Hannu Salonen

Hannu Salonen was born in Pori, Finnland in 1972. As he was 16, he founded an association in order to produce his amateur short films. After he’d spent a year in the US at the end of the golden 80’s and graduated from the Kallio High School for performing arts in Helsinki he got accepted to the Berlin Film Academy. Already in his youth Salonen spent much time learning chinese martial arts and spent even some time in China. 1997 he won in Belgium in the open European Championships gold in the disciplin „Nan Dao“ (Southern Saber) and bronze in „Nan Quan“ (Southern Fist). With his prize winning short film „Moments in Monochrome“ he smoothed the way to his first feature „Downhill City“ that won amongst others the prize for the Best Europen First Feature in Angers, France.

Since then Salonen has made over a dozen feature films, majority of them being „Tatort“-movies belonging to the famous feature film series being shown on every sunday in prime time on the german broadcasting station ARD, regularly receiving an audience between 6 – 10 millions. With the Chechen Drama „VASHA“ Salonen managed to make his second cinema feature, this time in english language.

Salonen is a proud father of two daughters. He resides at Lake Constance, Germany.