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Eija-Liisa Ahtila is a finnish film maker and video artist. She studied at Helsinki University (1980-85), the London College of Printing (1990-91) and then at both UCLA and the American Film Institute, Los Angeles (1994-5). In 1990 she was awarded the Paulo Foundation Prize for Young Artist of the Year. After experimentation with photography, installation art and performance art, Ahtila turned to film and video in the 1990s. The three mini-films Me/We, Okay and Gray (1993) each lasting 90 seconds are noted for their use of narrative conventions derived from film, television and advertising, through which they explore questions of identity and group relations. Her 1999 colour film Consolation Service, screened two DVD discs each lasting 20 minutes (exh. Venice, Biennale, 1999), comprised a double projection of a number of scenarios based on the theme of conflict; again the mixing of cinematic genres was used to highly effective poetic ends. In 2000 she was the first recipient of the Vincent van Gogh Award for Contemporary Art in Europe. In 2000 she became the first winner of the Vincent Prize, a biannual award for contemporary European artists.