Ruben Schouw

Born in 1980 in The Netherlands, Ruben Schouw started to develop his love for movies when he accidentally saw Hellbound: Hellraiser II. Fascinated by Clive Barker's creature design he started to creatively produce Hellraiser inspired monsters. These experiences gave him the opportunity to work for the Dutch zombie-film Horizonica as a special make up effects assistant. Being able to walk around on set fed his love for movie-making. In the early 2000's he started studying film at the university of Utrecht. Which almost killed his passion, as this actually meant nothing more than reading books, books and more books. It took until 2008 when his first short film 'Te Laat' won the encouragement prize at the Delta Shorts Awards at the Film by the Sea festival in Vlissingen, when Ruben regained his passion for movies and especially making them. Since 'Te Laat' he'd been selected twice in a row for the same short film competition with 'Weer te Laat' and 'Lipstick'. The latter finishing third at the audience award. Having different assignments (like directing Bjorn van Iersel's 'Gruis') in the meantime, Ruben started studying at the Narafi film school in Brussels. Here he felt he was learning more and more about documentary making and less about directing fiction so he quit film school, to have more time to watch films he had to watch and write his next films. The efforts he made with this writing have been rewarded by winning a scriptwriting masterclass by Chiem van Houweninge. The screenplay developed at the masterclass was made into a 24 minute short movie, 'TRAUMA', shot, directed, produced and edited by Ruben himself. Financing has been realized by crowd-funding, subsidy from Provincie Zeeland and Ruben's own wallet. Inspired by one of his favorite directors Robert Rodriguez, he also sold his body to science being a guinea pig for a new medicine, which earned him some money. This film became Ruben's first theatrical release and had it's world premiere at the Film by the Sea festival in Vlissingen, The Netherlands. Next step will be Ruben's first full length feature film, 'Kidnapped' (working title).