Karl Friedrich Sebastian Grobler

Biography

Sebastian Grobler is an educator and a director of fiction films with more than 10 years of experience in directing television and theatrical films. He is a member of the Directors Guild of Germany (BVR) and the European Film Academy (EFA). His diploma movie Morgen frueh ist die Nacht rum (The night will be gone by tomorrow) at his film school Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg won the prestigious Studio-Hamburg-Up-and-Coming-Award 2003. After working several years in the German television industry and directing 3 different television series, Sebastian directed and co-produced his theatrical film debut "Der ganz grosse Traum" (Lessons of a dream), which tells the story of football coming to Germany in 1874. The movie was nominated for the German Film Award 2011 (“Lola”) for Best Film, Best Camera and Best Costume Design. The international premiere of "Der ganz grosse Traum" took place in the competition of Montreal World Film Festival 2011. The movie has won more than 10 international awards – e.g. Audience Award Generacion at Int. Film Festival Rio de Janeiro 2011 and Best Feature Film and Best Male Actor at Int. Film Festival Pyongyang 2012. It was relased in theaters or shown on television in more than 50 countries and was selected by the Goethe Institute to be presented at German Film Festivals worldwide - e.g. German Film Festival Singapore 2011, opening film of the Indonesian German Cinema Festival 2012 - and by the European Union - e.g. opening film of the European Film Festival in China 2012. Sebastian has directed five prime-time television movies for german television networks, three of them were realized in the USA, since 2012. Since 2003 he taught introduction to filmmaking and directing fiction film, video clips and commercials at SAE Hamburg and acting for film at ISFF Berlin. At University of Hamburg he was a lecturer on the iconography and narration of contemporary history in films and at Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg he gave a course on the dramatisation of the traumatic subject of terrorism in movies. Sebastian won the renowned VGF-Business Grant for Up-and-Coming Producers at Bavarian Film Studios in 2007 and was nominated for his concept of the interactive web series "Murder at Noon" for best new media idea at the Gruner + Jahr Publishing House Award 2009.

Research Interest

Directing and acting