Biography
Katharina Knust is a Basel-based filmmaker and teaches in the field of experimental documentary film. From 2021 to 2026, she was an artistic associate in the Master of Arts in Film programme at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts – Design Film Art. Since March 2026, she has been a PhD candidate in the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) research project Organised Commitment: Micro-Practices and Structural Challenges of Art Collectives.
Her practice-based research explores collectivity, authorship, and production conditions in documentary filmmaking, as well as collaborative forms of filmic knowledge production. Her work focuses on collective storytelling, questions of responsibility and participation, and the structural conditions that shape artistic and cinematic practice.
She studied Media Arts at Bauhaus University Weimar and Concordia University in Montreal. In addition to her own film productions, she participated in residencies, workshops, and documentary labs. She also worked as an assistant director and production manager for projects at the intersection of fiction, documentary, and installation, and as a guest lecturer in film at the University of Basel.
Since 2015, she has collaborated with Jana Keuchel as a directing duo. Their work has been screened at international festivals including DOK Leipzig, CPH:DOX, and Sheffield Doc/Fest. Their feature-length artistic documentary To Show or Not to Show (2023) was developed in collaboration with the ZDF editorial department Das kleine Fernsehspiel. Their feature debut Last Year in Utopia (2018) had its world premiere in the CPH:DOX competition and was awarded the Basel Film Prize.
