Discover Cinema

James has spent fifteen years writing about cinema for print and digital publications across Europe. His critical focus is on narrative architecture — how films establish and break their own structural rules. He founded AL Design Journal after growing frustrated with coverage that treated filmmaking as a celebrity business rather than a craft. He writes primarily on European art cinema, screenplay structure, and the economics of independent distribution.

Leni studied visual communication in Vienna before working for eight years in film production design on documentary and short-form projects. She brought that background to AL Design Journal to ensure the publication’s core argument — that the visual and structural design of a film deserves the same critical attention as its performances — stays grounded in how films are actually made. She oversees editorial direction and the journal’s relationships with independent filmmakers and festivals.

Jonas spent six years as a programmer at independent cinema venues in Germany and the Netherlands, selecting films and writing programme notes for general and specialist audiences. That experience shaped how he thinks about film criticism: not as verdict, but as context. At AL Design Journal he curates the editorial calendar, commissions long-form analysis, and maintains the archive of close-reading pieces on modern and classic cinema.

Lukas has a background in film studies and archival research, with particular interest in production history and the paper trail behind finished films — scripts, correspondence, production documents. He contributes research to the journal’s deeper analytical pieces and manages the Indie Support initiative, which tracks emerging independent productions and coordinates the journal’s presence at international film festivals.