Meerfilm Productions

“You never get tired of watching the sea (=Meer) and with good movies it should be the same.” Matthias Santiago Staehle (Founder of Meerfilm, 2005)

1975 Matthias Santiago Staehle was born in Esslingen, south of Germany, to a german father and chilean mother, who raised him bilingual (spanisch). His first artistic interest was in music, playing guitar in various punk bands during and after graduating Highschool. After gaining some insight as a projectionist, he launched a Filmfestival about handicapped people in his hometown Esslingen, during his civil service.

2005, after graduating at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg (HfbK, diploma with distinction with Wim Wenders as main examiner) Matthias Santiago Staehle founded the platform and production company Meerfilm as a postgraduate and master student of Wim Wenders.

2007 the first feature Meerfilm production "Mikrofan" (80 min., screenplay & director Matthias Santiago Staehle) premiered at the international 41st Hofer Filmdays and was subsequently released nationwide (Dejavué film distributer). Since 2021 online in full length on the Meerfilm youtube channel.

Between 2004 and 2008 Matthias Santiago Staehle (concept/screenplay & director) realised over 10 music videos for bands like Wunder, Diva International and Exits to freeways. (See Meerfilm youtube)

2007 Matthias received the Dietze scholarship to realise a documentary film about the Chilean indigenous people - the Mapuche. The film (80 min.) is online on the Meerfilm youtube channel since 2018.

2008 Matthias received script funding from Filmförderung Hamburg (FFHSH) for a coming of age road movie to France, which had to be realised with an established production company due to the production effort. Unfortunately, the script, for which a novel version is slumbering in the cloud, has not been filmed till today.

Till 2013 in addition to presenting video works, drawings and photographs in various galleries (Hamburg, Berlin, Stuttgart), Matthias has worked on his "Love or" cycle. As part of this, "Love or Nothing" (15 min.) celebrated its world premiere during the 44th Hofer Filmdays 2010. The series began with "Amor o muerte" - "Love or Death" (30 min, 2008) and with "Love or Sex" (5 min, 2013) the cycle is completed as a trilogy for now. But further scripts and perhaps even more interesting prose texts for "Love or?" exit, so that a continuation beyond the medium film is currently most likely.

Since 2014 Matthias is working in daycare centres (Kindergarten) as an educator (state recognition as a social pedagogical assistant in 2016) and doing film workshops for young people.

2019 Matthias Santiago Staehle won the Pollyprize for political poetry and as allready for some time primarely writing literarily, poems and other texts have been published in various anthologies (including the biennial of political poetry and several book of Konkursbuch publishing).

2022 the poetry collection Meer, reif & verwegen - Mar, maduro y atrevido (sea, mature and daring) is published by Chili publishing house (bilingual, 150 pages, 12 euros). http://www.chili-verlag.de/

Now having published a book full of my own poetry, my past as filmmaker strikes back with the plan to create some poetry clips of poems from this volume and also future volumes, that Matthias is working on and will hopefully also be published in the next few years. Also planned are national and international readings, as this recent book with poems is in german and spanish and Matthias sometimes writes about being a someone affected with many languages in english and also mixes languages.

From 1999 until the beginning of 2022 Matthias Santiago Staehle lived in Hamburg (23 years) and is now back where he spent his first 23 years. But as he still after all this years in the north remained partly a Southerner (Southern German and as a German-Chilene also South American) he acclimatised well back again in the magic triangle: Stuttgart - Esslingen – Neuhausen with residence in Ostfildern.

Member of the Genscher Gallery (Hamburg, Marktstraße 138). Artist member of the art association Neuhausen auf den Fildern. More information including texts and poems at

santiagostaehle.de