Artist, researcher and film programmer based in Berlin. In her artistic work, Schäfer has dealt with themes of representation of gender, urbanity and (post)colonialism. She has made repeated visits to Kabul, Istanbul and Teheran since 2002, being involved in different collaborative projects with filmmakers, activists and theoreticians. Together with the Berlin based filmmaker Elfe Brandenburger and in cooperation with actresses, filmmakers and activists from Kabul she made the film Passing the Rainbow. It is a film about actresses and strategies to undermine the rigid gender norms in Afghan society. She is co-curator of the film festival “Kabul/Teheran 1979ff: Filmlandschaften, Städte unter Stress und Migration” (Kabul/Tehran 1979ff: Film Landscapes, Cities under Stress and Migration) and co-editor of a book with the same title, published in 2006 by b_books, Berlin. In 2007/08 she co-curated the film festival SPLICE IN that took place in Kassel, Berlin, Hamburg and Kabul. In 2009 her book stagings. Kabul, Film & Production of Representation got published in the series metroZones/media at b_books, Berlin.