“Cinema has no borders or limits. It is a constant flow of dreams.” — Orson Welles
Zeno turned 24 on May 19, 2026. He was born and raised in Brussels, Belgium, by a Dutch-speaking Belgian father and a Franco-American mother. He has dual Belgian-U.S. citizenship.
He lived in the Belgian capital until the family moved to Miami in August 2017 to be closer to his maternal grandmother, who celebrated her 103rd birthday in February 2026. Zeno lived in The Roads and Brickell South and still remembers Hurricane Irma as his unexpected “welcome gift” to Florida.
When he arrived in Miami, Zeno spoke little English. He joined the French program at the International Studies Preparatory Academy (ISPA) in Coral Gables and became fluent thanks to the school’s ESOL program. He graduated in May 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — difficult years that helped build his resilience and adaptability.
Zeno developed a passion for cinema, film history, and the moving image at a young age after being introduced to classic films by one of his primary school teachers. He decided early on that this was the path he wanted to pursue.
In January 2021, he moved to Montreal to study Film at Concordia University before continuing his studies in the Netherlands at the University of Amsterdam, where he earned a dual Master’s degree in Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image. He later completed an internship at the Royal Film Archive of Belgium (CINEMATEK), working on film preservation and archival cataloguing projects. Zeno hopes to build an international career in audiovisual preservation and film archives. He knows that opportunities in the field are limited and highly competitive, but believes that curiosity, networking, perseverance, and a bit of luck all play an important role.
Outside of film archives and cinematheques, Zeno enjoys basketball, travel, cooking, museums, visiting his parents in Miami and his sister in New York, and discovering film culture around the world. In March 2026, he attended the FIAF (International Federation of Film Archives) Congress in Rabat, Morocco. This summer, he plans to travel through Thailand, Indonesia, and Austria — and will naturally make sure to visit film archives along the way.