Alexa Karolinski
Alexa Karolinski
Born/Date of Birth: 1984
Place of Birth: Berlin, Germany
Nationality: German
Occupation: Filmmaker
Education: School of Visual Arts
Movies: Oma & Bella, Signs of Life, Ocean of Love, Army of Love
Alexa Karolinski is a Canadian filmmaker, whose work includes music videos, commercials, film and television. More recently, she co-wrote, produced, and co-created the Netflix series Unorthodox (2020).
Filmmaking career
Alexa received an MFA in Social Documentary Film from The School of Visual Arts, NYC where Karolinski’s break-out film, was her thesis work 'Oma & Bella', which is a documentary about her grandmother (“Oma”) and her grandmother’s best friend (“Bella”), two women with very different personalities united by their shared trauma of Nazi persecution. The film follows the two survivors as they go about their daily routines of cooking, arguing, and discussing their experiences. The film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, and won Karolinski the prestigious Grimme Prize. .
Karolinski’s second feature documentary, Lebenszeichen (Signs of Life), was an essay film about the different ways Jews and gentiles in Germany ritualize their historical burden. It was released in 2018 to great critical acclaim. Der Spiegel, called it “the German-Jewish work of its generation.”
Starting in 2013, Karolinski started her long-running collaboration with the fashion brand Eckhaus Latta. The videos she produced and directed for the LA-based brand have been shown at the Museum of Art and Design, MOCA Los Angeles, MoMA PS1, as well as Galerie Isabella Bortlozzi, in Berlin.
In 2016, Karolinski started her ongoing art-video collaboration with writer/artist Ingo Niermann. Their film Army of Love premiered at the Berlin Biennale. It has since been included in exhibitions at the Centre Pompidou, MACBA, Castello di Rivoli, as well as CCCB and the Wiesbaden Biennale. Their second installment of the series, OCEANO DE AMOR, was part of a three month exhibition Auto Italia gallery in London, and will have it’s world premiere at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen in March, 2020.
In 2017, Karolinski directed the film Fashion at War: Crafting the Nazi Brand for Condé Nast's M2M.
In 2019, Karolinski co-wrote and co-created the Netflix show Unorthodox (2020) with Anna Winger , a 4-part series about a young woman who flees Brooklyn’s Satmar community to start a new life in Berlin, based on Deborah Feldman ’s memoir of the same title. It was directed by Maria Schrader and stars Shira Haas.
Cookbook
As an accompaniment to her film Oma & Bella, Karolinski wrote a cookbook with the same name that has sold out of its 3rd edition. The cookbook was released along with the film.
Early life
Karolinski was born in Berlin, Germany and grew up in the city’s small, recovering Jewish community. She now lives between Berlin and Los Angeles.
