Prof. Karim Sebastian Elias

Professor for “Composition and Arrangement for Media”

1Room R 4203Tel: +49 331 6202 382Send an E-Mail

K. S. Elias (Karim Sebastian Elias) studied from 1992 to 1998 at the Folkwang University of the Arts. As a film composer he composed and produced the score for over 100 movies, television films and documentaries and over 400 television episodes. Including the music for the award-winning feature film “Rhythm is it!”, which was awarded for the GERMAN and BAVARIAN FILM AWARDS. He recorded the score with the Karajan Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker. His film score for the TV movie “The Treasure Island”and “Bella Block – White Nights” was awarded with the GERMAN TELEVISION AWARD in the category “Best Music”.

His music for the feature “Of Fathers and Sons”, which received the World Documentary Grand Jury Price at Sundance Festival 2018, was well received at the film launch in the „Hollywood Reporter“.
 
The TV broadcaster SWR and the film funding agency MFG awarded him with the “Rolf Hans Müller Prize for film score”. He was nominated in the category KOMPOSITION AUDIOVISUELLE MEDIEN for the German Music Authors Award of GEMA. His music for the feature “In Heaven Underground”, which received the PANORAMA AWARD at the 61st Berlinale, was well received at the film launch in New York with the “Huffington Post”, the “The Jewish Week NY” and the “Movie Journal International”.
 
K. S. Elias composes for the successful German television series “Tatort”, “Polizeiruf” and “Schimanski”. He received a “Golden CD” for more than 150,000 sold records for the composition and production of the CD “Behind Bars” with songs and film score of the series.
 
He composed the score for the TV movie “Die Spielerin” and “Die Fahnderin” as well as for “Nothing more like before”, which was awarded with the Audience Award of the “German Television Crime Festival” and for which he was nominated for the GERMAN TV AWARD 2016.
 
At the cinema festival in Lünen, he was awarded with the prize for the best film score for his compositions of the cinema documentary film “Gerdas Schweigen”. His score for the feature “Siegfried” produced by Bernd Eichinger, was preselected for the GERMAN FILM AWARD.
 
The feature film “The Butterfly Hunter”, for which he wrote the score, was shown at the “Viennale” and at the “Duisburg Film Week”. Since 2016 he is composing the music for the successful Sat.1 series “Einstein”. The feature film “Zwischen Welten”, for which he composed the score, in 2014 ran in the competition for the Golden Bear at the 64th Berlinale.

In 2016, the two-parter “Die Dasslers” received the Bernd Burgemeister Television Award at the Filmfest in Munich with his film score. For the movie “Rabbi Wolff” he received the prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Achtung Berlin Filmfestival. K. S. Elias composed the film music for the TV series “The Puppeteers” by Rainer Kaufmann, which ran in 2017 at the Munich Film Festival. The feature film documentary “Of Fathers and Sons” ran in 2017 at the IDFA in Amsterdam (IDFA Competition for Feature Length Documentary) and is selected for the  Sundance – World Cinema Documentary Competition in 2018.
 
For Otto Waalkes he wrote the Big Band – & Orchestra Score to “Otto`s Eleven”. For Otto Waalkes he also composed and arranged two family concerts in the Berlin Philharmonie with orchestra and Otto as narrator. For the Nikolaisaal in Potsdam he composed a new version of the “Weihnachtsgans Auguste” for orchestra and narrator.
 
For the recordings of his music he worked among others with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the BSOF, Giora Feidmann and Till Brönner.
 
Elias was a member of the jury for the German Music Authors’ Prize of the GEMA in 2013 and 2014 and in the pre-selection jury for the GERMAN FILM AWARD in 2012.
 
In the handbook ‘Functional Music’ of the Springer Professional he published the article “Film Music Today –From the Everyday Work of a Contemporary Film Composer” in 2017. In the book ‘Filmmusik-Bekenntnisse’by Béatrice Otterbau and Thomas Schadt he gave insights into his work as a film composer.
 
In co-operation with the Deutsche Filmakademie, its ‘Wissensportal vierundazwanzig’ and the Filmuniversität Babelsberg, he initiated a filmed masterclass in 2017, for which he interviewed the nominees of the Deutscher Filmpreis in the category “Best Music” and analyzed their compositions in terms of their impact.In 2018 he was invited as a speaker at the "Soundtrack Cologne". 
In 2013, K.S. Elias was appointed Professor for “Composition and Arrangement for Media”in the master film music program at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf.
 
Since 2017 he is a member of the board of the German Film Academy.By being shortlisted for the European Film Award of „Of Fathers and Sons“, a born member of the European Film Academysince 2018.