Emma Branderhorst is an Amsterdam-based commercial and film director whose intimate, character-driven work turns social issues into personal slice-of-life narratives. A Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht graduate, she broke through on the festival circuit with Under the Skin (Berlinale Generation), Spotless/Vlekkeloos—Crystal Bear winner at Berlinale, Japan Prize recipient, and Dutch Oscar-qualifying short on period poverty—and Ma mère et moi (Berlinale). That research-heavy approach carried into advertising. Her commercial breakthrough was KPN/Dentsu’s Piece of Me (also A Piece of Me), a roughly three-minute film she wrote and directed on image-based sexual abuse; it took a Grand Prix and multiple Silver Lions at Cannes Lions 2024 and was credited with real-world impact, including helping change a Dutch law. She reunited with KPN in 2025 for Everyone Except, a short on teenage online exclusion weaving social-media phone footage into drama, again shaping the screenplay and casting first-time young actors. Other brand work includes a McDonald’s NL/TBWA spot built around a real deaf teenage lead and a UK Home Office campaign via The Corner Shop. Craft signatures include long takes for documentary effect, sober grey-ish desaturated palettes with grain, and improvisation with non-professional young performers. She is repped by The Corner Shop (US/UK), Divine (France), and AKKURAT (Germany, exclusive), with NL production ties to Dark Alley Pictures.