The eccentric Austrian filmmaker graduated from the film department of the University of Music and Performing Arts in 2002. His majors were production and directing. Four years later he released his first full-length feature film AINOA, the biggest independent movie produced in Austria to date. The film was shot over twelve weeks, split into five shooting blocks between 2000 and 2003. Marco acted as director, writer, producer, and editor. A young crew of 400 was working without any pay of the movie, motivated and energized by Marco’s passion, courage, and determination. Most of the shoot he had financed out of his own pocket, juggling between AINOA and first jobs as a TV commercial director. The film was completed in 2005. It was released in Austria in 2006 by Buena Vista International and distributed worldwide by Beta Film Munich. Marco then started his international career with a Silver Lion in Cannes 2003 for his TVC for “Medecins Sans Frontiers”. Eager to leave the small Austrian film market and go abroad, he set up a website and sent hundreds of emails to producer contacts he found on the net.
Madfilms Mumbai was the first company to respond with an actual job offer, which turned out to become the career booster Marco was hoping for. Within a year Marco became one of the most demanded directors on the Indian TVC market, shot the two biggest TV commercials ever produced in India at that point in time (Reliance “Big TV” and Pepsi “Game”) and soon shot all over Asia, including China, South-East Asia, Hongkong, and Japan. He worked on TV commercials with numerous celebrities, including top-tier Bollywood stars Akshay Kumar, Ranbir Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Kareena Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Abhishek Bacham and Mahesh Babu, and Chinese superstars Jay Chou (Now You See Me 2, The Green Lantern) and Wang Leehom (Blackhat). He also worked with soccer legend Neymar Jr. for the Chinese mobile phone brand OPPO.
Marco has lived in Shanghai and Beijing for four years, is fluent in Mandarin and has gained a lot of experience and skill during his intensive work in different countries, cultures, and languages. Since 2010 he is based in Tokyo.
In 2015 Marco released his short film THE SHAMAN, which had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York and became a great critical success. It traveled to numerous film festivals around the globe. The trailer went viral on Youtube and has over 6.3 million views.
Marco considers himself as a “professional dreamer”. His feature film work strongly influenced his TV commercial style, his portfolio includes global brands like Nokia, Pepsi, Chevrolet, BMW, Lexus, Toyota, Alibaba, HSBC, Tencent or Panasonic. Many of his works involve action and big-scale storytelling. Marco focuses on emotion and the narrative motivation of each of his visuals. He is possessed by his passion for developing characters and visualizing worlds.