Maria von Heland

Maria von Heland was born in Stockholm in 1965. After graduating from high school, she first turned to journalism, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Rider College in Lawrenceville, New Jersey in 1987. In the same year, the artist went to New York to take acting lessons. From 1990 to 1995, she studied film at the California Institute of the Arts and at the School of Film and Video in Los Angeles, concluding her studies with a Master of Fine Arts degree. In 1992, during her studies in California, she attended the „Konrad Wolf Academy of Film and Television in Potsdam-Babelsberg as an exchange student.

Maria von Heland attracted attention with her short films, "Die Stärkere" (1994), "Chainsmoker" (1997) and "Real Men Eat Meat," for which she received such international awards as the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Short Film Award (1997), the Multicurta Award, Sao Paulo (1998), the International Canal+ Award (1998), and the Grand Prix du Court Métrage, Valenciennes (1999).

In 1999, she directed the television feature „Recycled for WDR. One year later, she was nominated for the Shooting Star New Directors Award, Baden-Baden. Her first theatrical feature, the awardwinning teenage drama Big Girls Don‚t Cry, was released by German Columbia Pictures in 2002.

TrustNordisk