Oliver Valente

Film Production

Oliver was born in Kenya and grew up in Tanzania. Of Italian and Scottish heritage, he considers himself third-generation East African and is proud of that identity. He is currently based in Berlin, which he considers his new home, while continuing to work internationally.

He began working with Catalyst in 2017 and is now a cinematography and directing tutor. In this role, he supports students in developing their projects and concepts, with a strong focus on visual storytelling and practical execution.

His professional background spans commercial work, live broadcast, documentary and narrative film. Alongside independent projects, he has directed and shot large-scale international productions, experience that continues to inform both his creative practice and his teaching.

Oliver was drawn to Catalyst for its emphasis on practice-led learning and its openness to diverse creative approaches. The school’s focus on process, experimentation and critical reflection aligns closely with how he works. Teaching also keeps him engaged with evolving industry practices and technology, and feels like a way of giving back to those who supported him earlier in his career.

His core areas of expertise include directing, cinematography, visual narrative and production workflows. He is particularly interested in how creative intention is shaped, and often strengthened, by practical and technical constraints. At the centre of his teaching is helping students develop clarity and vocabulary in their ideas, visual language and decision-making, with a strong emphasis on preparation, intention, communication and responsibility on set.

For Oliver, artistic practice and research are grounded in both watching and making. Inspiration leads to creativity, creativity to experimentation and experimentation to skill. He is a committed lover of genre films, B-movies and cinema as unapologetic entertainment, and believes strongly in instinct: if you feel it in your veins, then it’s right. He finds the greatest satisfaction in seeing students apply the skills repeated in class to solve real-world problems.