Eli Börnicke is a cinematographer and filmmaker based in Berlin. After graduating with degrees in literature and film in Frankfurt/Main, Istanbul and Berlin, she studied cinematography at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB). She works on fiction films, documentaries as well as artistic experimental collaborations. Her latest feature as cinematographer, “Drifter“ by Hannes Hirsch, has been shown at international festivals such as Berlinale Panorama, Frameline San Francisco, BFI Flare or Taiwan International Queer Film Festival, was nominated for the German Film Critics Award, and won the First Steps Award for Best Feature in 2023. Inspired by personal stories and the contradictions of being, her camera seeks to capture the poetry of the ephemeral. She is always on the lookout for possible forms of seeing, and thus also fascinated by the radically imaginative representational expression of animated film.
