Alessandro Soetje

Alessandro Soetje is an Italian director, producer and director of photography. Graduated in Philosophy, he is based in Milan and is a member of the Italian Directors' Association (Air3) and of the Italian National Order of Journalists. As a documentary filmmaker, he uses his expertise also in the world of advertising, shooting branded contents and commercials with a realistic, yet poetical style. His career began in the early 1990s, as cinematographer and photographer, when he stood out by winning a national competition with an artistic nude of a woman. In 1998 with the documentary "Bambini d'Africa" (Africa seen by Africans), he received the Silver Lily at the Valdarno Film Festival and the FEDIC award at the Montecatini Film Festival. Subsequently, he collaborated on the Tv documentary series "Viaggio nella scuola" (A Journey into School), by Sergio Zavoli. In recent years he has directed many documentaries, including "Old Wild Lorenz", awarded for Best Director at the San Giò Video Festival in Verona, and 5 documentaries made for the Tv Show "Geo", broadcast on Rai Tre. Between 2016 and 2017 he created a large part of the international Aware Migrants campaign, awarded at the 30th International Grand Prix for Advertising Strategies and shortlisted at the CLIO Awards in New York. Another advertising campaign recently completed is the one for the Tuscany Region: "Tuscany, Never Ending Renaissance". His documentary "Our Stone" was selected in competition at the 2018 Montreal Film Festival, at the Trento Film Festival and obtained the special Diari di Cineclub prize at the 2019 Valdarno Cinema Festival. "Tomorrow and the Butterfly" was nominated for Best Feature Fashion Film, Best Direction and Best Cinematography at the 2019 Cinèmoi Fashion Film Awards in Los Angeles "The Power of Beauty", won the 2020 French Riviera Film Festival as Best Documentary. For the French-German broadcaster ARTE he created "Matera, Mother of Stone", also broadcast on SWR, and the documentary "The Valtellina and its Mountains", also broadcast on ZDF and on Geo - Rai Tre, winner of the Enit Award at the 2022 Frankfurt Book Fair. His latest works are the documentary "Captain Carnival", official selection at L'HIFF 2024 in Barcelona, and the short film "When the Rain Falls in Baden-Baden", best short film in 2024 at the ScorpiusFest in Park City, Utah and in competition at the Golden Nuggets Film Festival in London and at the French Duck Film Festival in Paris.