I was 8-years-old when my parents bought a VHS camcorder – an event which ignited a spark for observing the world through a camera. What initially began as home videos, school event coverage and fiction films done with friends, has over the years turned into a profession. Yet my passion for capturing real-life events on camera and working with people I love remains.
For the past 18 years I have worked in storytelling and the audiovisual realm – as a radio presenter, an awarded scriptwriter for non-fiction, as journalist, author for travel and children’s books, blogger, news reporter and video journalist, story producer, interviewer, cinematographer and director for documentaries, documentary film critic and programmer for one of the biggest documentary film festivals in the Northern Europe.
I was 8-years-old when my parents bought a VHS camcorder
I have studied documentary film directing at the Aalto University of Art and Design (Finland), video journalism at the Rome Academy of Fine Arts (Italy) and attended courses at the Andrzej Wajda Masterschool of Film Directing with Marcel Łoziński (Poland). In addition, I hold a joint BA in Linguistics and Anthropology and a MA in Intercultural Communication and Religious Studies.
However, as life is not linear and due to an infinite curiosity for different ways of life, I’ve also worked for years as a sports massage therapist for professional athletes, as a communications consultant for companies, and as a volunteer for an NGO for people living with hiv. I’m also a trained divemaster, an ex-climber, a hospitality exchange devotee, and a sponsored long-distance cyclist. Apart from Finland, I partly grew up in Austria and the USA, and have lived and worked in Mozambique, Colombia, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Poland, Spain and Italy. I speak eight languages, of which seven fluently.