After her pre-film-life as a sign writer, a Flight Attendant and a Graphic Designer, a TV-Editor for Endemol Germany and a freelance-editor and director for the Swiss Television, Rebecca Panian did her Bachelor of Arts in journalism and her Master’s in directing fiction at the ZHdK in Switzerland. Her first feature length documentary ZU ENDE LEBEN – DYING TO LIVE – won the Audience Award at the Zurich Film Festival 2014 and had its theatrical release in Switzerland in April 2015. Aside to the film the Wörterseh Verlag has published the book ZU ENDE DENKEN.
Since 2016 she is an activist for UBI (unconditional basic income).
In 2018 Rebecca Panian started the project „Dorf testet Zukunft“ / „Village tests Future“. She wanted to test the basic income idea in a Swiss village. Among other projects she is currently working on the documentary IMAGINE, a film that questions our reality and inspires to imagine a new one. The journey with the village will be part of IMAGINE.
In January 2023 she finished the short documentary FOLGEN LOS, produced by the German company NFP.
Furthermore, she is developing:
LOTTERY (aka 12 ANGRY WOMEN), a sarcastic-dystopian chamber play about the question: “If you had to solve the problem of overpopulation, what would you do?”
SWING IT, an intimate tragicomic chamber play about a frustrated wife who secretly visits a swinger club for the first time and – meets her husband. What follows is “Honey, we have to talk” at its most extreme.
And MELODY, a fantasy-coming-of-age-story about a girl who possesses the power of a healing voice but is too afraid to use it.