I was born in 1998 in Berlin-Weißensee. My father kept 5,000 DVDs in a 90-square-meter apartment, and by 14 I had seen about ten percent of them. That was enough for me to consider myself sufficiently qualified. Short films and music videos followed, which, out of consideration for everyone involved, I won't link to.
In the summers of 2016 and 2017 I was an intern at One Two Films. During the dubbing sessions for The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki, the dubbing editor took me into her studio. I was allowed to watch, and at some point she said a sentence I've held onto ever since.
After that, it was decided. I studied Digital Film Production at SAE Institute Berlin, but my real film school was All Clowns Are Bastards, my first feature: a horror comedy about a man-eating killer clown who goes vegan. We financed it the way you finance films without funding. My cinematographer Tobias Pluskat sold his motorcycle to buy a camera, and the rest came from a crowdfunding campaign backed by StarFM. In 2023 the film won Best Trash Film at Fright Nights, and Soundwood Media took over distribution afterward. Then came my second feature, Die neue Härte, a mix of black comedy, thriller, and fantasy. I wrote the script and produced the film. It's currently in distribution.
I most like writing comedies, because to me they're the most honest way to something serious. I'm not locked into that, though. Thriller, drama, horror — all welcome, as long as someone in it wants something they don't get.
Take the leap and become a filmmaker. Everyone here is just making it up as they go, and plenty of them have been doing it so long the water's gone stale.
I never start with an idea, only with a character who's standing in their own way. Only after that does it get decided whether it becomes 90 minutes, six episodes, or four minutes.
I write production-minded. Line producers like my scripts because I need little to tell a lot: few locations, few characters, and no page that blows the budget without earning it. Two feature films with no funding and no broadcaster mostly taught me what a shoot day costs, and how many problems can be solved before they ever reach set. Usually on page 12.
And I like working as part of a team. Two feature films with no money only happen if a lot of good people choose to stay. Both times they stayed.
No material is too silly for a clean structure. Even the dumbest comedy has a point where it has to mean it, or it won't hold up for 90 minutes.
That's why I build scenes so they'd work even without the punchline. The joke is the cherry, not the cake — the structure still carries the scene on a day the gag doesn't land.
The only thing I'm qualified to write about is myself.
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