Katrin Seybold, born on July 14, 1943, in Bromberg (now Bydgoszcz), Poland, grew up in Stuttgart and studied art history in Tübingen from 1964. She gained her first practical film experience through the experimental film circle at Stuttgart University. In 1968, she dropped out of college and moved to Berlin, where she became politically active: she lived in the women's commune on Türkenstraße and participated in student protests, squatting actions, and the founding of an anti-authoritarian kindergarten. In 1970, she co-directed her first short documentary film, Die wilden Tiere – Rote Knastwoche (The Wild Animals – Red Prison Week), with Gerd Conradt, one of the 18 students expelled from the dffb, for Rechtshilfe München (Legal Aid Munich). The following year, she applied unsuccessfully to the dffb.