Juliane‘s story

Born on February 12th 1975 in Preetz (located in the beautiful state of Schleswig-Holstein) as the daughter of a teacher, little Juliane Kristina Steinicke was soon exported to the Rhineland.

There, in Bonn to be exact, her mother Renate accepted a position to teach at a high school. Now living in the German capital, for the next 20 years Juliane had the opportunity to experience politics first hand. Unfortunately, at first she was not interested in it at all. She rather spent her free time with reading and even more with sports. You could either meet her in a gymnasium or a ballet studio.

In Rhythmic Gymnastics she even became state champion. Realizing that she probably couldn’t go any higher with that, she stopped competing and, with more success, became a trainer for the younger girls. At the age of 18 she received her trainer’s licence and for a while considered if this would be a field of work to pursue. The rest of her free time she spent, to the disadvantage of her grades, at the ballet studio where she took up classes in classical ballet, jazz dance, modern dance, character dance, singing and acting and even was to be seen on stage a couple of times.

Luckily she quickly gave up the dream of becoming a prima ballerina. After a mediocre high school diploma, Juliane was faced with the question: where do we go from here? Having watched many ballet shows on TV as any little dancer does, she had noticed that the camera operator did not seem to know what he was doing or what the dancers would be doing next. Being a dancer herself it was absolutely obvious to her. She thought: I can do that better. What do I have to do to become a camera operator? The first step was an internship and a subsequent job at the TV studio of “Deutsche Welle” in Bonn. Now, finally her interest in politics in her front yard was sparked.

However, getting a place at a film school did at first not work out. So she toured the world for two years with the exchange program, “Up With People”. She spent the first year as a regular participant and after that as a lighting technician. That was where she got to knowing and loving a certain Arne August Oelkers. After returning home in the summer of 2000, the long-awaited film school classes finally began. In February 2005 Juliane graduated, much to her own surprise, with honours.

Arne’s story