Jury DOK.fest Award of SOS-Kinderdörfer weltweit 2025

Christine Kehrer

Head of TV / Video SOS-Kinderdörfer weltweit

Christine Kehrer has been in charge of the motion picture communication at SOS-Kinderdörfer weltweit since 2011. Prior to this position, she worked as a director at Bayerisches Fernsehen for ten years. Among other things, she was also a lecturer in directing. In 2003, she was awarded the Caritas journalism award for her cinematic achievements. From 1992 to 2000, Christine Kehrer was a foreign reporter and editor for national and international broadcasters in a leading position. The mother of two children studied at the universities of Munich, Regensburg and Perugia. She has also been an honorary board member of PresseClub München e.V. since 2023.

Prof. Michaela Braun

Member of the friends of SOS-Kinderdörfer weltweit

Michaela Braun is a lawyer and founding partner of BRAUN Rechtsanwälte München. She is a certified business mediator, process communication coach and gives lectures on the topics of communication and negotiation techniques. In addition, she holds a professorship at the Bavarian Business School and is a lecturer at Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen and the University of Applied Sciences Munich. From July 2009 to July 2022, she was first a member of the board of directors of the Hermann Gmeiner Foundation and later of the supervisory board of SOS-Kinderdörfer weltweit. She is a member of the friends of SOS-Kinderdörfer weltweit.

Michaela May

Actress

Michaela May performed in more than 250 films and theatre productions. She had her breakthrough in 1974 with Helmut Dietl's Münchner G'schichten, Monaco Franze and Kir Royal. In more than 50 years of playing she worked with directors like Dominik Graf, Kai Wessel and Lars Kraume. As a police inspector at Polizeiruf 110 she won the German Television Prize and the Adolf Grimme Prize, among others. In 2019, she was awarded the honorary Bambi and made an honorary citizen of the city of Munich. In 2021, she received the Honorary Award of the Bavarian Minister President for the 33rd Bavarian Television Award. Her autobiography „Hinter dem Lächeln“ ("Behind the Smile") was published in 2022.

Heike Schnaar

ZDF

Heike Schnaar, born in Leipzig in 1964, studied journalism at the University of Leipzig. She has worked at ZDF since 1992, was Editorial Director of ZDF.reportage from 2015 to 2020 and Editorial Director of ZDF.zeit from 2020 to 2022. Since 2023, Schnaar has been head of the editorial department and in this position is responsible for the documentary strategy in the ZDF editorial department.

Thilo Kasper

Teamlead Content Strategy ARD

Thilo Kasper heads the Content Strategy team at the ARD Programme Directorate and has been developing the content strategy of the ARD Mediathek with a focus on documentary formats since 2021. Previously, he was Head of Video at Zeit Online, Creative Producer at funk (ARD/ZDF), as well as a freelance producer and editor for BuzzFeed Motion Pictures, among others. He was part of the teams behind award-winning productions such as ‘ECHT - Unsere Jugend’ (ARD), ‘Die Baseballschlägerjahre’ (rbb/Zeit Online) and ‘Deutschland3000’ (funk).

Wiebke Schodder

Director Non-Fiction Netflix

Wiebke Schodder joined Netflix in February 2023 as Director Non-Fiction and is responsible for Netflix's non-fiction offering in Germany, Austria and Switzerland – including series projects such as Kaulitz & Kaulitz, Crime Scene Berlin: Nightlife Killer and Love is Blind: Germany. As a trained journalist and long-time content and brand expert, Wiebke Schodder brings in-depth knowledge from a career spanning more than 20 years, during which she helped shape German television in various executive roles. After working for various production companies, she joined ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE as a senior editor in the ProSieben editorial department. This was followed by various management positions in which she was responsible, among other things, for the development and implementation of the cross-channel digital strategy and the factual portfolio of SAT.1 and Sixx. In 2016, Schodder was appointed Head of Sixx, where she set the course for the successful cross-platform positioning of the Sixx brand for the future.