Our Team
Mika Johnson, Neal Dhand and Kat Clauhs Dhand (pictured with Petra at Wandering Cinema 2023) are friends who met in 2017 when Neal and Mika were teaching together at Prague Film School.
One day years ago we got to talking about what really makes us feel alive and inspired, what is something we could make happen? And we had this idea to hole up in the beautiful countryside somewhere with a group of like-minded folks and dive deep into collaborative creativity together. Our dream finally came true in the Summer of 2022 when we hosted the first Wandering Cinema Film Retreat in Italy.
Kat owns, with her sister, a successful boutique travel business and is an expert at planning logistics and she will make sure everyone is comfortable, well fed and having a great time!
About Neal and Mika
Mika and Neal are both well-respected and passionate university-level film educators, and resourceful, persistent, and ultimately successful and inspired independent filmmakers. They share a combined total of over 30 years experience teaching and living film, and while their interests and areas of expertise occasionally overlap they have built their careers in completely different ways and bring to the table very divergent interests and skill sets.
Mika Johnson
Mika Johnson is a writer, director, teacher, and multimedia artist from Ohio. His most recent projects include his debut feature Confessions of a Box Man (2020), The Republic of Dreams (2021), a traveling sonic installation, and The Infinite Library (2022), a traveling virtual reality installation.
Mika’s past projects include his web series The Amerikans (2013 - 2015) and VRwandlung (2018), a virtual reality adaption of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, which was featured in The Economist and traveled to over 50 cities, worldwide.
Mika has taught directing at Oberlin College, Prague Film School, and FAMU. In addition, he has taught workshops on immersive technologies around the world. He has lived in the Czech Republic and Germany since 2014.Mika was photographed in his true form at Wandering Cinema 2022 by Hannah Pitstick.
Neal Dhand
I'm a writer, director and professor from Philadelphia.
I make genre films that are socially aware and frequently revisionist. In 2021 I shot Dark My Light, a tropical sci-fi neo-noir 16mm feature, from a script that I wrote. The film is in post, with an expected mid-2023 release.
My short films have screened at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, Sidewalk Film Festival, Cinequest, Philadelphia Film Festival and many more.
When I was younger, before I ever thought of film, I wanted to be a poet. I was a terrible poet, but I still write all the time. My screenplays have placed in the Academy Nicholl Fellowship, Slamdance, Austin, Final Draft Big Break, and American Zoetrope.
I love teaching like I love filmmaking. I’m currently an Assistant Professor of Directing at Temple University. Prior to that I taught at Prague Film School. My main areas of focus are blocking techniques, working with actors, shot progression, and the intangible ideas of the director. I love film history and cinema studies, too, and I hold out hope that all of my students will become as obsessed with Happy as Lazzaro as I am.
In 2022 I launched Wandering Cinema with my wife Kat and filmmaker and friend Mika Johnson. Wandering Cinema is an annual film retreat designed for participants to absorb new ways of thinking of cinema in unique surroundings. The inaugural event took place in Italy, but it will be in a new location every year, in the spirit of the title.
Alongside my film work, I'm a father, runner, scotch enthusiast, music lover with no talent for music, and baseball fan. Whether doing some or none of these, I like to spend time with Kat, our daughter Petra, and our dog Ike.
Neal was photographed in his true form at Wandering Cinema 2022 by Hannah Pitstick.
