Sibylle Schönemann

Biography

Sibylle Schönemann (born 1953, East Berlin, East Germany) is a German filmmaker and former DEFA assistant director known for the autobiographical documentary Locked-Up Time (1990). After studying directing at the Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen in Potsdam-Babelsberg, she worked at the DEFA Studio for Feature Films. In 1984, after applying for permission to leave East Germany, she and her husband were arrested by the Stasi and sentenced to prison. Following her release and expulsion to West Germany in 1985, she later returned after the fall of the Berlin Wall to make Locked-Up Time, a documentary confronting those responsible for her imprisonment. The film received international recognition and awards, including the Silver Dove at DOK Leipzig and a German Film Award in Silver. In the 1990s she directed additional documentaries, including Those Days in Terezín (1997), before later working as a psychologist and mediator in Germany.