Inspirational Women In Hollywood: How Filmmaker Katharina Otto-Bernstein Is Helping To Shake Up The Entertainment Industry

There are no five things, but one biggy. I slid into this business with a lot of luck and opportunity. Film school taught me how to be a good filmmaker, it didn’t teach me how to be a good businesswoman, it didn’t set me up with jobs or representation. In hindsight I wish I would have spent time working for an agency, a production company, a network, or a streamer, both for future contacts, and to become more proficient in understanding the business side of the entertainment industry. I learned on the job, and it’s not that easy.

As a part of our series about Inspirational Women In Hollywood, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Katharina Otto-Bernstein.

Katharina Otto-Bernstein is known for the acclaimed HBO documentaries The Price of Everything (Sundance — Emmy Nominated), Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures (Sundance, Berlinale — Two Emmy Nominations), Beautopia (Director, Sundance -Winner Chicago Film Festival) and Absolute Wilson (Director, Berlinale — Winner Basel Art Film of the Year). She also produced the German narrative feature Sea Glow (2021) and co-produced of the German Amazon Prime series Für Umme. Currently in pre-production are Heisenberg (directed by Uli Edel) and The Galapagos Affair (directed by Marc Rothemund Otto-Bernstein directed When Night falls over Moscow (ARD), The Need for Speed (Discovery, BBC), Coming Home (NDR), The Second Greatest Story Ever Told starring Malcolm McDowell and Mira Sorvino (Co-director, BBC). She is the author of Absolute Wilson, about theatre director Robert Wilson, and has worked as a dramaturge in theater and dance.

Otto-Bernstein is a member of New York Women in Film & Television, and as producer of Joyland, was one of 24 NYWIFT members with projects that screened at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Since premiering and winning the Jury Prize in the 2022 Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival (the first to do so from the Indian subcontinent), Joyland has moved audiences worldwide with its human portrayal of the limits of love in the face of patriarchy. The film follows the youngest son in a traditional Pakistani family as he takes a job as a backup dancer in a Bollywood-style burlesque, and quickly becomes infatuated with the strong-willed trans woman who runs the show. The film is both a loving portrait of the people of Lahore, Pakistan, and a painful depiction of how rigid traditional gender roles and repressed sexuality can have a ripple effect that harms the whole community.

Joyland, which was executive-produced by Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, will premiere in the U.S. on April 7, distributed by Oscilloscope.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

I grew up in a small town in southern Bavaria, Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Garmisch is surrounded by snowy mountains and meadows filled with cows and sheep. In the winter you ski, in the summer you hike, or bike, or swim in the lakes. It couldn’t have been a more idyllic childhood.

Most importantly, because there is not much else to do, there was plenty of time to dream. It was a stress-free time and perhaps the most important time in my life.

Like most teenagers I dreamt of being in the film business; to act, to write, to create. I made up scenarios and played them out with my friends or my siblings. As the second youngest of five children there was always sufficient family drama to record on my mother 8mm camera.

And I also started to write little articles for the local paper.

As I got older, Garmisch became smaller, and I was bursting to leave. Where to? America!

I applied to Columbia College in New York, and much to my amazement, I got in. New York was booming, I was blooming. Meanwhile my editor from the local Garmisch paper had landed a job with German Vogue. In turn she offered me a monthly New York column. Could life get any better? For the remainder of my undergraduate studies, I was paid to explore the city that never sleeps and write about it. That was really the beginning of my career. It helped me greatly with my admission to the MFA program at Columbia Film School. It also fooled me into believing that entering the world of publishing and entertainment was easy.

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?

Somehow, I always knew that I wanted to be a filmmaker, but that I would break into the world of film through documentaries never occurred to me. In 1989, my second year in film school, I took a leave of absence to accept a job as a location scout in Berlin. It was an East/West project. Since my father’s sisters and their families lived behind the Iron Curtain, I was very eager to go. Maybe there would be chance to finally meet them. East Germany was about to erupt like a volcano. The whole summer had been full of anti-Soviet demonstrations and defections. The Stasi was working overtime. There had been countless arrests, but the people’s will to break free from the fetters of communism could no longer be deterred.

I arrived in late October, and lo and behold, two weeks later, the Berlin Wall came down. This marked the end of the East/West project, but a whole new beginning for Germany. I decided to stay and meet my East German family for the first time; and to make a short documentary about the encounter called Coming Home. It was a very emotional little film and was picked up by a local Berlin television station. Their new program director had just resettled from New York. He left in a hurry, because of the current events in Berlin, and asked if I could help him out. Would I direct a one-hour television documentary on New York City bicycle messengers? The program had been bought and paid for by another German network and he no longer had time to make it. Of course, I would! This was a rare opportunity, to direct a professional television program while still in school. The Need for Speed was an amazing work experience, which brought me together with Mothers Messengers, the messenger service we still use until this day, and two wonderful collaborators, the extraordinary DP/Producer Oliver Bokelberg and the magical editor Bernadine Colish. We all got our start with The Need for Speed and still work together today.

It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

The Need for Speed had been a great success. It sold worldwide, I made some money and was feeling pretty good about the film and myself. Very confidently I proposed my next project to a production company in Germany, UFA Studios. They liked the project, it was green lit, and I was handed a two-page deal memo. In turn, I handed the deal memo to my brand-new entertainment lawyer. Let’s call him Steve. (I was very proud telling my mother that I had an entertainment lawyer.) Steve was young, also new to the business, and ambitious.

In no time he convinced me that the German deal memo was taking advantage of me, and that we should “aggressively push back.”

I am not exactly the aggressive type and deep down I felt very uncomfortable with Steve’s approach. The UFA people had been very nice and Steve’s “push back” could possibly be a terrible mistake. I just turned 26 and only had a short and a one-hour doc under my belt. The 20-page contract that Steve had created from the two-page deal memo felt, eh, somewhat excessive. But what did I know. At least there was someone who was standing up for me. So, the rather lengthy document was sent to Germany. Two days later the executive in charge called. He was fuming, telling me that this contract was the most ridiculous thing he ever read. That he had taken a change on me and that there were not enough words to describe my ingratitude and presumptuousness.

His last sentence I remember to this day: “Who do you think you are, Cecil B. DeMille?” Then he hung up, the project was cancelled, and UFA never worked with me again.

Lessons learned: 1. Never trust the so-called professionals. If you feel uncomfortable, you are probably right. 2. Humility. Nobody says that you should sell yourself short, but ultimately, it’s up to you to judge if you are being taken advantage of or not. It was early in my career, the time when you pay your dues, and I lost a great project because I was too chicken to stand up to my own team. So instead of directing the film, which I was dying to make, for a small salary, I ended up with a big fat lawyer’s bill. There was only one winner — Steve.

Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

The most interesting story occurred during the production of Absolute Wilson, the documentary about the great theatre and opera director Robert Wilson.

Since Robert [Bob] Wilson works all over the world, it was quite a task to nail him down and schedule our first interview. Finally, we secured a date to shoot him at his Watermill Center in Long Island. It was a hot summer day; I was eight months pregnant. Not an ideal time to start a film, but I figured it’s now or never.

We were all set up, and ready to go. Bob was not! He was placing large boulders into a circle, re-creating Stonehenge. After an hour, we finally sat down. It was a beautiful, long, and generous interview. As I was getting up to thank him, I was suddenly standing in a puddle of water. This was my first child, and I didn’t quite grasp what was happening, but Bob Wilson did. It turned out that he worked in various clinics, and at Bellevue, in the early days of his career. “Your water broke,” he said. “Labor will set in shortly. I am going to drive you to the hospital.”

At this point Bob’s assistant leaped forward and whispered in my ear, “Don’t let him drive you. He hasn’t driven a car in 15 years.” Bob insisted: “Nonsense, I’ve driven my whole life. I am going to drive.” While he was arguing with his assistant, a wave of pain hit me. Thank God for our line producer, who grabbed me and shoved me into his car. Bob Wilson, driving himself, followed with his assistant. Somehow, we all made it in one piece to Southampton Hospital, where the nurses thought that Bob was the father, much to his amusement. The role play got a little complicated once my husband arrived. Five hours later our son Nicholas was born a month early. Bob became his godfather. It had been a very interesting day and marked the beginning of a wonderful friendship.

None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

There are so many people who are helping me daily, who deserve my heartfelt gratitude, and whose opinion I value deeply. Filmmaking is and will always be a collaborative effort. We are all part of a team, and all team members are valuable. The two people who stand out, who gave me early opportunities, advise and funds to make films, are the Raimund Kusserow, the German documentarian who trusted me to make The Need for Speed although I was still in film school. And the forever admirable and extraordinary Sheila Nevins who did the same for me with Absolute Wilson. I can never thank them enough and love them both.

You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?

Failure is part of the process. And it’s never fun. The prospect of having your script rejected, after pouring your heart and soul into it, or not finding distribution for your indie, is indeed daunting. I’ve been rejected by agents, sold pilots that never made it to series, had greenlit projects cancelled, and it hurts. It makes you doubt yourself and your talent; you feel humiliated and alone. Everyone says that “failure” helps you grow as an artist. I never thought so, it just tests your stamina.

Constructive criticism is another story, and very important in everything I do. Before I go out with a project, I make sure that all my research is correct, that the story is well-rounded and I have covered every point of view, and then I show it to many different people whose opinion I value and trust. My rule of thumb is, if everyone has the same critique, they must be right, and I have to go back to the drawing board. If everyone says something different, then it’s a matter of personal taste and can possibly ignored.

In the final analysis, I think you must be a passionate, almost obsessive storyteller to work in a business that really gives you no job security. I wouldn’t know what else to do.

Every industry iterates and seeks improvement. What changes would you like to see in the industry going forward?

The industry is currently in flux and so unpredictable that I can’t answer this question intelligently. Quality over quantity would always be my advice.

You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?

On the production side we are waiting for the April release of Joyland, we have an ongoing series in Germany, and are slated to shoot a feature film in the fall. We have a lot of exiting things in development, and we have two documentaries in the editing room, which I am directing.

We are very interested in looking at diversity in the entertainment industry. Can you share three reasons with our readers why you think it’s important to have diversity represented in film and television? How can that potentially affect our culture and our youth growing up today?

Diversity is everything! As an immigrant and a woman, my subject matters and teams have always been diverse, without having to think about it. My husband is Israeli, I am German, we think diversity is a state of mind.

Working in an environment filled with people from different countries, different backgrounds, age groups, skill sets, experiences, and knowledge, only heightens the creativity of the team. For example, working on Joyland, a film about a transgender woman in Lahore, created by a Pakistani writer/director, filmed by a Lebanese DP, and produced by a pool of producers, both female and male, from the United States, India, Pakistan, Denmark, Russia, and Germany, was one of the most harmonious productions that I have ever been a part of. In fact, it was the diversity that made it fun; we all learned so much about each other.

An inclusive and diverse environment can only be helpful to our youth, as it undoubtedly allows wider perspectives to be integrated when brainstorming, problem solving, and developing new ideas. This not only has a huge impact on storytelling, but it helps expand audiences. Gone are the days when you can function with only one voice, especially with the streamers who are buying world rights to make national and international entertainment available to everyone at the same time, worldwide.

Although when I look at the youth today, they have pretty much figured this out. It’s the older generation, who needs a big helping of re-education and exposure to diversity.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.

There are no five things, but one biggy. I slid into this business with a lot of luck and opportunity. Film school taught me how to be a good filmmaker, it didn’t teach me how to be a good businesswoman, it didn’t set me up with jobs or representation. In hindsight I wish I would have spent time working for an agency, a production company, a network, or a streamer, both for future contacts, and to become more proficient in understanding the business side of the entertainment industry. I learned on the job, and it’s not that easy.

Can you share with our readers any self-care routines, practices or treatments that you do to help your body, mind or heart to thrive? Please share a story for each one if you can.

Eh, I am totally the wrong person to ask about self-care routines, but I do wake up with a smile every morning.

Diet? I wish I was more disciplined when it comes to diet, but I love to cook and eat; and get very cranky on three salad leaves.

My exercise? Being a wife and mother! The morning starts much too early with a long brisk dog walk. Then, hauling everyone out of bed, breakfast, and rushing to the office — with the dog. That’s pretty much my exercise regimen.

Mind? I love cleaning the kitchen, that when I get the really good ideas. Maybe it’s because nobody else wants to help me clean the kitchen and I am finally alone. But that’s where my mind is at peace and the inspiration comes.

Heart? I am blessed with a very healthy heart and when I look at my two boys, my heart overflows.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

History and the understanding and interpretation of history is one of my great passions. So here are two quotes. The first one pertains to diversity and is from George Orwell: “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny their understanding of their own history.”

The second one is from Winston Churchill, and pertains the fear of not making it in this industry: “Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

Do I have influence? I don’t think I do, but I hope our films do, and in the most positive way. This is a difficult question to answer. It’s hard to think of a movement that hasn’t been thought of to bring good to the most amount of people. The problem is that people constantly get in the way of [other] people. So, I’ll stick to film and the little movement we began 12 years ago to help young filmmakers.

Realizing how difficult the transition from film school to professional life is, my team and I started a thesis mentorship program in conjunction with Columbia Film School, which would be run through my production company. Every year we take four thesis projects, each come with a writer/director and creative producer team, provide them with a stipend to bolster their production fund, and mentor the team from script to screen. Over the years we’ve mentored thesis projects from all over the world, from Korea, China, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Lebanon, Israel, Iran, Germany, France, Nigeria, Spain, Italy, Japan, United States, and England. The goal was not only for these students to succeed, but to create a platform or a safe space where they can meet, where ideas and projects can be exchanged, or new work can be read. Former students can always pitch us or pitch each other, help each other, and feel comfortable in a stress-free environment.

Working with these wonderful creatives from all over the world has been beyond rewarding, but my greatest joy is that the experiment is succeeding and that there is a lot of collaboration and cross-pollination of these students going on over the world. The best recent example is Saim Sadiq co-editing his film with Jasmin Tenucci, with one living in Pakistan and the other in Latin America. That’s pretty good.

Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!

There are so many that I can’t decide, and I don’t want to be greedy. Can I get back to you on that one?

This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!