We were lucky to catch up with Maia Buljeta-Fuchs recently and have shared our conversation below.

Maia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

My sister and I were homeschooled K-12 in the style of worldschooling by my incredible artist mom, who raised us and turned the world into our classroom. I went many different places, made lots of wonderful friends, and had so many different teachers. I started my film production company Hypothius Picturehouse in 2011, posting on YouTube and creating films for myself and others that had to do with the human condition. Ages 13-17 I attended film school at the incredible Jacob Burns Film Center and then worked as a film educator, taking over 90 different courses and workshops. Then I worked on lots of different movie sets. By the age of 18 I had an extremely good resume.

I had a wonderful childhood. However, there was the ongoing pressure of other family members trying to erase me from the family tree. I grew up wondering why I wasn’t invited certain places for the holidays, why I was excluded from weddings, and what my aunts and cousins were having for dinner that night. The phone stayed silent from certain people it should never have been silent from, and that made me sad. It was this terrible feeling that it was my fault, that something was wrong with me. That I wasn’t enough.

Oftentimes in my teen years, I had so many words I felt like saying but I had no idea how to say them. So I found myself sometimes feeling very distant from my friends. The loneliness got worse, until in 2016 I couldn’t take it anymore. That’s when I decided to make my zero-budget feature film, His.

His is about a boy in high school who thinks much more than he says. His life is being controlled by a person who really wants to be his friend. He goes chasing after justice, but has all of these people blaming him for things he didn’t do. Having experienced that with certain family members, it gave me a space to share the experience with other people. People connected to the film’s messages. They heard what I was doing and suddenly started offering to help me with it. Offering locations, gear, their skills. It was a miracle.

As a teenager, I also watched the lifechanging film Planetary by one of my person heroes Guy Reid and learned about the overview effect and the orbital perspective. The overview effect is something that happens to astronauts when they view the earth from space and realize that earth is one organism. After watching that film, I never looked at life the same again. I realized that I needed to tell whoever I knew about this perspective.

2018: Everything was going perfectly. I was getting high grades in college, my feature film was about to go into post production, I had just attended two film festival red carpets for a movie I co-directed, and I loved the people in my life.

But then, after a major family betrayal in 2018, my life was turned upside down. I faced one of the greatest injustices a person could. I felt like it was done, it was a time of such unnecessary loss. I was swallowed up by fear whole. I felt like a ghost fading in the crowd. There was this silence, a silence that would keep returning every now and then for the next six years. I had been meditating daily for a while by then (now on year 8 of 30 minutes per day), which allowed me to slip into the state of observation. What also helped me do more observation than judging was my sister and mom’s incredible, fierce encouragement. So there I was, observing people going by, living life, despite being in this jail cell inside myself.

During my period of silent observation, where I fell into many lives unfamiliar to me, I closely observed how people from all walks of life lived – people who had every object they could ever need and yet still are not happy. People who had plenty and were happy with what they had. People who didn’t have enough to eat and were laughing with joy. People who had nothing and were sad about it. People who were going to the best colleges. People who were jealous. I got to observe a lot of human behavior.

But observing those going through injustice, I felt sad. I felt angry. I even felt paralyzed. These feelings haunted me for years. Again, I wondered what was wrong with me. Then I started viewing these feelings like messages. I waited, and listened to what they had to say. I learned that they said a lot. As I stopped denying my feelings as faulty, and defining them the way much of society told me to define them, and started listening to what they said, miraculously, the feelings disappeared and were replaced with joy.

The feelings told me to pour everything I’ve learned into this business, because I know I have so much to give. I’m going wild. I’m giving it everything that I’ve got. Because if so many sad, unexpected things are possible, why aren’t beautiful, big, incredible, surprising things possible, too?

So, 2019, I apply to the Rhode Island School of Design. I get in. I have a wonderful time, but then get made fun of by a couple of professors, one of which who tell me that I’ll never reach my dream. 2020, the pandemic comes, I work on His a little bit more and I realize how precious life truly is. 2021, I work on His again, and, while completely terrified on the state of the pandemic and the state of my life in light of that, I delve into volunteering, and take tons of online filmmaking workshops and teach myself sound design on Ableton Pro. 2022, I coordinate a beautiful mural to be painted for a human trafficking survivor center, and I get a virtual international production team through Mandy to work on helping finish up with His. Then I was invited to be a panelist speaker for UNICEF USA’s Earth Day event, which I couldn’t believe. Then I helped design a racetrack for FIA Formula E. Then I help with the programming process as a screener for several film festivals. Then I worked with the Refugee Dream Center. And then I won a $10,000 award from Wunderman Thompson for my filmmaking. I wouldn’t stop. I wouldn’t give up.

And after all of this is when I truly discovered Hypothius Picturehouse, a company based on the astronaut’s overview effect.

Hypothius Picturehouse is a catalyst for transformative change. We bring stories to life on the silver screen and extend their impact beyond cinema by innovatively tackling real-world challenges. We fuse entertainment with purpose. Hypothius Picturehouse is where creativity meets compassion, empowering socially conscious innovators to reimagine the world through the lens of possibility. From eco-friendly housing solutions and self-sufficient gardening packages to groundbreaking customer-to-jobs AI apps, we fuse entertainment with purpose. It is a cinematic journey that transcends screens, building communities and sustainable futures one picture at a time.

On the journey to creating a company, you get to hear a lot of doubters, which is why I’m tired of trying to convince people of my plans. I started realizing that other people’s comments and beliefs about what I can and can’t do started getting to my head, so I started looking for ways to become louder. I started posting on my LinkedIn, quite literally, the message as my profile picture, “I’m tired of trying to convince people of my plans”. I decided to right now be as vocal about my plans as possible instead of try to hide them and become smaller for other people. I’ve been making promises for right now to try to not hide any part of myself. I noticed that speaking my passion is a beautiful way to become bulletproof to other peoples’ comments.

You find a challenge, deal with the challenge, and move on, stronger than before.

With my untraditional film production company, we will take the topics in the fiction feature films we create, and turn them into real-world solutions.

Where am I on the journey? Right now? His is ready for release, I am working on creating 25 episodes for the first season of my podcast Wonder documenting my process as an entrepreneur and lessons on how to find hope in hopeless places. I have made 25 short films.

For a while, I was living in a neighborhood where nearly nobody knew each other or cared to know each other. Few people who offer help to each other during the pandemic, and nobody would wave to you as they passed. It scared me. I couldn’t help but start wondering about how many other places are like this in America, and in the world. And I was sad about the amount of inclusivity in the film industry, so I am currently working on an international film education program that creates community and gives people the opportunity to heal through documentary film products, and am currently looking to collect peoples’ interest on the donation interest form.

I am creating 70 filmmaking tutorials for YouTube, and recently finished a one-hour complete tutorial on Photoshop, completely free of charge. I am working on my 15 feature film screenplays to have in my portfolio, and recently finished writing a feature film that is a psychological thriller.

I felt sad and angry seeing that some people can’t afford food, so I will create food garden packages that people can grow food with. I hope to partner with the Gates Foundation with this.

I was heartbroken to see how the wages of so many jobs don’t even cover the cost of living, and how so many people are unemployed, so we will create a customers-to-business ai app that will cut the guesswork out of by using a similar system to the dating-matching algorithm of those dating apps (like swiping) except using ai and having it be much smarter.

Many people can’t afford filament for their 3D printers, so we will create a 3D printer that uses plastic bottles as the material.

I just coded and created my first app, PhotoSort (which will eventually be named AutoSort when its able to sort out pdfs too), that sorts you photographs using AI. Its working beautifully. The beta version is nearly ready to distribute. I found I had a lot of acquired wisdom that I used to help me get through past challenges, so I am writing three books, including one on filmmaking. I am starting a film festival called The New York AI Film Festival. I am running my newsletter through Beehiiv, which gives me another platform to help people get access to free resources.

I noticed there was a lack of free resources around learning Adobe Creative Cloud thoroughly, so I am creating a free 120 page book on Creative Cloud. I am co-directing a short documentary with the organization Design x Health about how art and science can be combined to create innovations in the medical industry. I am going to use untraditional advertising techniques to launch everything and receive funding and backing, and to get people to join the community. I will not tell people they have to fill out their emails and join my email list in order to access free content. I will create cheat sheets on how to get out of financially-compromised situations. It will be human-centered advertising.

I started an ecommerce business with my wonderful mom and incredible sister which we are launching through Shopify, which sells products that promote a zen lifestyle of peace, creative bravery, authenticity, and self-acceptance.

And I wouldn’t be the filmmaker I am today without my incredible, inspiring and kind mother, who has always been there for me and who I love very much. She taught me all about how to be a filmmaker, how to stand up for what I believe in, how to have hope, and how to not give up.

As I go through life, as I grow, my faith is growing bigger and bigger, and it’s about not believing when other people say the story’s done, the hope is gone and the fun is over.

Because when the movie’s over, it’s up to you to sit through the credits.

Maia, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a filmmaker and CEO who is gluten intolerant, tries, and doesn’t give up.

As a child, I wanted to have every career under the sun. Then one day, when I was 11, I wandered into the adult section of the library for the first time and by fate picked out, “Filmmaking For Dummies” by one of my filmmaking heroes Bryan Michael Stoller. I started reading the book, and one day as I was driving past another library, something clicked. I realized that filmmaking combined all of my interests: writing, storytelling, cartooning, singing, comedy, going to outer space (green screen), and more. More than anything, I realized that it can help create a positive change in people. So I delved into the industry right away. As I got older, I found that film could say how I felt much more effectively than my words could, because I could communicate through music, images, real people doing real things. It felt like I was able to create real life.

Hypothius Picturehouse loves to do movie and project collaborations with organizations and people who are looking to make a positive change in the world. Our movies that we make are for everybody, from every walk of life. Anyone who calls themselves human, looking to investigate their own humanity. Looking to find new ways to love. Looking to bust myths and shatter illusions. Looking for a global community. We create movies that inspire, entertain, and ignite. We aren’t quiet about things that are important. And we’re bored of having to listen to the algorithm – this is kind of what really sets us apart from a lot of other companies. We’re bored with the idea that we have to limit what we provide to our community based on what the data says.

I am most proud of all the beauty that has come out of this company, seeing humans collaborate and make positive change from a place of honest love. And I’m really proud that Hypothius Picturehouse doesn’t promote the “us against them” mentality, and instead focuses on ways to combine the efforts of a collective group of people to create an even great positive impact than if people were to do it alone. Hypothius Picturehouse encourages the self-expression in other people, and for them to be their authentic selves. We foster a nonjudgemental environment where a person can explore, navigate and flourish.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Hypothius Picturehouse is a startup that is currently at the pre-seed stage and is looking for investors. In our movies and projects, we amplify important voices, amplify the voices of refugees, low-income families, warzones, people with disabilities, and many others who we find aren’t represented in much of Hollywood. People who advertisers often leave out of the advertisements and Hollywood leaves out of the films. We create representation.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

One lesson that I had to unlearn was that popular blanket claims on the internet that define health and success are always true. I believed they were for a long time, and I was silencing my own needs because of it. I see this happening to a lot of my own friends too, and I do whatever I can to help them out of it.

There are a lot of claims on places like LinkedIn and Instagram saying that something’s true, no matter what the situation. That there’s no grey area.

There are a lot of beliefs floating around that define what success is, and that if you don’t do that, then something’s wrong with you. There’s no room for other circumstances. So, if you don’t wake up at 5am? You’re less successful. You do your work at night instead of the mornings? You’re failing. You didn’t follow your schedule and you followed an instinct instead? You’re undisciplined. If you do something to make yourself happy right now and you haven’t already “made it”, it’s instant gratification. You do research on something, and you realize it’s a good idea to work on it longer? Oh, no, you’re procrastinating. You call a company on the phone instead of emailing them? You’re being aggressive. You say “I don’t know” instead of making one of your guesses a fact? You’re confused.

And you see these definitions repeated many, many different places. And when you see the same definition many different places, it starts appearing like a fact. As well-meaning as they are, I find many of these black-and-white definitions of success to be very dangerous.

I found myself in constant battle between my needs and external expectations. I was waking up at 5am and drinking smoothies, and then got angry at myself when I found I didn’t have enough time to work out. I would make elaborate schedules, which at the end of the day I wouldn’t completely follow, and I would then feel like I failed. If I felt like going outside, I would tell myself I couldn’t do it until I finished all my work. And when I was working, I found myself working at things that I wasn’t even interested in.

I also learned a new definition of “burnout”. I realized that just like burnout can come from doing too much, it can also come from doing too little, depending on the person and their needs. Burnout can come from limiting yourself to just two projects when deep down you want to do 25 and start a business. This is not fragmentation, this is real, and again, this all comes down to the individual. What was missing for me is realizing that I was a unique human with a unique voice inside of me, asking for very unique things because that was my personality.

I started learning that humans (like myself) have specific needs that, in certain ways, don’t have to fit any societal standard at all. I have found that in certain ways, this society does not allow humans the space to change, which leads to great unhappiness, as I believe that one of the fundamental qualities in human beings is change. We are constantly learning and growing, and when we don’t allow ourselves to change I believe that we often can stunt our own growth. If we are unwilling to listen to the things that will give us joy in that moment, we start depending on external things that will give it to us, things that are already pre-approved by society saying, “okay, there is no shaming in being happy once you’ve attained this.” And then we attach so much more meaning to our big goals, because we are depending on them to give us permission to finally become happy. We attach our happiness to the goal, instead of allowing ourselves to do the thing that would make us happy, right now. And then this breeds the feeling of deep disappointment, losing our one chance to be happy. So I think that a lot of it is actually about giving ourselves permission to improvise.

Another way I have helped myself get out of the black-and-white thinking is by, whenever I discover something new, writing down, “what I think I may know so far”, “I think”, “I think so far”, “potentially”, “many of”, “some of”, “in certain situations”, “with certain groups” and “concept”. And when I share something with the world about a new lesson I learned, I use the previously mentioned ways of saying it. It’s a terrific communication technique, and it helps prevent an “us against them” mentality, and also offers flexibility in the situations it applies to, as well as offering readers room to grow. What this does in my mind is that it allows me not to make facts out of the potential guesses/hints from a lesson which very well may not be the whole lesson. So that when you learn more and get more pieces, you can adjust the lesson accordingly. It again all comes back down to observation. Life is an intricate thing.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hypothiuspicturehouse/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hypothiuspicturehouse
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maia-buljeta-fuchs-833b42131/
• Twitter: https://x.com/hypothiusfilms
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@HypothiusPicturehouse/featured
• Other: Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wonder/id1729943141 Newsletter: https://bit.ly/HypothiusNews Email address: [email protected]

Image Credits

Photographers: Maia Buljeta, Studio 94 Video and Cinematography.

Photo 1 is a still from the movie His, showing Michael C. Williams (The Blair Witch Project) giving a mesmerizing, authentic, and unforgettable performance as bullying father Douglas, photo 2 is the His poster – seen is Keir Alexander who gives a surprising, incredible and exciting performance as the Thief, and on the right is Andrew Cohen, who gives an extraordinary, moving and flawless performance as the main character Michael. Photo 3 is a still from His showing the ultra-realistic performance of John Ferraro playing the thought-provoking deli worker Raymond.

Photo 5 and 6 are taken at the Ridgewood Guild International Film Festival (shot by Studio 94), Photo 6 shows Maia Buljeta with Wyatt Button (left) and Celia Austin (right) at the beautiful Ridgewood Guild International Film Festival.

Photo 7 is a behind-the-scenes photo of the production of His, in Ye Olde Warwick Book Shoppe, showing Maia Buljeta, Keir Alexander, Wyatt Button (in the back controlling the camera, who, in addition to doing outstanding camera work for His, also gives a powerful performance as Timothy), Andrew Cohen, and incredible actress Maria Stasolla (right).

Photo 8 is Maia Buljeta on the red carpet at the Hoboken International Film Festival. Photo 9 is Maia on pizza.