Jan Sebening

Head of Student Award, programme selection, moderator, DOK.education Media expert for school offers

Jan Sebening (born 1967) studied documentary film at the Nederlandse Filmacademie Amsterdam. Subsequently he realised documentary films for German and international broadcasters, which were awarded several times at festivals. The works deal thematically with individual, personal fates in changing social contexts. Parallel to the practice of film directing, Jan Sebening has always represented his methodology, approaches and perspectives on documentary film in his teaching.

He has taught at the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München, the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, the Ludwig-Maximillians-Unversität München and at his Alma Mater, the NFA Amsterdam, as an artistic-scientific assistant, lecturer and senior lecturer. In addition to teaching the theory and practice of film, the focus was on the individual supervision of student film projects. His students have won the Digital Emmy Award, the Directors Award of the Directors Guild of America, German and Bavarian Film Awards, the Starter Film Award of the City of Munich as well as several nominations and awards at the renowned German First Step Award in Berlin. Jan Sebening has mentored more than 500 student films.

Since 2006 he has been a member of the DOK.fest team as a scout and presenter. Since 2017 he has been head of the Student Award of the DOK.fest. In addition to the organisational and curatorial planning and implementation of the competition, the core task is the further development of the section into one of the leading interfaces in the network of German and, from a perspective, European film schools. Within the DOK.fest the cooperation with the sections DOK.netzwerk Africa and the children and youth program DOK.education will be further expanded to use synergy effects and to further develop the 'out-reach' of the DOK.fest.

Contact: sebening@dokfest-muenchen.de