“I do everything I can to find an aspect of a project that touches my heart,” says Berlin-based director and filmmaker Eugen Merher, whose charming spots with ad agencies like Jung von Matt/Spree have gripped the hearts of his audience as well. Film fascinated Merher growing up, and he and a childhood friend often made short action films with a camera. “We tried to imitate the action movies we both saw and loved,” he recalls. “Then, one night, my friend showed me the film Léon, The Professional, and that movie blew my mind. It tapped into my love for amazing action scenes, but for the first time, I saw an action movie with an honest, beautiful soul.” After completing a bachelor’s degree in communications at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany, and starting a master’s program in the same field, he realized that his true passion was still filmmaking: “I applied to study directing for commercials at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, one of Germany’s top five state-funded film schools,” he says. “This is where my ‘official’ educational journey for filmmaking began, and ever since, I’ve been fighting my way into the film and commercial industry.” To Merher, emotional storytelling in filmmaking takes precedence; he notes that he gets most excited for projects that feel immersive and tell the stories of underdogs fighting to overcome obstacles. “I want to create work where you can truly forget about everything happening around you and just be absorbed into the world of the story,” he says, “work that feels more like an emotional, visceral experience rather than an intellectual exchange of ideas.”