Mathijs studied filmmaking at KASK School of Arts in Ghent and graduated in 2017 with his documentary film Ours is a Country of Words. For this medium lenght documentary, he worked together with a couple of families in Shatila, a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, to tell a story that balances on the thin line between fiction and documentary. The film was selected for Visions du Reel, screened at numerous international film festivals around the world and got awarded with a Wildcard by the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF). Since then, Mathijs has developed several film and video projects as a director, cameraman and editor. His first feature documentary The Jacket premiered at IDFA in 2024 and is now working on his second feature film with Hanan Hindawi, continuing and deepening his collaboration with the Palestinian community in Lebanon. Prior to making films, Mathijs had a taste of several different educational systems. He studied at the Youth Initiative Program in Sweden and was a co-founder of Classroom Alive: a 6-month walking school across Europe.