The fly on the wall

Before becoming a filmmaker, Vanessa Schlesier was an investigative reporter for the German Newspaper Die WELT, where she focused on Syria and the movement of Syrian refugees to Europe.  Vanessa holds a master’s degree in Political Science from Munich University (LMU). She also studied at Sciences Po Aix, Institut d’etudes politiques d’Aix-en-Provence and Venice International University (VIU). 

As director, camerawoman and writer, Vanessa has worked all over the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Myanmar and Thailand as well as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She has investigated human and art trafficking from Syria to Europe, covered the destruction of Taifun Haiyan in the Philippines as well as the Gaza wars in 2012 and 2014. 

Her approach as a filmmaker is the fly on the wall, believing in the power of direct cinema, where nothing is staged and the filmmaker in the middle without interfering.