Biography
Jan Ole Gerster is a German film director and screenwriter. Born in 1978 in Hagen, he moved to Berlin in 2000, interned at X Filme and worked as assistant to Wolfgang Becker on Good Bye, Lenin! (2003). He studied directing and screenwriting at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB), completing several short films during his studies.
His debut feature A Coffee in Berlin (2012), also known as Oh Boy, was his DFFB graduation film. It won six Deutscher Filmpreis awards, including for best film, director and screenplay. His second feature Lara (2019) received awards at Karlovy Vary and other festivals. Islands (2025), his third feature and first in English, premiered at the Berlinale.
