Bio

Founder Paul Alexander Juutilainen is an award-winning filmmaker with experience in independently producing feature length documentaries for television. He has worked in various capacities as a producer, director, researcher, and editor working with a wide range of formats from DV and Beta SP to 16mm film and High Definition.

Born in Finland and raised in Denmark, Juutilainen completed studies in Modern Culture and the Visual Arts first in Denmark and later in the US on a Fulbright Scholarship. He received his B.A. from the University of Copenhagen and his M.F.A from UC, San Diego. He is also a Certified Apple Pro in Final Cut Pro, Compressor, and Color applications.

His first feature documentary, Herbert's Hippopotamus about the life in Southern California of philosopher and writer Herbert Marcuse, was broadcast and screened at festivals internationally winning an Emmy, Telly Award, a CINDY Gold, the Gold Plaque at the Chicago International Film Festival, the Best Prize at the Vermont International Film Festival, and 12 other awards. Furthermore, for Herbert’s Hippopotamus, Juutilainen was selected for the Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at the 1998 Cannes International Film Festival.

His work as a producer and editor has recently directed him towards the developments of HDTV and emerging Digital Media. As the editor on documentary programs for national broadcast, he has gained expertise in integrating the many digital SD/HD formats, creating non-linear editing configurations, and streamlining post production work-flow for documentary material and story structure.

The most renowned work by Juutilainen is looking into the human experiences of public and personal history, utopian visions, memory and landscape. In 2004 he was a finalist for a Rockerfeller Media Arts Fellowship and received a media artist residenceship in 1997 at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio to explore these relationships.

His documentaries have had solo screenings at the Film Forum in Los Angeles; Pacific Film Archives in Berkeley, California; the Anthology Film Archives and Lincoln Center in New York City; the Kiasma Museum for Contemporary Art in Helsinki, Finland; the Goethe Institute in Sau Paulo, Brazil; and the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto, Canada. His work has been reviewed in Cineaste, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Chicago Reader, San Diego Union Tribune, and the Independent Film and Video Monthly.

Juutilainen is also a visiting lecturer in film and video production at the University of California, San Diego. He teaches courses in documentary production, narrative media, and non-linear digital editing.