BARBARA OTT
Born in 1983 on the German-Czech border, she took a degree in fiction directing at the Film Academy Baden-Wuerttemberg. Her short film SUNNY was screened successfully at national and international festivals and received numerous awards including the German Short Film Award in Gold, the First Steps Award, the Studio Hamburg Newcomer Award and the German Camera Award. In 2015 she wrote the film BLOCHIN - THE LIVING AND THE DEAD. In 2019/2020 she directed the films DRUCK and KIDS RUN, opening film at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival. She is currently working on the film FOR JOJO produced by Oberon Film and Netflix.

Director's statement
"KIDS RUN is a powerful love story, the strong-man act of an unusual young hero, whose love for his children drive him to tirelessly battle against the injustice of poverty. Andi is a father who, against all odds, is able to show his three children a glimmer of hope, to shine a light in a harsh and crooked world, and to give them the love and warmth they need to go through life. I personally grew up between industrial areas and cultivated fields, between tower blocks and the endless expanses of the provinces. The privation, the anger and the great love that penetrate to the depths of Andi’s soul, I know only too well from my own life. Nothing about Andi is unfamiliar to me. But this is precisely why KIDS RUN is not a social drama, but a warm-hearted and shockingly true story full of love and pain. What’s more, by using the possibilities of cinema, we can convey more deeply, more essentially and more poetically this tale of poverty, hardship and parental love. And so directly experience how a father, brimming with pent-up aggression and emotions and short of arguments, is driven by this essential force that connects us all to our own children: no one can ever pull us apart! – but what happens when someone attempts to do precisely that? […] What moves me is the notion that children, my own included, are completely at the mercy of their parents’ circumstances, be they emotional, economic or social. But on the other hand, these very circumstances will fade into the background when the love for our children takes precedence. […] I want to make this film because I want to show how a man whose entire world has long collapsed, will fight like a lion to keep his children. And because I believe it is the children who can make our dirtiest backyards light up and shine. KIDS RUN is a film that leaves us gasping for breath and yet softens our heart. At times, it can be hard to bear, but it will not for second let us doubt the love and hope that exists between these characters".