoo, gender equality and the abuse of power in classical music. His best-known works include the cycle “Hämmerklavier” for solo piano and the song cycle “Neue Dichter Lieben”. Eggert is a pianist and has also appeared on stage as a conductor, actor and singer, and his current projects include the opera production “The Last Conspiracy” (Volksoper Vienna), which will premiere in March 2023, as well as new concerts for the percussionist Konstantyn Napolov and the violinist/violist Elisabeth Kufferath.

Peter Moormann has been Professor of Music in the Media / Music Journalism at the Institute of Music and Musicology at TU Dortmund University since 2024. Previously, he was a junior professor of media aesthetics with a focus on music at the Department of Art and Music at the University of Cologne. In 2018, Moormann completed his habilitation in musicology with a thesis on “Gustavo Dudamel. Repertoire - Interpretation - Reception”. In 2007, he received his doctorate with a thesis on the film music of John Williams, which was awarded the Johannes Gutenberg Prize of the University of Mainz in 2008. He has been co-founder and co-editor of the series “FilmMusik” (edition text + kritik) since 2014.

Prof. Dr. Georg Maas supports the Film Music Days Saxony Anhalt on an ongoing basis as the Scientific Advisor. From 1995 to 2023, he was Professor of Music Education at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and since 2019 Director of the Center for Teacher Education there. His main areas of work included film and music, textbook development, didactics of pop/rock music, and musical theater, for which he wrote numerous important contributions. As a sought-after speaker, he travels all over Germany. Georg Maas is also the concertmaster of the Medical Faculty Orchestra at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. Photo: Joachim Blobel

Sammy Weber was born in Heidelberg in 1998 before moving to Leipzig for his Bachelor's degree in Communication and Media Studies. Following his bachelor's degree, he began his master's degree in media studies at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. As part of this, he is currently working on his thesis on “Fluid gender construction and subversive parody in Great Gerwig's Barbie”. In the course of his studies in Halle and Leipzig, he has dealt with a wide range of topics - above all music culture, gaming and gender in film.

Tina Pepper is an award-winning film composer based in Berlin. While studying film music at the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF she already wrote music for award winning films like ‘Combat Girl’ (David Wnendt) and ‘Teardrop’ (Damian John Harper). Later she wrote music for independent features such as ‘Away you go’ (Philipp Eichholtz) and for the Amazon original series ‘You Are Wanted’ (Matthias Schweighöfer). In 2020 she was awarded the German Television Award for Best Music for her score for the TV Series 'Rampensau', followed by a nomination for the German Music Authors' Prize for "Music in Audiovisual Media" in 2022. With a winning combination of her solid classical education, her love for electronic sounds and a broad knowledge of popular music she manages to bring some edgy ideas to every project she takes on. Whenever possible Tina loves to create intriguing sonic worlds using acoustic as well as electronic instruments, creating music ranging from dark suspenseful through emotional to full on action.

Vanessa Donelly is an award-winning film & games composer, songwriter & producer known for her feature film ANGEL IN THE WALL. In 2023 she won the Vespertilio Award for best film music in Rome, Italy. In addition to her work for ARD, ZDF and the gaming industry, this year she spoke in the German Bundestag on “Compatibility of family and career” in the Culture Committee. With her cabaret band passivattraktiv she won the title Act of the Year at the Wabe Berlin. She is represented by her agent Alexander Hemmpel.

Markus Steffen is co-founder and artistic director of the Saxony-Anhalt Film Music Days. He is a trained publisher's bookseller and has been working in the music and media world since 1989. From 1995 to 2001 he was Marketing Director Classical & Jazz at Warner Music Germany. Since 2001, he has been the managing partner of musicas.de gmbH in Hamburg and Halle (Saale), which offers individual consulting services to artists and various branches of the industry in the creative, marketing and sales sectors. In 2008, together with colleagues, he developed the concept of the Saxony-Anhalt Film Music Days, which have since become popular throughout Germany and take place once a year. Photo: Joachim Blobel