I am a versatile communications and media professional with more than 14 years of experience in international media production, documentary storytelling, journalism, digital communication and project coordination.
As founder and managing director of Open Window Media, I lead client communications, negotiations, stakeholder coordination, and the orchestration of camera operators, production teams and partners. My work emphasizes environmental communication, biodiversity, climate change and ecosystem storytelling, and I translate complex political and scientific issues into accessible formats for broad audiences.
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Lapland is home to the last indigenous people of Europe: the Sami. This icy region of Northern Europe stretches across four countries—Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia—and has been inhabited by the Sami for over 10,000 years. Reindeer have always been their livelihood. However, due to significant economic changes and influences in the region, the reindeer’s habitat has been shrinking in recent years. Climate change is pushing the adaptability of both the reindeer and their herders to its absolute limit. To quantify the changes taking place, the Sami are now collaborating with scientists, hoping to save their reindeer and, with them, the identity of a millennia-old culture.
This TV report focuses on a special, last refuge for our closest relatives, the chimpanzees. Our genetic makeup differs from that of a chimpanzee by only 1.3%. In Uganda, on Lake Victoria, the approximately 100-hectare island serves as a sanctuary for around 50 chimpanzees. Almost all of them were confiscated by customs during illegal smuggling attempts. The animals were often destined for the Western market or Russia as pets or for use in research laboratories. A captured chimpanzee baby usually means the death of an entire chimpanzee family, who ended up as “bush meat” on dinner plates. On Ngamba Island, these orphans have found a new home and can live in a community with medical care, protection, and as natural a habitat as possible. The island was established as a sanctuary 25 years ago by the Jane Goodall Institute and is one of the major showcase projects for successful and sustainable species conservation. The island also contributes to raising public awareness. Few people know how important chimpanzees are to the Ugandan ecosystem. No new chimpanzee infants have been captured by authorities for over 10 years. This is a good sign for the wild chimpanzees in the rest of Uganda’s rainforest.
In their documentary, filmmakers Manuel Hammelsbeck and Ulrike Hallas present a very special island, far removed from civilization. Wrangel Island lies in the Russian Arctic, right on the International Date Line. Its secret lies in its history. During the last Ice Age, Wrangel was never fully glaciated, which has made it the ultimate refuge for all Arctic animals and plants to this day. Only rangers and a few visitors with special permits are allowed to enter this northernmost UNESCO World Heritage Site. Besides countless insects and flowers found only on Wrangel, around 400 female polar bears give birth to their cubs on the island every year.
The documentary shows how wonderfully and uniquely animals and plants survive in this surreal habitat. In addition to polar bears, whales, musk oxen, and walruses, even small ground squirrels and butterflies have found ways to survive the harshest winters on our planet, with temperatures as low as minus 45°C. The film makes clear how unique and fragile this ecosystem is and what dramatic effects climate change is having on the island, its inhabitants, the Arctic, and thus on the entire biosphere. This ecosystem is seriously threatened.
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