Thomas Freundlich

Thomas Freundlich (b. 1975) is among the front rank of Finland's dance filmmakers. He began his artistic career in music and lighting design, but at age 20 was inspired to become a contemporary dance choreographer. He has created more than 40 choreographic works and has received over 40 grants from arts councils, foundations and festivals in Finland and internationally. Thomas Freundlich's work ranges from dance short films and documentaries to music videos and projection design for stage works. From 2012 to 2014, he was the co-artistic director of Finland's Loikka dance film festival. Mr. Freundlich's recent work includes the short film Cold Storage (2016) (Cold Storage), which has, to date, received 40 awards and close to 300 festival selections. For the last three years (2017-2019), Cold Storage has been the most widely screened Finnish short film at festivals worldwide. Mr. Freundlich's recent films as cinematographer and director include the feature-length dance documentaries Fram (2019) (Fram), shot in the polar wilderness of Svalbard, as well as Rooted with Wings (2018) (Rooted with Wings) about internationally renowned choreographer Tero Saarinen.