Dascha Dauenhauer

Alena Schmick

Biography

European Film Award recipient Dascha Dauenhauer began playing the piano at the age of five and soon took piano and composition lessons. Her musical education was deepened in Berlin and she started composing a large variety of own works, including chamber music and soloistic instrumentations. Her orchestral piece "Sinfonietta“ was premiered at the Philharmonie Berlin in 2004.

Dascha Dauenhauer studied piano at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler, received her diploma in Music Theory from the University of the Arts Berlin and completed her Master of Film Music at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf. Since then she has worked on numerous cinema productions as a composer and music producer. Her films are shown internationally at film festivals.

The film Jibril (by Henrika Kull) had its premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2018, just like Burhan Qurbani’s celebrated work Berlin Alexanderplatz in 2020. Love Me, Fear Me (by Veronica Solomon) was nominated for the Student Academy Awards and one of Dascha Dauenhauer’s most recent projects - Evolution by Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó - premiered at Cannes International Film Festival 2021. This 2023 edition of Berlin International Film Festival presented two world premieres with score music by Dascha Dauenhauer: the series The Swarm (created by Frank Doelger and directed by Barbara Eder, Luke Watson, Philipp Stölzl) and Guy Nattiv's drama Golda with Helen Mirren as Golda Meir.

Dascha Dauenhauer has received three nominations for the German Film Music Award in 2018 and won in the categories “Best Music in a Short Film” and “New Talent”. In 2020, her music for Berlin Alexanderplatz won her the German Film Academy Award (Deutscher Filmpreis) as well as the European Film Award for Best Original Score. In 2022, Dascha Dauenhauer received the German Music Authors' Prize in the category "Composition Audiovisual Media" and the award for Best Music at Canneseries for her score for Souls.


Film

German House, 2023
Directed by Isa Prahl and Randa Chahoud
5-part miniseries Disney+

Tatami, 2023
Directed by Guy Nattiv and Zar Amir Ebrahimi
Feature Film
World Premiere Venice Film Festival 2023

Golda, 2023
Directed by Guy Nattiv
Feature Film
World Premiere: Berlin International Film Festival 2023

The Swarm, 2022-23
Directed by Barbara Eder, Luke Watson, Philipp Stölzl
TV series (8 episodes)
World Premiere: Berlin International Film Festival 2023

Souls, 2022
Directed by Alex Eslam, Hanna Maria Heidrich

TV series (8 episodes)
Best Music at Canneseries 2022

Evolution, 2021
Directed by Kornél Mundruczó
Feature Film
World Premiere: Cannes International Film Festival 2021

Blood Red Sky, 2021
Directed by Peter Torwarth
Feature Film
World Premiere: Munich International Film Festival 2021

Glück (Bliss), 2021
Directed by Henrika Kull
Feature Film

The Case You, 2020
Directed by Alison Kuhn
Documentary
Max Ophüls Film Festival Award - Best Original Score in a Documentary 2021

Berlin Alexanderplatz, 2020
Directed by Burhan Qurbani
Feature Film
European Film Award for Best Original Score 2020
German Film Award for Best Original Score 2020
World Soundtrack Awards - Nomination Discovery of the Year 2020
German Film Critics Association Award for Best Original Music Score 2021

Have a Nice Dog, 2020
Directed by Jalal Maghout
Animation

Julka und Julie, 2020
Directed by Gloria Stern
Short Feature

Lovemobil, 2019
Directed by Elke Lehrenkrauss
Documentary
Moscow International Documentary Film Festival - Best Sound 2020

Interstate 8, 2019
Directed by Anne Thieme
Short Film

Adelheid, Kornelius und die Töde, 2019
Directed by Kirstin Schmitt
Documentary

Über das Ende Hinaus, 2018
Directed by Gloria Stern
Short Film

Ekstase, 2018
Directed by Marion Kellmann
Experimental Film

Hotel Exil, 2018
Directed by Burhan Qurbani
Short Film

Jibril, 2018
Directed by Henrika Kull
Feature Film

Tender Years (Kindsein – Ich sehe was, was Du nicht siehst), 2018
Directed by Lilian Nix
Documentary
Max Ophüls Film Festival - Best Original Score in a Documentary 2018

Holger, 2017
Directed by Pavel Mozhar
Short Film

Monday – A German Love Story, 2017
Directed by Veronica Solomon
Animated Short Film

Tanz den Untergang mit mir, 2017
Directed by Jan Ruzicka
Short Film

Love Me, Fear Me, 2017
Directed by Veronica Solomon
Animated Short Film
German Film Music Award - Best Original Score for A Short Film 2018

Skywriters, 2016
Directed by Nils Otte
Documentary

Shlomi and Mazy, 2016
Directed by Leonhard Hofmann
Short DocumentaryUmut, 2015
Directed by David Groß
Short Film

FILMSCORE

GOLDA

Director: Guy Nattiv
Music: Dascha Dauenhauer

Guy Nattiv's drama Golda focuses on the intensely dramatic and high-stakes responsibilities and decisions that Golda Meir (played by Helen Mirren), also known as the 'Iron Lady of Israel' faced during the Yom Kippur War.

World Premiere: Berlin International Film Festival 2023

MUSIC FOR TV SERIES

THE SWARM

Directors: Barbara Eder, Luke Watson, Philipp Stölzl
Music: Dascha Dauenhauer

The series The Swarm chronicles the struggle of humankind against an unknown swarm intelligence that lives in the depths of the sea. When the reckless treatment of the oceans threatens the natural habitat of this mysterious collective, it strikes back quickly, all human life is at stake – and the fate of the entire world population rests in the hands of a small group of scientists.women whose lives turn upside down when Hanna's son, Jacob, is involved in a serious car accident and claims that he remembers his earlier life as a pilot of a lost passenger plane.

World Premiere: Berlin International Film Festival 2023

MUSIC FOR TV SERIES

SOULS

Directors: Alex Eslam, Hanna Maria Heidrich
Music: Dascha Dauenhauer

Three women whose lives turn upside down when Hanna's son, Jacob, is involved in a serious car accident and claims that he remembers his earlier life as a pilot of a lost passenger plane.

Best Music at Canneseries 2022

© 2021 Match Factory Productions, Proton Cinema

FILMSCORE

EVOLUTION

Director: Kornél Mundruczó
Music: Dascha Dauenhauer

In Evolution, acclaimed filmmaking team Kornél Mundruczó and Kata Wéber (Pieces of a Woman) return with a powerful drama tracing three generations of a family, from a surreal memory of World War II to modern day Berlin, unable to process their past in a society still coping with the wounds of its history.
Like the water that connects the episodes in this triptych, memory and identity are fluid, and how we relate to it can drown or buoy. The pain and stigma that trickles from Eva, to Lena and then Jonas is inexpressible, yet rendered with striking imagery by Mundruczó and a wrenchingly poignant yet acerbically ironic and personal script by Weber. While generational traumas find new expression in the present, the family in Evolution looks towards a more hopeful future-

World Premiere: Cannes International Film Festival 2021

FILMSCORE

BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ

Director: Burhan Qurbani
Music: Dascha Dauenhauer

As Francis, 30, the only survivor of an illegal crossing from Africa, awakes at a beach in Southern Europe, he swears an oath to God: From now on he wants to be a new, a better, a decent man. Soon after Francis finds himself in Berlin, where he realizes how hard it is to be righteous when you are an illegal refugee in Germany – without papers, without nation and without a work permit. When he receives an enticing offer from the charismatic German Reinhold, 31, to earn easy money, Francis initially resists the temptation, maintains his oath and stays away from Reinhold's shady dealings. But eventually he is sucked into Berlin's underworld and his life spirals out of control.

Dascha Dauenhauer's score was awarded with:

European Film Award for Best Original Score 2020
German Film Award for Best Original Score 2020
World Soundtrack Awards - Nomination Discovery of the Year 2020
German Film Critics Association Award for Best Original Music Score 2021