TO BE AN EXTRA

A filmmaker tries to escape her self-realization crisis by taking on roles of nameless others: She becomes an extra, gains insights into film productions from the outer fringes and encounters stories from the lives of her fellow extras.

HENRIKE MEYER

Henrike Meyer is an independent filmmaker based in Berlin. She studied theatre, history of art and comparative literature at the Free Universität Berlin followed by visual communication and art and media at the University of the Arts, Berlin. In 2009, she was on exchange at Cooper Union, NY. Her mid-length graduation film "Feldarbeit" and her MFA project "Heimsuchung" have been shown at several festivals, e.g. Duisburger Filmwoche, Dokumentarfilmwoche Hamburg and Kasseler Dokfest. For her current project "To be an Extra", she received the ‘Film/Video-Künstlerinnen’ grant of the Berlin Senat. The project and was selected to Berlinale Doc Station 2017 and the workshop program for debut films „dok.art“.
Between 2017 and 2018 she was part of the selection panel of the documentary film festival Duisburger Filmwoche. She is teaching film in the international school program cinema en curs and from 2019 to 2024 she was working with Valeska Grisebach on the director’s next feature "Das geträumte Abenteuer". Since 2024 she is teaching at
"Hochschule für Tanz und Musik Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig.

• CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, Denmark
• Beijing International Short Film Festival, China
• Doc.Berlin, Germany
• Wunderground Film Festival, USA

Dok Therapy 2025