Portrait Mathias Hovgaard

Mathias Hovgaard

Mathias Hovgaard has been working in the film industry for a long time, and he’s only 36! Discovering early that he had a talent for directing, he was approached to do his first international project, only just turning twenty-tree.

He started off his career as a set runner, quickly turning his skills to 1st assistant director and then becoming a director in his own right. Whilst finishing a Master in Film and Media, Mathias’ online film for Lada “Jump” received millions of views online. His early work earned him a place on Creativity’s ‘Director to Watch’ and was shortlisted for the YDA’s in Cannes and Saatchi & Saatchi’s New Director showcase.

Lately Mathias’ work for the global “Breathe Happy” campaign for Febreze/Ambi Pur has paid off with a 2012 Gold EACA Euro EFFI. The last couple of years also brought him a “Best Campaign of the year” and “Best online film” shortlist and wins at the True award and Creative Circle for his insightful work. Lately his new Ford spot has been recognized in Hoizont.de and viewed more then 2 million times in just a couple of months.

Mathias is part of a young generation of digital filmmakers who sees new platforms and quickly adapts to the situation, inventing all possibilities to make something really visually exciting. He also pushes the classical commercial storytelling in a new direction, blending strong stories with a reality to give the message more of an authentic feel.

“I creatively approach every commercial differently”, says Mathias, “I always try to invent a new visual style to fit each individual spot.”

All Mathias’ work displays a strong sense of simplicity and innovation, blending visual tricks and trends with comedy and dialogue to ingenious ends. Mathias’ work has an intelligent and fresh approach to the commercial industry that demonstrates the keen eye for storytelling.

At the moment, Mathias continues exploring new possibilities in commercial storytelling. Based in Copenhagen, he travels the world to shooting for international clients such as Ford, Vodafone, Febreze, Doritos, T-Mobile etc.

As a child he always dreamed about working as an astronaut, exploring new worlds and flying spaceships. We say we think he’ll be going stellar.