By Jessica & Julie, the two awesome filmmakers from King is a Fink:

While pitted against one another during June’s War of Films on the Film Annex, we met the fascinating Juliane Block, a German-born filmmaker making films in Malaysia. Not only was her short, Ramly at War Begins a well-crafted, well-choreographed martial arts film, she was engaging and playful. We immediately wanted to know more about her, so we asked her for an interview.

(1) We understand that you started your film career in Germany as a special fx make-up artist. Can you give us some additional background information on where you grew up and how you developed an interest in film?

I grew up in a village near Celle, a small town between Hamburg and Hannover in Northern Germany. My mom sold make-up in evening parties to the neighborhood women, and I was allowed to play with the leftovers (eyeshadows and lipsticks in colors nobody wanted). I remember that I was playing with a girlfriend of mine – while she was trying to beautify herself, I just applied the make-up all over my face, trying to look as scary as possible. That pretty much set the path.

I continued to explore more options of SFX make-up by myself, mail-ordering the necessary tools and won local costume events with aging or zombie make-up. It never occurred to me though to pursue a professional career as make-up artist.

When I entered art university majoring in industrial design, I bumped into a fellow student who was doing a no budget zombie movie at that time (Mutation). It was a home-made zombie movie, shot without a script on Hi8, Super 8, DV. I joined the weekend crew as their make-up artist and have been hooked on film productions ever since.

(2) On your blog you claim that you moved to Malaysia to pursue your interest in Asian Cinema, can you discuss your interest in Asian film and how that led to you getting involved in making martial arts films?

Want to read the rest of the interview? Check it out on their blog here :)

Or watch their work here: