Marco Johann Kreuzpaintner is a BAFTA-winning German film director, screenwriter, showrunner and executive producer. He is widely known for his coming-out coming-of-age feature film Summer Storm, the critical acclaimed Netflix series Bodies, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts winning series The Lazarus Project and his Amazon Prime series Beat which won him Germany’s prestigious Grimme Preis and. His fantasy film Krabat (film) starring Daniel Brühl and David Kross and the screen adaptation of the Ferdinand von Schirach novel The Collini Case starring Elyas M’Barek, Alexandra Maria Lara and film legend Franco Nero were box office hits in their original territory Germany. Kreuzpaintner’s U.S. feature film Trade (film), starring Academy Award winner Kevin Kline, is a story about human trafficking. It was the first film to premiere at the United Nations on Invitation of former U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon. The film played a key to finally passing a law against sex trafficking role in the state of New York.

Summer Storm is a 2004 German coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by Marco Kreuzpaintner, starring Robert Stadlober, Kostja Ullmann, Alicja Bachleda-Curuś, and Miriam Morgenstern. The story is set to the background of a rowing regatta, which climaxes into a summer storm.