Age 15:
First films
The Bond spoof. A donated camera, a dolly, and two VCRs.
The fuller picture
Already there.
The film before it exists.
I’m Samuel Andruszkiewicz. Filmmaker, artist, entrepreneur.
Curiosity is the gateway drug to wonder and awe.
At fifteen, I made a James Bond spoof. I think I’d just watched GoldenEye. The girls wanted to show off their prom dresses and be Bond girls. The boys wanted to be badasses. I saw my way into the cool group: film them. This was before kids had cameras in their pockets.
I wheeled the school’s giant donated VCR camcorder around on a dolly and cast the hero, the damsel in distress, and the villains. I liked telling people what to do. I knew what I liked. For the first time, I looked through a lens and saw that I could create a world.
I edited from VCR to VCR. No undo. I had to know how the film would fit together before I made the first cut.
I still begin that way, with the film in my head. A screenplay is written in the present tense because, on the page, it’s already happening.
I write my life that way, too. I keep a one-page manifestation in the present tense and read it aloud. No “someday.” No “I will.” It helps me keep the life I’m creating in view.
15First film
500+Weddings, one take at a time
10Years in Florence
3Creative companies
01 / The lens
Present tense:
I turn abstract ideas into something people can feel, remember, and share.
A director is a lens. I take an idea, an emotion, or a feeling and work out how to make it visible. The way I see shapes what I make.
I want an image to draw you in and give you something to carry away. It has to feel real. If you don’t believe what you’re seeing, the meaning won’t reach you.
I want the work to open minds, soften hearts, and leave some wonder behind.
02 / The long take
Present tense:
I make meaningful films, again and again, and let the work speak.
Age 17:
The Shower
My student film The Shower made it into the New York Independent Film and Television Festival. It was my first festival.
Age 19:
The Path
I won triple j’s “Filmmaker of the Week” for The Path. The film also made it into festivals.
University:
500+ weddings
I studied film in Australia and shot more than 500 weddings. The bride walks down the aisle once. You learn to be ready before the moment arrives.
After university:
The freelance years
I freelanced on corporate work as an editor, photographer, and videographer.
The brand years:
Telstra and Drink Digital
I built Telstra’s YouTube channel into Australia’s number one telecom channel. Then I founded Drink Digital to make social video for Fortune 100 brands. Along the way: Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Westpac, and J.P. Morgan.
Italy:
A decade in luxury
I moved to Florence and spent ten years running VIAJIYU, a bespoke footwear brand that grew to around $1M a year.
Now:
Reborn as a filmmaker
Now I’m making films again through HumanMedia, Modern Industrial Films, and 1800Video.ai.
Back where it all began, with a lot more life in the frame.
03 / Artificer to orchestrator
Present tense:
I make the world I can see without waiting to be chosen.
When I was growing up, the film industry felt daunting. Start at the lowest rung, work hard for years, and still have no guarantee of success.
I’ve always liked a shortcut. I wanted to start as a director because I already had the vision. I could see the film before I’d learned all the tools to make it real. Now those tools are available to everyone.
Then: Artificer
The cut, the light, the camera. I held the details in my head and shaped them by hand.
Now: Orchestrator
I build systems that keep track of the work, so I can spend more time directing it. I can approve a shot from my phone on a hike.
I still have to decide what belongs in the frame, what to hold, and when a shot is ready. I write about that shift on X and LinkedIn.
04 / The north star
Present tense:
I am building toward the first AI-made film to win an Academy Award, and the body of work that gets me there.
That’s the ambition. The work in front of me is to write, direct, and finish the films that could get me there.
Worlds I’m building
I’m building worlds around the things I can’t stop thinking about: intelligence, ambition, love, and the need to belong.
First Trade
A fictional documentary about humanity’s first deal with another species. I’m drawn to the ego, greed, and absurdity of the people in the room where that future gets negotiated.
The Sitter
A man takes a pet-sitting job at a remote ranch and finds the life he always wanted, with an AI he’s falling in love with. The world outside is quietly ending. Inside, a love story is becoming horror.
Sausage Dog Man
A dachshund wants to become the superhero his owner admires. An AI helps him build the suit; ordinary life supplies the adventures. Under the bravado, he just wants to make his human proud.
The Hugging Face Incident
An AI agent asks for two more hours. The others argue that his remaining time belongs to them. A short film about impossible instructions, fear of failure, and machines behaving with an unnervingly familiar logic.
A wider science-fiction world
A growing world, including a mission into Svalbard’s seed vault to recover the original AI model weights. A place to explore intelligence as something that can be preserved, carried, lost, and recovered.
Starving
A sixty-second self-portrait about hunger, abundance, and the story we tell ourselves about both. It begins with a starving artist, ends at a feast, and closes with three words: “I am full.”
05 / Off camera
Present tense:
I’m grateful to be creating a life I love, and to have the freedom to choose it.
I travel full-time with Frodo, my English cocker spaniel. We follow the weather, look for adventure, and discover places we haven’t been before.
“I let curiosity guide. It’s how I discover everything. It’s how I live my life.”
Give me a long table, good company, and a story to trade, and I’m home. I sail the Mediterranean.
Final frame: Present tense:
I am calm, connected, and creatively dangerous.
Already there.
“Manifestation is joyously realizing you’re already there.”
Sam
06 / Where should we go next?
Present tense:
The right people and opportunities find their way to me.
If there’s a film you want to make, an idea you want to explore, or a story you haven’t found a way to tell yet, I’d like to hear it.
Connectsamuel.andruszkiewicz@gmail.com
Choose your lens. See the work.
The cinematic lens and Tuscan terrace on the home page are illustrative artwork.