Johanna Vuoksenmaa (born 21 September 1965) is a Finnish television and film director and screenwriter who has also worked as a photographer, installation artist and a teacher.

Her mother was a home economics teacher, her father a forestry technician and she also has an older brother, Jorma Vuoksenmaa, born in 1962.

[6] During her time at the Institute of Design and Fine Arts (1985-1989) she worked as a photographer for the Etelä-Suomen Sanomat newspaper and had a photography exhibition at Harju Gallery in Lahti, which was also shown in the Soviet Union.

[7] Due to the birth of her two children she went on maternity leave and after she decided to change her career path because she felt that she wasn't reaching enough audience in the relatively small photography circles: "Even though I was pretty deep in the art world, I never thought I was making aesthetically pleasing things to be put up on walls.

I was aiming for interaction and communication but because the small audience of photography exhibitions was always just nodding in agreement, so I began to suspect a case of The Emperor's New Clothes.

[15] Vuoksenmaa prefers to use comedy as a genre in her movies because it helps her to deal with her own misfortunes in life: "Positive, healing and integrative laughter usually comes from seeing the beauty in the ugliness of the story's character and recognizing yourself in it.