Volker Schlecht was born in 1968 in Rademberg. He works as an illustrator and filmmaker in Berlin. He studied communication design at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle; later he taught Animation at HFF Konrad Wolf Potsdam-Babelsberg. He currently works as a professor of Sequential Illustration at the BTK University of Art and Design. In 2002, together with Alexandra Kardinar, he founded the collaborative project Drushba Pankow. Her films deal with political themes and pop culture with a focus on storytelling. A close look is taken at German history with the film Germany Wurst (2008), which deals with history from Charlemagne to German reunification. In 2012 he made the video clip Over You, directed, designed and animated by Drushba Pankow (Alexandra Kardinar and Volker Schlecht), with additional animation by Maxim Vassiliev. From 2014 is Kyrie Eleison / Transforming Gods, a look at the iconography and history of religion, art and architecture, accompanied by sacred music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In 2016 he made, together with Alexander Lahl, Kaputt / Broken – The Women’s Prison at Hoheneck, a documentary created through abstract, monochromatic animation, based on interviews with former female prisoners, which tells the devastating story of East German repression, political imprisonment and forced labor in Hoheneck Women’s Prison. Broken had its world premiere at the 66th Berlinale and won numerous awards, including the Special Jury Prize at Animafest Zagreb 2016 and Sundance Film Festival 2017, and the Grand Prix at the 23rd Stuttgart Film Festival. In 2017 it was nominated for an Oscar.