I was born in Munich, Germany and have worked in the film industry all my adult life. I studied film at the Free University of Berlin, graduating with an MA.

Moving to London, I worked for twelve years on documentaries to be broadcast by the BBC, first as an editor and then as a cinematographer. As an editor I was rarely convinced by the material I was given to work with. Not only did it lack the variety of angles needed to tell the story, the clips never seemed to aspire to creating emotion. Before I knew what was happening I was given a camera and have never looked back.

Although the editing room was where I really developed my understanding of film, cinematography and story telling, it was only when I was behind a camera that the feast of visual poetry that cinematography can be became real for me. The eloquence of a well chosen frame is compelling both as narrative and for emotional directness.

In a very real way the journey from the editing room to cinamatography and from cinematography to writing were both very short and perfectly natural. My writing is like verbal cinematography, highly visual, active, rhythmic and even, on good days, poetic.

I have been influenced particularly by the work of two cinematographers, Ellen Kuras and Anthony Dod Mantle.

The highlights of my work so far include the official selection of my films at over a dozen international film festivals and the winning of both the writing and cinematography competitions at the Berlinale Talent Campus.

For the last sixteen years I have worked on award-winning feature films, BBC documentaries, MTV music videos and a host of independent projects, videos and short films.

I have been an invited lecturer at the British Film Academy and the Northern Film School and I am a frequent contributor to Europe's leading screenwriting journal 'Scriptwriter'. (Go see some of my pieces in the Publications section).

Together with Bart Gavigan I founded and ran the successful script clinic service that has been attended by some of the world's leading A list writers, producers and directors. (See more about these clinics under the 'About Martina' section).

I now live in LA, working with Boy of the Year Inc, headed by writer/producer Leslie Dixon (Mrs Doubtfire, Thomas Crown Affair, Pay it Forward, Hairspray, Freaky Friday, The Heartbreak Kid, Look who's Talking Now)

I am a member of the Writer's Guild of America