Jannis Lenz, born in Filderstadt, collected his first camera and directing experiences by filming himself and his friends doing Parkour, a performing art in urban environment.
Currently he is a Master Student in Directing and works as a study assistant at the Filmakademie Wien with Michael Haneke and Wolfgang Murnberger. Jannis Lenz´s Films and Video - Installations are shown on numerous international Festivals, like Rotterdam International Film Festival, have been screened in museums and exhibitions, e.g. at the Teheran Museum for Contemporary Art, and have been awarded many times with prizes, e.g. at the 49th Montreal World Film Festival, 39th Clermont-Ferrand Int´l Short Film Festival or 2015 at the Diagonale- Festival of Austrian Film as Best short Fiction Film. In 2015 he attended the Max- Reinhardt Seminar as a guest- student for Theatre- Directing and was part of different Jurys at international festivals for film and literature.
In 2016 Lenz participated at the FIPA New Talent Campus in Biarritz, France and received the START Scholarship for cinematic art of the Bundeskanzleramt Austria. Currently he is developing his first feature Film. Since 2017, Jannis Lenz is an official member of the European Film Academy and his Bachelor- degree film WANNABE is nominated for the European Short Film Award 2017.