LARA MARIA VOUK
I was born as part of the Slovene minority in Austria, settled close to the border. At the age of 5 I started to learn how to play the piano and took lessons for 10 years. Amongst others, singing, drawing and nature were my main interests during childhood.
After school, I moved from the village to Vienna to study fashion design at The Herbststrasse College for Fashion, Design and Textile. Besides studying, I was part of our minority's student organisation KSŠŠD, which is also part of YEN - the largest network of youth organisations of autochthonous, national and linguistic minorities in Europe.
I was the president of KSŠŠD from 2010 - 2012, gathering a lot of knowledge regarding teamwork, motivation, project and event production and transforming vision into action.
I finished my fashion design diploma in spring 2012 and was the first ever student to transgress between the medium of fashion design and the film medium by evolving my diploma collection into my first stop-motion film, titled COUNTDOWN.
In 2012 I moved to Ljubljana, Slovenia, to start my acting studies at the State Academy for theatre, radio, film and television (AGRFT). The human body became my main interest - movement of the body, expression through the body, body language and detailed manipulation of body, expression and inner thought.
Since our academy included drama acting as well as film, I quickly got the chance to gather my first experiences in front of the camera. For the diploma short films WHERE TO (2013) and SHOEMAKER (2017) I was awarded with the academy's student award Zlatolaska for
best lead actress.
During the second half of my study I attended camera classes at the academy and I got the opportunity to direct a few short films.
In theatres I have been working in SMG - Slovensko Mladinsko Gledališče / Mladinsko Theatre, APT - Anton Podbevšek Theatre in Novo Mesto, MiniTeater and Theatre Glej; furthermore I am active in the bilingual off-theatre scene in Austria (iKult, K&K center etc.), where I also direct my own plays and monodramas. In movies, I starred in 9 feature films, three TV- and web-series and more than 15 short films.
In 2016 I co-founded AVE NIM - multimedia and arts production, where I work as a producer for short films, video spots, off-theatre productions and guerilla feature films.
After finishing my acting studies diploma in 2017, I worked as an intern and production assistant at NOSOROGI film production for one year.
From 2014 - 2024 I was a member of the music collective INSAN.
In 2022 I started evolving my solo music project MARIA MALAMENTE.
After my diploma I attended a lot of classes and masterclasses, to further evolve in voice- and body work. To name a few of them:
solo singing, mentor: Zvezdana Novakovic
tribal dance: Manca Pavli
flamenco dance: Anja Mejac
Today I am working as an actress,
musician, director and producer.
For more information take a look at my work section or
write me a letter.
Have a good die.