On May 15, the renowned production designer Sebastian Soukup will take over the professorship for production design at the ifs Internationale Filmschule Köln. In the future, he will be in charge of the specialization in production design in the Bachelor's Programme Film at the ifs.
Sebastian Soukup studied architecture at the Berlin University of the Arts and started his professional career as an architect and set designer. Since 2000 he has been working successfully as a production designer and art director for major German and international feature film productions. He realized among others the production design of "Palermo Shooting" (director: Wim Wenders), "A Dangerous Method" (director: David Cronenberg), "Army of One" (director: Larry Charles), "My Zoe" (director: July Delpy), "Return to Montauk" (director: Volker Schlöndorff) and "Everything will Change" (director: Marten Persiel).
Currently, Sebastian Soukup is nominated for the German Film Award in the category "Best Production Design" for his production design work on "Der vermessene Mensch" (director: Lars Kraume) – as he was in 2020 for the production design of "Narziss und Goldmund" (director: Stefan Ruzowitzky). The film "Anselm – Das Rauschen der Zeit" (director: Wim Wenders), for which he also worked as a production designer, will celebrate its world premiere next week at the Cannes International Film Festival.
Often working in Cologne and NRW, several of the films Sebastian Soukup has worked on were made here, including recently "Vous n'aurez pas ma haine" ( director: Kilian Riedhoff), which MMC co-produced in Cologne-Ossendorf.
Sebastian Soukup also contributed his skills to music clips, including for Bela B., Rammstein and Die Toten Hosen. He has also made a name for himself in the field of fashion and advertising: Soukup was awarded, among others, Best Art Direction for Jil Sander Films ( director: Wim Wenders) at the Madrid Fashion Festival and the VDW Award Best Commercial for Telekom "Memorable Moments". His work also includes installations such as "Salon" for the Michael Fuchs Gallery or "Obsessed With Beauty" and "Fables" for the designer Georg Hornemann from Düsseldorf. Soukup has also worked as a set designer with Christoph Schlingensief and Herbert Fritsch, among others, at the Volksbühne Berlin and on productions at the Berliner Ensemble.
Soukup has extensive and longstanding teaching experience, including at the dffb Berlin, the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, the Filmuniversität Babelsberg as well as the Bauhaus Universität Weimar and the Kunsthochschule Weißensee Berlin.
"Stories need images, images are created through image spaces and spaces tell stories. But when and how does space become image and which stories do which spaces tell? Scenography, production design, is to create imaginary worlds. Realistic, nightmarish, fairytale-like image worlds. Scenography moves between art, architecture, history, ethnology and philosophy. Production designers are visionaries...", says Sebastian Soukup about his work as a production designer.
Nadja Radojevic, Managing Director of the ifs: "With the appointment of Sebastian Soukup as Professor of Production Design, we have been able to attract an extremely respected and versatile production designer to the ifs, who has extensive expertise in feature films as well as in advertising and set design. He also has extensive teaching experience with particularly innovative formats in set design and architecture. I am delighted that all of this will now benefit our students – and I extend a warm welcome to Sebastian Soukup at the ifs!"

Founded in 2000, the ifs Internationale Filmschule Köln is one of the leading educational and training institutions for audiovisual media in Germany. Its aim is to provide film and media professionals with high-quality, future-oriented training in a close interweaving of theory and practice. The fact that it is located in Cologne, a film and media center, is particularly characteristic of its claim to be close to the industry. The ifs is a subsidiary of the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW. The study programmes are offered in cooperation with the TH Köln, and the professors are appointed accordingly by the TH Köln.