Lutz Papenfuß

Lutz grew up in West-Berlin during the cold war and was there when the Berlin wall came down. Lutz saw the excitement on both sides when he climbed it and stood on top of it in front of the Brandenburg Gate. It was a defining moment in his lifetime. After successfully finishing high school he liked to work with his hands and chose to study to be a car mechanic. After working as a mechanic, a couple of years later he decided to further his studies in technical computer science at the TFH and worked as student assistant in an FU-Berlin IT department. During his studies he accepted a position as System Administrator and decided to join the work field leaving his studies for a future date. He opened his own company and worked for several years as an independent IT Consultant and Trainer. Lutz earned several Microsoft certificates with the highest are Microsoft Certified System Administrator and Microsoft Certified Trainer during these years. He later worked for Microsoft as a Support Engineer working premier support at the EMEA headquarter in Munich Germany working mainly on complex PKI cases for world wide companies, military and governments. He met his wife on a vacation in Ireland, where she was originally from. She was teaching Music in Istanbul, Turkey and with him living in Germany this meant they had a long distance relationship for about a year. They maintained their relationship by flying to see each other every second weekend to Turkey. They both love to travel and they explored many neighbouring countries together. As their relationship grew they decided to go together to Shanghai, China where she worked as a Drama teacher, and Lutz worked as branch manager for an IT company. One of his highlights was when he was in charge of the back end IT for the German Pavilion for the World EXPO in 2009/2010. However Lutz found that working in IT was not fulfilling his creative drive, and sought out opportunities to explore more. Lutz and his wife married in 2011 in Ireland, and with her support he decided to change career and follow his old passion for photography and filmmaking. He worked on creating film projects for his wife's productions in Theatre at the Shanghai American School, sports events and other activities and memories for the School. In 2015 he signed up to be the 1st international student in the first class at the newly opened Shanghai Vancounver Film School. Lutz graduated with honors as the only international student from the Film Production program a year later. During the program he specialized in Post Production, Directing and completed all necessary coursework for Cinematography as well. His contribution as crew member in key roles for student film and school final projects was varied and of high quality. Three of the films he was involved in were screened at the school graduation ceremony including winning the rewards for best film and outstanding student work. Lutz continues to seek out film opportunities and is involved with several film festivals in Shanghai. Lutz won the award of Best Cinematographer at the Shanghai International Short Film Contest with The Voiceman (2016). He looks forward to exploring new ways to work with others in the film industry and in moving to Canada hopes to become more involved in the scene there.