Anastasija Harrowna Bräuniger (German/Russian) is a director, writer and actor whose work explores how (re)connection becomes possible — in moments of conflict, rupture and transition. She lives and works between Rome and Berlin.

She is currently developing the short film We Don’t Tell Mama and a participatory theatre installation based on the Sisyphos myth.

Between 2022 and 2025, illness, grief and caregiving fundamentally reshaped her understanding of the body, mortality and human connection — and became the generative core of her current work. She is training as a BBTRS practitioner — a somatic breathwork practice that increasingly informs her artistic process.

In 2024, she was invited to the International Forum of Theatertreffen Berlin. In 2022/2023, she received the Elsa-Neumann-Scholarship and a Fellowship from the International Theatre Institute (ITI Academy), in the context of which she created the participatory installation VOYAGER at Museum der Künste / Theater der Welt Festival in Frankfurt am Main.

Her previous documentary theatre work engaged with urgent social and political contexts. In 2021, she presented her diploma project Heterotopie Moria (HfS Ernst Busch), examining human rights violations at the EU’s external borders and interrogating EU asylum policies. In 2020, she won the Emerging Directors Competition at Theater Erlangen for PROTEST4, developed with activists from Hong Kong, Chile and Lebanon.

As a trained conflict mediator, she is particularly interested in projects that extend beyond the theatre and engage directly with communities. She has worked at the intersection of art and community — including two short films made in collaboration with children affected by forced displacement in Iraqi Kurdistan and Lebanon.

Anastasija studied acting at Hochschule für Musik und Theater Rostock and worked at Theater Heilbronn while developing her own artistic projects. In 2016, she pursued a directing degree at Hochschule für Schauspielkunst Ernst Busch Berlin and founded FLUGWERK e.V., a workshop stage for process-oriented artistic work and open rehearsals.

She has received awards for her work as an actor on stage and in TV/film — including the Proskenion Nachwuchsförderpreis für Darstellende Künste and Best Supporting Actress at Die Seriale — and for her work as a director.