A Portrait of actor & European Shooting Star 2025 Devrim Lingnau

A great honour, an unexpected opportunity, a new platform – for young European actors, being recognised as a Shooting Star at the Berlinale can mean many things. But the award also means even more to Devrim Lingnau, who was selected as a German candidate by European Film Promotion in 2025. It symbolises the start of a new chapter in her career.

For two seasons, the Mannheim native played the title role in the highly successful Netflix series THE EMPRESS, which also won an International Emmy. Around six months of filming each season – such a complex production demands considerable lengths of time, especially for actors who are still at the beginning of their careers. But Devrim Lingnau wouldn’t dream of complaining. Not only did the role of Elisabeth earn her fans all over the world; as she says in our interview, first and foremost, it was “a terrific springboard. THE EMPRESS has given me a whole new level of visibility, changing my professional life within a very short space of time. More and more people are now approaching me with offers, and for the first time in my career I can choose my projects.”

One of the first of those projects will be enjoying its world premiere at the Berlinale. Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay’s Panorama-scheduled feature HYSTERIA stars Devrim Lingnau as intern Elif, who is drawn into a maelstrom of secrets and accusations when a Koran is burnt during a film shoot. The issues discussed relating to Muslim life in Germany provided one reason for the actor to accept the role, but collaboration with the director was even more important to her. “I didn’t get to know Mehmet until the casting, but working with him was a total revelation. He immediately accepted me into his Cologne film community,” enthuses Devrim Lingnau, daugh­ter of a Turkish father and a German mother.

“It was the first time that I had played a role of Turkish origin in a cinema film, and the interchange with other filmmakers of Turkish origin and a large Muslim community on set was in­credibly important for me.”

Devrim Lingnau has already had experience in opening new chapters. After devoting herself primarily to ballet in her school days, she soon discovered acting. “Acting was the first time I found that I could have an artistic impact,” she recalls. “It allowed me to really have a say in the content, and think differently and more than in dance.” She appeared in German television productions and, after graduating from high school, played a leading role in the queer vampire costume film CARMILLA by British director Emily Harris.

Subsequently, rather than attending drama school or concentrating fully on working in front of the camera, Devrim Lingnau took a com­pletely different path. She began studying art at the State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe, where she learnt from performance artist Ulla von Brandenburg, among others. “I had a feeling that I wanted to develop my own artistic position,” she says, summarising her motivation. However, she also emphasises that she never lost sight of acting: “The art academy trained me in my own aesthetics and therefore in how to view texts, to judge films, and ultimately to develop my own acting approach.” She graduated in 2024 – after a lot of balancing between her studies and and filming.

“I’m looking forward to some lively exchange with filmmakers who have similar political and artistic concerns to me. And to getting an impression of what is happening in European cinema right now,” says Devrim Lingnau when asked what she hopes to gain from the European Shooting Star programme during the Berlinale.

It is already a foregone conclusion that 2025 will be an excellent year for her. In addition to HYSTERIA, she has completed shooting for LADY NAZCA, playing mathematician Maria Reiche in front of Damien Dorsaz’s camera in Peru. Next on the programme is a collaboration with German Film Award winner Ayşe Polat, and two exhibitions of her artistic work (mainly video art) are planned as well. So, there is no doubt that the next chapter of Devrim Lingnau’s career is destined to be extremely full.

Patrick Heidmann