I was born and raised in the Netherlands near Amsterdam. Born to a Dutch-Italian family I started my creative career in dance and music at the Scapino Ballet Academy. I was drawn early on towards photography and from there came my infinite fascination for the moving image and film. In 2005 I graduated from the Netherlands Film Academy with a BA degree in film editing. I moved to Athens in 2006 and worked both as a co-editor for a Greek television drama series “Exo ena Mystiko” and three Greek feature films. The last film I worked on, as first assistant editor for Yannis Chalkiadakis , ”Knifer” received 7 Hellenic Academy awards including the one for “best editing”. Since moving to Copenhagen in summer 2009 I  have been working as a freelance Film editor on documentary, short fiction, tv drama series, music videos and art films. The first short film I edited in Denmark was “Liv” directed by Rasmus Kloster Bro. I was the lead editor on the first two seasons of the TV series “Klassen” and worked on the original Dutch concept from the development fase. Klassen became the most popular TV series for children in Denmark and  has won several European and Nordic prices for best TV-series. My most recent work is the feature Documentary “Uønsket” and The short Hybrid film “Roqaia”, who premiered at the Venice Film Festival and has won two awards for best short film. I have been president of  Dansk Filmklipperselskab since 2014, and became a founding board member of TEMPO_Federation of Film Editors Association since October 2019. I have an infinite passion and focus on the development and the future of the Art and Craft of Film editing, and am very active in both organising, and participating in inspirational and social events for editors, aspiring editors and editing students, and in this way play an active roll in creating awareness of the role of the editor in an ever shifting media landscape.

In Film I can make the world dance

~Maya Dern