Steffi Niederzoll is a German director and author. She studied at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne and at the Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión (EICTV) in Cuba. Already during her studies, her short films – including Ein Sommer lang (2006) – were successfully screened at international festivals. Her graduation film LEA (2008) premiered at the Berlinale in the “Perspektive Deutsches Kino” section.

She participated in directing masterclasses with, among others, Milcho Manchevski and Danny Boyle, and received scholarships from the DAAD and the Tarabya Cultural Academy in Istanbul. She also took part in the Berlinale Talent Campus and the First Movie program. In addition to her film work, she realizes interdisciplinary projects and was a member of the performance collective 1000 Gestalten, which gained international attention for its action during the G20 summit. Her collective works have been shown at the Brecht Festival, the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, and in museums in Roskilde and Vejle (Denmark).

Her feature film debut Seven Winters in Tehran premiered as the opening film of the “Perspektive Deutsches Kino” section at the Berlinale 2023. It was shown at around 100 festivals worldwide and received over 40 awards – including two German Film Awards (LOLA), the Compass Perspektive Award, and the Berlinale Peace Film Prize. In 2023, she published the book Wie man ein Schmetterling wird together with Shole Pakravan (Berlin Verlag).

Steffi Niederzoll is a member of the German Film Academy, AG DOK, Pro Quote Film, and an honorary member of the Independent Iranian Filmmaker Association. She teaches at various film schools and works as a script consultant for fiction and documentary film projects. She is currently developing her first fiction feature Radical Hope at the Tarabya Cultural Academy, which has been selected for the Torino Script Lab 2025.

Steffi Niederzoll was a resident at Tarabya Cultural Academy from October 2019 to January 2020 and is again on site from July to August 2025.