Irene von Alberti

Irene von Alberti is a German director, screenwriter, and producer. She studied media technology and film and television and initially worked as a camera assistant and cinematographer before developing her own directing projects. Together with Frieder Schlaich, she founded the production company Filmgalerie 451, which since the 1990s has been known for independent auteur cinema, formally daring films, and socially engaged works. As a director, she has made both documentaries and feature films that are characterized by a close connection between reality and fiction. Her major works include Paul Bowles – Halbmond (1995), a portrait of the writer in Morocco, Tangerine (2008), a documentary essay on migration and globalization, and Der lange Sommer der Theorie (2017), which reflects on the lives and thoughts of a feminist commune in Berlin. With Die geschützten Männer (2024), she adapted Robert Merle's novel into a cinematic satire on gender relations and power structures. Irene von Alberti is considered a defining voice of German independent cinema. Her films combine aesthetic radicalism with social relevance and a feminist perspective, and she has created an important venue for artistic film production with Filmgalerie 451.