Michaël R. Roskam

Belgian film director Michaël R. Roksam struck gold with his very first feature film, the crime drama "Bullhead." Initially Roksam was an art student who studied painting at the St. Lucas Academy of Fine Art in Brussels. He then went on to do a Masters in script writing and development at Amsterdam's Binger Institute. After graduation he worked as a journalist, then wrote the script for a short film called "Haun" in 2002. This led to Roksam's directorial debut, another short called "Carlo," which he also wrote and appeared in as narrator in 2004, earning the audience award at the Leuven International Short Film Festival. The next year, his profile continued to rise when "Carlo" was included in the international omnibus "Selected Shorts #1" and he wrote and directed "The One Thing to Do." Roksam then went to Los Angeles in 2007 and made the short "Today is Friday," which is based on an Ernest Hemingway story. "Bullhead," which Roksam also wrote, is a dark story about a man addicted to injecting steroids, who bulks himself up as a defense against a childhood psychological trauma. In addition to the Oscar nomination, the film earned the director a First Wave Award at the Austin Fantastic Fest and a Belgian Magritte Award for his screenplay.