Meet the Makers is an ongoing interview series highlighting current Columbia University School of the Arts Film Program students and faculty. I sat down with Markus Wulf, a second-year MFA film student, a few weeks ago to find out more about what brought him to the program.
Markus Wolf didn’t always want to be a filmmaker. As a kid he dreamed of building fountains. Eventually though, Markus had to grow up and do something sensible. So he started making movies.
Markus grew up in Oldenburg, Germany. He was a happy child despite the fact that both his parents are psychotherapists. From an early age he had a camera in his hand. He made small movies with a digital home camera and it wasn’t long before he got involved in theatre, too.
Markus worked at a theater as part of a year of social service. It was there that he had the opportunity to direct his own project. In 2007, he directed a staging of Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell. Markus decided to stay at the theater for another two years, before attending film school in Cologne, Germany.
His theatre background shines through in his work. Markus’s films, such as A Fairytale with A Completely Imagined Ending, demonstrate a precise attention to detail - it’s filled with whimsical props and staging that reveal how his extraordinary craftsmanship serves a whip-smart deadpan humor. His film was nominated for the German National Short Film Award in 2014 and won the Friese-Award at the 8th Mo & Friese Children's Short Film Festival in Hamburg.
Markus was drawn to Columbia’s film program because he wanted international experience. He’s working on his next projects, which include a story about a New Yorker traveling to Berlin. Through film, Markus plans to explore people and the ideologies they deal with.