# Maria Schrader

Maria Schrader (born 27 September 1965) is a German actress, screenwriter, and director. She directed the award-winning 2007 film Love Life and the 2020 Netflix miniseries Unorthodox, for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series. She also starred in the German international hit TV series Deutschland 83 (2015), known for being the first German-language series broadcast on US television.

## Early life and career

Schrader was born in Hanover and studied at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna, Austria.
She is especially well known from the film Aimée & Jaguar, as well as the acclaimed Liebesleben ("Love life") that she wrote, produced, and in which she acted. She has also written other films: RobbyKallePaul; I Was on Mars; Stille Nacht and Meschugge. She co-directed I Was on Mars with Dani Levy, whom she dated until 1999.
Schrader was part of the jury at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2000 and is again in the 2025 jury.
Schrader played the part of Martin Rauch's aunt in Deutschland 83 (2015), an 8 episode TV series, which was the first German-language TV series to be broadcast on US television. It also became popular in the UK, airing in early 2016 on Channel 4.
In 2020 Schrader directed the Netflix miniseries Unorthodox, for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series. She directed the 2022 film She Said, starring Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan.
Though Schrader's most popular roles as an actor are of the Jewish faith, and many of her films as a screenwriter and director include Jewish characters and revolve around Jewish struggles, Schrader herself is not Jewish.

## Awards

* 1992 Max Ophüls Festival, Best Young Actress for I Was on Mars
* 1995 Mystfest, Best Actress for Burning Life
* 1995 Bavarian Film Awards, Best Actress for Nobody Loves Me, Burning Life
* 1995 German Film Awards, Best Leading Actress for Nobody Loves Me, Burning Life, Einer meiner altesten Freunde
* 1999 49th Berlin International Film Festival, Silver Bear for Best Actress (shared with Juliane Köhler) for Aimée & Jaguar
* 1999 German Film Awards, Best Leading Actress for Aimée & Jaguar, The Giraffe
* 1999 Bavarian Film Awards, Best Actress for Aimée & Jaguar
* 2020 Primetime Emmy Award, Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special for Unorthodox

## Nominations

* 2016 German Film Awards, Best Director for Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe (Original title in German: Vor der Morgenröte)

## Selected filmography

Actress :
| Year | Title | Role | Director | Notes |
| 1992 | I Was on Mars | Silva | Dani Levy | with Dani Levy |
| 1994 | Nobody Loves Me | Fanny Fink | Doris Dörrie | with Pierre Sanoussi-Bliss, Elisabeth Trissenaar |
| 1994 | Burning Life | Anna | Peter Welz [de] | with Anna Thalbach, Max Tidof |
| 1995 | One of My Oldest Friends | Marion | Rainer Kaufmann | with Richy Müller, Peter Lohmeyer |
| 1995 | Silent Night | Julia | Dani Levy | with Jürgen Vogel |
| 1997 | The Unfish | Sophie Moor | Robert Dornhelm | with Eva Herzig [de], Andreas Lust [de], Georges Kern [de], August Schmölzer, Karl Merkatz, Bibiana Zeller, Rudolf Wessely, Erwin Leder |
| 1997 | Child Murder [de] | Katrin Menzel | Bernd Böhlich | TV film, with Jürgen Vogel, Christian Redl, Francis Fulton-Smith |
| 1998 | Meschugge | Lena Katz | Dani Levy | with Dani Levy |
| 1998 | Am I Beautiful? | Elke | Doris Dörrie | with Senta Berger, Gottfried John, Iris Berben, Uwe Ochsenknecht, Franka Potente, Dietmar Schönherr, Heike Makatsch, Otto Sander, Joachim Król |
| 1999 | Aimée & Jaguar | Felice Schragenheim (Jaguar) | Max Färberböck | with Juliane Köhler, Heike Makatsch, Johanna Wokalek |
| 2001 | Viktor Vogel - Commercial Man | Johanna von Schulenberg | Lars Kraume | with Götz George, Alexander Scheer, Chulpan Khamatova, Vadim Glowna |
| 2001 | Emil and the Detectives | Pastorin Hummel | Franziska Buch | with Jürgen Vogel |
| 2001 | Josephine | Al | Rajko Grlić | with Miroslav Vladyka [cs], Giancarlo Esposito |
| 2002 | Operation Rubikon [de] | Sophie Wolf | Thomas Berger [de] | TV film, with Hilmar Thate |
| 2002 | I'm the Father [de] | Melanie Krieger | Dani Levy | with Sebastian Blomberg, Christiane Paul |
| 2003 | Rosenstrasse | Hannah Weinstein | Margarethe von Trotta | with Katja Riemann |
| 2005 | Schneeland | Elisabeth | Hans W. Geißendörfer | with Julia Jentsch, Ulrich Mühe, Thomas Kretschmann, Joachim Król, Susanne Lothar |
| 2008 | Patchwork [de] | Xenia Napolitano-Freitag | Franziska Buch | TV film, with Gabriela Maria Schmeide [de], Fritz Karl |
| 2011 | In Darkness | Paulina Chiger | Agnieszka Holland | with Robert Więckiewicz |
| 2013 | Sisters [de] | Saskia Kerkhoff | Anne Wild [de] | with Ursula Werner, Jesper Christensen |
| 2014 | Lose My Self [de] | Lena Ferben | Jan Schomburg [de] | with Johannes Krisch, Ronald Zehrfeld, Sandra Hüller |
| 2015 | Deutschland 83 | Lenora Rauch | Edward Berger, Samira Radsi | TV series, with Jonas Nay, Ulrich Noethen, Sylvester Groth, Sonja Gerhardt, Ludwig Trepte, Alexander Beyer, Lisa Tomaschewsky |
| 2018 | The City and The City | Sen. Detective Quissima Dhatt | Tom Shankland | TV series, with David Morrissey, Mandeep Dhillon, Lara Pulver |
| 2018 | Deutschland 86 | Lenora Rauch | Florian Cossen, Arne Feldhusen | TV series, with Jonas Nay, Ulrich Noethen, Sylvester Groth, Sonja Gerhardt, Ludwig Trepte, Alexander Beyer, Lisa Tomaschewsky |
Director :
| Year | Title | Starring | Notes |
| 1998 | Meschugge | Dani Levy | Co-director Dani Levy |
| 2007 | Love Life | Netta Garti, Rade Šerbedžija, Tovah Feldshuh | |
| 2016 | Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe | Josef Hader, Barbara Sukowa | |
| 2020 | Unorthodox | Shira Haas, Amit Rahav, Jeff Wilbusch | TV miniseries |
| 2021 | I'm Your Man | Maren Eggert, Dan Stevens, Sandra Hüller, Hans Löw [de], Wolfgang Hübsch | |
| 2022 | She Said | Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan, Patricia Clarkson, Andre Braugher, Samantha Morton, Tom Pelphrey | |