After several internships in the fields of producing, film shooting and post-production and some freelance work as an editor and colorist, Mandana started her Bachelor studies in “media. design and production” in 2014. During her time at university she not only improved and expanded these skills but also discovered her passion for 3D animation. She was able to gain her first experiences in collaborative film projects. In addition to modeling and rigging, she finally found her focus in animation and deepened it further during her studies. In her Bachelor thesis she dealt with the topic of emotions in animation and analyzed how they are visualized in different animation styles.

She loves bringing characters to life, to think about how a specific character orcreature would move. One of her favorite animated moments from Disney is in the film Moana, when she meets Te Fiti and returns the heart. The movement of Te Fiti in this specific scene, her anger and despair and how it is visualized, always makes her shiver and she aspires to animate such moments herself.