From Film Room to Thomas Stellmach Room – Memories of a Remarkable School Space
It’s a great honour to have the former film room at Ludwigsgymnasium named after me.
Since May 30, 2014, a multi-purpose seminar room at my former school, Ludwigsgymnasium Straubing, has borne my name: the Thomas Stellmach Room.
Back when I was a student, this space was simply known as the film room – a place with many different uses. It was where I attended one of my favorite elective subjects, film studies, taught by Josef Guggeis, who encouraged my interest in animation and storytelling.
One vivid memory is from when I showed my award-winning Super 8 short films there. Entire school classes were invited to watch, followed by discussions on the content, techniques, and style. These sessions were likely my first experiences presenting artistic work and talking about it with an audience – a forerunner to the animation workshops I lead today.
However, not all memories are fond ones: the room also served as a space for school exams, which left their mark in a different way.
The renaming of the room was initiated by Markus Eberl, an art teacher at the school. The former film room was modernized into a 60 m² multi-purpose classroom, now used for seminars, projects, and cultural school events. My name remains a visible and lasting part of this setting – a space filled with memories of creative beginnings.
I graduated from Ludwigsgymnasium Straubing in 1986. During my school years, I gained attention as a painter, theatre actor, and filmmaker. A major turning point came when headmaster Hartwig Kaunzer granted me ten days off to attend the World Festival of Amateur Film in Argentina – a key milestone in my early animation career. Read the newspaper article about this journey.
In 2021, I returned to the school to conduct an animation workshop in the Thomas Stellmach Room, working with an enrichment group of high-performing students. The workshop was accompanied by film screenings of my animated works for school classes, and concluded with a public presentation of the student results – fittingly held at the Citydom cinema in Straubing.
Read the full workshop report:
Cut-Out Animation Workshop at Ludwigsgymnasium Straubing
Signing of the name plaque.
Posted with kind permission of the Straubinger Tagblatt