Biography

As a (very) young man Michael R. Roskam was passionate about graphic novels, comic-strips and cinema. Inspired by the great Belgian tradition of comic-strip artists like Hergé, he decided to become a comic-strip artist himself and went to St-Lucas Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. There he discovered painting and contemporary art. He graduated but also got involved into writing fiction - meanwhile keeping his passion for the image alive by drawing and experimenting with video. After several jobs as a journalist (@ De Morgen, newspaper) and a copywriter (@ Saatchi&Saatchi, advertising), he wrote a script for a short film. By directing this himself he returned to the roots of his creative urge: cinema. The result was his first short movie: "HAUN". He finally found out what he'd always been looking for: movement. Since then he worked as a moviemaker. "CARLO" (prod. CCCP), his second short, won several prizes at national and international festivals and was shown on different tv-channels and movie theatres in Europe. His third short "THE ONE THING TO DO" (prod. CCCP) premiered in December 2005 at the Leuven International Shortfilm Festival were the film won the Audience Award. In November 2007 he went to L.A. to shoot TODAY IS FRIDAY (prod. SAVAGE FILM/M. ROSKAM), a short film based on an Ernest Hemingway story.