Change of lead­er­ship at the DFFB

San­dra Braun will take over as inter­im direc­tor of the Ger­man Film and Tele­vi­sion Acad­e­my Berlin with imme­di­ate effect, suc­ceed­ing Ben Gib­son.

The DFFB’s Board of Trustees con­firmed the appoint­ment of San­dra Braun as the new inter­im direc­tor of the DFFB at its meet­ing in April 2020. Braun will ful­fill this role in addi­tion to her role as the Academy’s admin­is­tra­tive direc­tor. An impor­tant goal in the com­ing year will be to ini­ti­ate a struc­tur­al reor­ga­ni­za­tion of the Acad­e­my in order to main­tain and advance the out­stand­ing qual­i­ty of its train­ing for the future.

San­dra Braun stud­ied law and holds a Mas­ter of Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion. After hold­ing posi­tions at BBC World­wide, Sen­a­tor Enter­tain­ment, and Rund­funk Berlin-Bran­den­burg, the 47-year-old joined the DFFB at the begin­ning of the year as Head of Admin­is­tra­tion. Speak­ing about her new role, San­dra Braun says: “The DFFB is one of Germany’s lead­ing film schools and enjoys an excel­lent rep­u­ta­tion in the edu­ca­tion and train­ing of young film­mak­ers. In the com­ing months, a spe­cial focus will be on respon­si­bly shap­ing the DFFB’s teach­ing oper­a­tions dur­ing the Coro­na pan­dem­ic and prepar­ing the struc­tur­al and orga­ni­za­tion­al con­di­tions for the long-term announce­ment of a new man­age­ment team. I thank the Board of Trustees for their trust and look for­ward to shap­ing this process togeth­er with DFFB’s com­pe­tent staff, excel­lent lec­tur­ers, and ded­i­cat­ed stu­dents.”

The mem­bers of the Board of Trustees, chaired by the head of the Sen­ate Chan­cellery Chris­t­ian Gae­bler, are look­ing for­ward to the col­lab­o­ra­tion: “San­dra Braun enjoys an excel­lent rep­u­ta­tion in the indus­try and with­in a very short time she has suc­ceed­ed in set­ting the course for dig­i­tal teach­ing dur­ing the cur­rent emer­gency as well as estab­lish­ing a cul­ture of con­struc­tive coop­er­a­tion at the DFFB. Her expe­ri­ence in film and tele­vi­sion, her exper­tise with change process­es and her inter­na­tion­al net­work are an asset to the DFFB. I am con­vinced that Ms. Braun will inno­v­a­tive­ly dri­ve the Academy’s  devel­op­ment, man­age the upcom­ing changes at the DFFB with a high lev­el of com­pe­tence, and pre­pare the replace­ment of the direc­torate from April 2021 with the utmost care,” con­cludes Chair­man of the Board of Trustees Chris­t­ian Gae­bler.

We look for­ward to work­ing with San­dra Braun as our Inter­im Direc­tor and are con­fi­dent that she will suc­cess­ful­ly nav­i­gate DFFB through the chal­lenges ahead, includ­ing those relat­ed to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.