„Clenching your teeth is overrated"

Charlotte Rolfes. Freelance Director.

Charlotte Rolfes. Charlotte Rolfes studied directing at the International Film School Cologne from 2008 to 2016 and in the Master's program at the Hamburg Media School.

The short films she made during her studies were screened at festivals around the world, including the Max Ophüls Festival, the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival, the Short Film Tiger at the Cannes Film Festival and the Hof Film Festival.

In 2017 she became a mentee at INTO THE WILD, a mentoring program for young female filmmakers. In 2020 she trained as an acting coach according to the Andersson system.

She has been shooting series and films as a freelance director since 2017, including FRAU JORDAN STELLT GLEICH, TATORT and the ARD series WER WIR SIND. In her work as a director, she is particularly interested in non-conformist female characters, subtle humor and a look behind the facade. Her second Cologne Tatort COLONIUS, which she filmed while seven months pregnant in early 2024, will be broadcast in 2025.

Charlotte Rolfes Website.
Charlotte Rolfes Agency: Birnbaum und Frame Management.
Charlotte Rolfes at crew united

Let's start with your personal background. Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

I grew up in the middle of nowhere between Bielefeld and Hanover. My two younger brothers wanted to be professional footballers, I wanted to be in film more than anything from relatively early on.

How did your parents divide work and family life, and did that influence you when you had children yourself?

I think what has shaped my professional life to this day is that money didn't play the biggest role. My parents sometimes had a lot of money, sometimes not so much. When my youngest brother was born, my father took a year off and then decided to become self-employed. For us children, the lower income didn't seem to make much difference. “Being a dad” and ‘independence’ were more important to my father than the big family vacation. Meanwhile, my mother campaigned for more visibility for the classic housewife tasks or “family management” and wrote newspaper articles about it. But she was a full-time ‘only’ mum who used to welcome us with a warm meal every lunchtime. I think both attitudes still shape me today.

And how did you end up in the film industry?

The classic way. With a big dream in my luggage, I wrote 100 applications to broadcasters and production companies after leaving school and applied as a cable assistant. Three film internships later, I was already a set props master for a feature film. I then studied directing at the ifs in Cologne, which confirmed my career aspirations, but I didn't have the necessary chutzpah to sell myself to the outside world as a director. I was only 25 and didn't have the feeling of being “finished” at all. So I went back to the set (I had to in order to earn money) and became an acting coach for children and young people. Then, at 28, I went to Hamburg Media School for a master's degree in directing. Another intensive and instructive time, but afterwards I still didn't have enough self-confidence or the necessary wind under my wings. There were still few opportunities for female directing graduates back in 2017.

After graduating from Hamburg Media School, I participated in the ‘Into The Wild’ mentoring programme. It helped me a lot and, above all, opened my eyes to the fact that other women felt EXACTLY like me: highly educated, but constantly doubting themselves and without the necessary external support. The feeling that I wasn't alone in this made a huge difference to the way I presented myself to the outside world. And then, luckily, the Pro Quote Direction lobby came along and got louder and louder. To combat my impostor syndrome, I completed a two-year acting coach training course with Sigrid Andersson in 2020. Things have improved since then.

After short films and series, you directed two TV films, both of them TATORTs, i.e. the highest-paid, highest-rated TV format. Congratulations! How did this happen?

I think the decisive factor for the first request from Jan Kruse (producer of Bavaria and Cologne's Tatort) was actually the three episodes of SOKO HAMBURG that I shot in 2021. I suspect Jutta Lieck-Klenke, the producer of Network Movie at the time, put in a good word for me. It also has to be said that Kruse is one of the few producers who give young directors a real chance.

During your first commissioned production, you had a small baby you were still breastfeeding. For your second crime scene, you were 7 months pregnant. How did that go?

First of all, it has to be said that before my first pregnancy I was a long way from earning any real money as a director. I kept my head above water with script promotions, low-budget productions and small demo tape jobs. When I became pregnant with my first child, I unexpectedly received my first commercial directing request, which of course overlapped directly with my due date.

My first directing job was the second season of the web series AUSGEBREMST from and with Maria Furtwängler, when my son was seven months old. Negotiating a breast feeding trailer was of course no problem with Maria and it was also clear that my boyfriend would travel to Munich for the entire shoot. A short time later, I did the same with Soko Hamburg. My boyfriend brought my son to breastfeed once a day, otherwise I only breastfed at night. I wasn't really good at negotiating my own rest breaks for either project back then, but preferred to prove to myself and everyone else that young mothers are awesome superheroes who don't need sleep, a chair or extra breaks... pretty stupid!

In April 2024, while shooting my second Cologne Tatort COLONIUS and 7 months pregnant, I was able to manage the breaks much better. I also had a trailer/room that I really appreciated and needed for 30 minutes during my lunch break. Just to really stretch my feet and feel my stomach to see if everything was okay. I also had a director's chair/bar stool for the first time, as I normally never sit on set. As my boyfriend and I no longer work at the same time, I didn't have to worry about looking after my big son.

But of course it's a special situation to be filming pregnant. We had some exhausting night shoots in the cold and outdoors and my demands on a scene are just as demanding as not being pregnant. In other words, it was a long and exciting shoot.

I was grateful and also a little surprised when the last clapperboard fell and I didn't even have a “tummy ache” during the shoot and shooting while heavily pregnant went so well. I do believe that I can assess my strength well, but no matter who you ask for an assessment beforehand (gynecologist, midwife, colleagues), they all say: it's a lot of pressure and pregnancy is unpredictable, you'd better assume that it won't work out.

What were the reactions of the producers and the filmmakers involved? Were there any negative voices or general support?

It was really important to me to be honest and open straight from the start. I didn't want to get into a pressure situation and feel like I had to prove anything. So I told the producer about the pregnancy when I wasn't even 12 weeks pregnant. Jan Kruse didn't hesitate for a second before saying “Congratulations”. And since I was working on account, there was practically no problem for him. And so it was almost “normal” to work together, apart from politely asking how I was doing, my pregnancy was almost no longer an issue.

But I had to make sure I took my own breaks and kept my night shifts to a minimum. Of course everyone in the team was considerate and supportive, but at the end of the day, as a biller, I am solely responsible. If I was working on income tax, I would have the legal maternity protection guidelines on my side, but what would I have been able to shoot this year apart from pure studio productions with 8-hour shooting days - i.e. weeklies?

I actually wish there was a way in between. It sometimes felt difficult not to adhere to any maternity protection guidelines at all and to always decide for myself what was possible and what was not. On the other hand, I loved shooting the movie from start to finish and I would have been super angry if I hadn't been “allowed” to because of maternity protection guidelines.

Unfortunately, I have no idea what would have happened if I hadn't been able to work. Would my back-up, a fellow director, have gotten my fee and I would have gotten nothing? These are all unanswered questions to which there are still no answers, because “pregnant directors” don't really happen very often yet.

Then it would presumably have been billed as shared jobs?

Yes, probably.

How do you and your partner manage to balance work and family life?

What balance? My boyfriend is a lighting technician. That's even harder to reconcile than directing because he basically only works on set. At least I can organize pre-production and post-production in a fairly family-friendly way, so that we can see each other at least briefly in the mornings and evenings.

Last year, after my series WER WIR SIND (Who We Are, my partner accepted a movie while I was editing. That was a complete disaster. For me, for him and ultimately for our son. We'll never do that again, even if it means we earn less.

I would really like to see shared job models become possible for lighting technicians in the future. Because when I'm not working, we can hardly afford to live in a city like Cologne, unless my partner is shooting all year round and never actually at home.

In other words, we try to manage it so that I shoot one project a year and he shoots the rest of the time.

Do you have relatives nearby, i.e. parents or siblings, who can support you if necessary?

We live just around the corner from my parents-in-law, our older son visits them at least once a week. That helps, of course, but we almost always improvise when we have childcare bottlenecks. We would have to be much more professional.

What will happen now you have two children?

I've taken three months off and will finish the TATORT after that so that it can premiere at the Cologne Film Festival. And for 2025, I'm currently thinking about which project would be the best fit.

When you start a new project, are you interested in the family (commitments) of your teams?

Yes, I am very interested in this, not only because I like to talk about it with other mothers and fathers, but also because I think it is essential to make “family life in the background” more visible. Why not have a director's party where all the team members' children are invited and there's a bouncy castle or a little circus show in the next room - the “adults” can still have a beer on the truck ramp...

You were a role model for a colleague who can now imagine becoming a director and have a family.

On the last day of a shoot, a set intern in her early 20s told me that she was thinking about studying directing, but until then had thought that she wouldn't be able to have a family. I often had my son on set and took him in front of the monitor in the carrier after breastfeeding. This image apparently calmed her down completely, so that she decided to become a director again. Of course, being a role model for her makes me proud and happy.

Are you doing anything else that could help other women who are pregnant or have a small child like you?

In general, I could and would like to do more to work towards more compatibility measures at a production company. Just a day off after a long week of night shoots, for example. That's what my assistant director and I asked for and got on the last project, but in the end everyone got a day's vacation, so I don't really know if it was a benefit for everyone.

The problem is, of course, that most team members' childcare problems or family reasons don't reach me directly. You either agree to a job and are fully available, as we are used to, or you cancel the job. What is needed is a fear-free space for “family situations” BEFORE the contract is signed so that they can be discussed with everyone involved - including me.

I think a family day is a great idea to increase visibility in general. On my last shoot, it happened to be the annual Boys/Girls Day and suddenly there were two or three students on set. I thought that was great and it's long overdue for the trades on set to present themselves more transparently to the outside world so that we don't completely lose the next generation.

Apart from that, I make sure I have women over 50 on set. I simply can't accept being surrounded by older men on a set anymore. A day's shooting is an intensive time with lots of interpersonal interaction and learning from each other, so experienced women are essential!

Movie plots can inspire and movie characters can be role models. Can you think of a German film or TV production in which the compatibility of family and career - whether children or older relatives - is portrayed in a good way, either centrally or marginally?

(Unfortunately, I haven't seen a nice counterpart to ‘WORKING MUMS or BREEDERS in Germany yet. FLEISHMAN IS IN TROUBLE was my last highlight on the subject.

You are particularly interested in “non-conformist female characters” in your work. Would you describe yourself as a non-conformist filmmaker?

I don't think I myself would say that the female characters I'm allowed to develop or direct are non-conformist, that happens to me more in the script process or during rehearsals. Perhaps out of my own desire to be much more non-conformist myself. I'm afraid that I personally spent quite a long time trying to prove to myself and everyone else that I fit very well into the movie system. In other words, I've tried hard to show what a capable and resilient director I am. Only now am I realizing that ease in the profession can be worth more than gritting my teeth. That's how you find errors in the system and can change something. And what I keep in mind is to choose material according to the complexity of the characters and themes and to ask myself each time whether the material really suits me and my way of working as a director.

And finally, a look ahead: where should the film industry have developed to at best when your children are in their early 20s and possibly want to get into it?

Maximum equality on all levels: 1. power, 2. money (keyword: pay gap), 3. sex and its consequences (i.e. childcare), 4. maximum diversity.

And, of course, interesting enough in terms of content so that young people will still want to develop and tell new, cool stories in the future.

Dear Charlotte, thank you very much for the lovely conversation - all the best for you and your family and your next professional projects!

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