A woman with short brown hair is holding a camera in front of her face filming the ocean.

Filmmaker & Crew

Director, Producer, Editor: Karina Ulrike Sturm

Black and white photo of Karina, a woman with 7 mm shaved hair and huge round earrings. — Director Karina Sturm

Long Bio:

Karina grew up in Germany but currently lives in San Francisco, CA. After finishing school, she has worked in the medical field for eight years. As a laboratory technician, she worked in a German research facility with a focus on biotechnology. In 2010, she developed symptoms related to Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and comorbid conditions and was unable to continue her research. She soon found her passion for writing and started to combine her medical knowledge with her personal experiences with disability and chronic illness and produced articles about medicine, science, and disability. 2018, Karina was accepted into a journalism program in Edinburgh, Scotland and has been studying ever since. As part of her degree, she has worked with blind journalist Belo Cipriani and produced three accessible short films called ”Firsts” that feature writers with different disabilities. Additionally, she writes for an Austrian magazine for medical professionals with a focus on the patient’s perspective, and she has also written for international publications such as the Columbia Journalism Review. Besides journalism, Karina has a strong passion for all activities that involve being on or in the ocean. She loves traveling, dogs, facts, and Heavy Metal music, and hates lies, intolerance, and cooking. Karina’s film We Are Visible is a non-profit project supporting EDS organizations and entirely self-funded, as well as part of her MA thesis. Moreover, she considers this to be the most important project of her life.

Short Bio:

Karina is a German native who currently lives in San Francisco. She was a research associate in the past but had to give up her job due to Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and comorbid conditions. Today, she studies journalism in Scotland, and this film is part of her MA thesis. Additionally, she is a freelance journalist with a focus on medicine, science, and disability. When she is not writing, Karina loves to be close to the ocean or explores the nature around her.

Karina’s journalistic profile: https://www.karina-sturm.com

German Blog: www.holy-shit-i-am-sick.de

Second camera: Frank Christian Marx

Frank-Christian Marx, a man with short black hair and a full beard has his arms around Karina, a woman with short, brown hair and a flower in her hair. Their heads are leaning against each other and they both smile slightly. — Frank Christian Marx and Karina Sturm

German-born and raised, Marx began his career in theatre in Stuttgart, Germany. After an eight-year stint in many theatre productions, he graduated to being a writer/producer and moved to Berlin to stage theatre productions and act in movies and TV.

In 2010 he founded the production company Ente Kross Film and co-produced the feature film Die Tochter (2017), which was shown at the International Filmfestival in Berlin. But what changed his life was co-writing and co-producing the romantic comedy Men to Kiss (2012), which won awards and remains in worldwide distribution, but, most importantly, was screened at a film festival in San Francisco. Several years later, he produced the German short film award-winning Das Phallometer (2014), which brought him back to San Francisco to present the film at the Frameline Film festival.

He relocated to San Francisco in 2017. He can be seen in the documentary Gay Chorus Deep South (2019), which will have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film festival in 2019. Besides being an actor and producer, he is also a tour guide of his city.

Composer: Markus-Frederik Bohn

Markus Bohn, a man with short, thick, blonde hair has his hat turned slightly and smiles. He wears a warm, cozy, black winter jacket — Markus-Frederik Bohn – Composer ‘We Are Visible’

Markus-Frederik Bohn started playing the piano when he was 10 years old. He has always had a strong passion for film music with his favorite being the soundtrack of ‘Once upon a time in America.’ Markus loves the composer Ennio Morricone. ‘We Are Visible’ was his first large project for which Markus recorded and composed all music.

Descriptive Audio Talent: Caitlin Hernandez

Caitlin, who has long brown hair bound to a ponytail is leaning over to Karina's shoulder, who has short, brown hair and a red flower in her hair. — Caitlin and Karina working on the descriptive audio

Caitlin was a full-time choir kid with side hustles in voice, drama, musical theatre, public speaking, and piano, when she could be bothered to practice. While at UC Santa Cruz, she dabbled in songwriting and sang in, arranged music for, and assistant-directed Acquire A Cappella, an entirely student-run singing group. These days, Caitlin spends her time teaching special education and writing young-adult novels, but she also sings in a female barbershop group, very occasionally writes or arranges songs, and daydreams about one
day recording an audiobook.