Roman’s earliest memories of film are of his dad burning priceless family moments on celluloid with a Super 8 camera. He is still dazzled by the memory of the crude light his dad used to film, the smell and heat of its filament that could barbecue a steak.
Playing around with a Super 8 wasn’t enough though for young Swiss Roman so he combined it with performing dangerous stunts on ground, air, water and snow. As he got older and realised he would get shaky legs even from climbing a bonsai tree, Roman gave up the dream to become the worlds most famous stuntman. The passion for filmmaking, however, remained and Roman produced his first short film in collaboration with the Swiss National Television at the age of 12. It was followed by other small film projects both behind and in front of the camera.
Love, a continued interest in barbecuing steak, and the passion for filmmaking brought Roman to Australia where he completed his bachelor degree in film studies at JMC Academy in Melbourne.
Since arriving, he has directed a number of short films including the award winning ‘selfish’ and ‘Scratch’, music clips and documentaries. His short films ‘Senseless’ and 'Last Tune' were shortlisted for Tropfest in 2013 and 2014 and 'Senseless' won 4 awards at the Setting Sun Short Film Festival 2014 for Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Short Film, Best Film Western Suburbs. At the same festival in 2016 his short ‘Sweet Dreams’ won three awards Best Comedy, Best Short Metropolitan and Best Overall Metropolitan Film.
The last two projects Roman did were documentaries. One was for the 10th anniversary of the Deutsche Schule (German School) in Melbourne called ‘Zehn’ and his most recent one is called ‘Finding Happy’ were he went high up into the Swiss Mountains to meet an alpine farmer to find out what happiness means to her. The film won best Documentary at the 2019 Setting Sun Short Film Festival.