Training & Development
DFI works with a network of esteemed industry mentors who provide expertise in shaping the institute’s training initiatives.
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Afef Ben Mahmoud
Director and actress
is aTunisian director and actress. Her television series credits include ‘Ya Zahratan Fi Khayali’, ‘Sayd …
Read More…‘Maktoub…’ and numerous video clips, including ‘Madinat Al Hob’ with Kadhim Al-Sahir. She had her first big-screen role in Jilani Saâdi’s ‘Khorma’, participated in several Italian productions, and played the lead in Ibrahim Letaief’s ‘Flous Academy’ and Nouri Bouzid’s ‘Making Off’, which won awards at several international film festivals. She has directed three short narrative films and a documentary, and is currently developing her first feature-length film, ‘Backstage’. Ben Mahmoud holds a B.Sc in Economics and Management, a BFA in Film Directing and Screenwriting and an MA in Art and Design.
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Ahmad Abdalla
Short Narrative Lab Mentor
Ahmad Abdalla is an Egyptian director on the forefront of the new wave of independent cinema in Egypt …
Read More…He began his career as a film editor on commercials and feature-length films in 2003, and directed ‘Heliopolis’, his first feature film, in 2009. It was one of the first independent Egyptian films to receive theatrical release, and it participated in the Toronto International Film Festival, the Abu Dhabi Film Festival and the Marrakech International Film Festival. Abdalla went on to direct ‘Microphone’ (2010), featuring Egyptian actors Menna Shalabi and Khaled Abol Naga; it was named Best Arabic Film at the Cairo International Film Festival, won the Golden Tulip at the Istanbul International Film Festival and was featured in the Doha Tribeca Film Festival. In 2013, Abdalla’s ‘Rags & Tatters’ had its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and he directed his most recent film, ‘Decor’, starring Abol Naga and Horeya Farghaly.
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Aïda Del Solar
Course Mentor
Aïda del Solar was born in Lima, Perú. She holds a Masters Degree in Filmmaking and Animation in ENSad …
Read More…and Scriptwriting at La Femis schools. Working with fiction, documentary and interactive projects, her work includes an interactive gaming path for a museum of the famous cheese The Laughing Cow for Bel, video games for Sony, and an animated TV series for Xilam studios, 'Stupid Invaders'.
Until September 2017 she was also the pedagogical coordinator and titular teacher at the Animation department at Gobelins, Paris, where she primarily worked on the Opening Shorts for Annecy International Animation Festival. Currently, she leads specialised international storytelling pre-production workshops at Gobelins, and abroad.
Aïda believes that storytelling transposed into animation is one of the most influential, entertaining and educational tools to help improve life, social issues and for protecting our shared planet Earth. -
Alex Bushe
Lab Mentor
Alex Bushe is a Los Angeles-based editor and assistant editor, who has extensive experience in ... …
Read More…...both documentary and narrative filmmaking. He has worked with editor Joe Bini for eight years on more than a dozen films, most notably on several films with director Werner Herzog. Other notable films he has worked on include Nick Broomfield’s “Tales of the Grim Sleeper”, Andrea Arnold’s “American Honey”, and Lynne Ramsay’s recently completed noir thriller “You Were Never Really Here”. In 2014, Bushe was invited to participate as an assistant editor at the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Edit and Story Labs.
Bushe currently divides his time between editing “Guangzhou Love Story”, an observational PBS documentary about an African-Chinese family navigating China’s xenophobic society, and directing the film “Nomansland”, a documentary about a mysterious uninhabited island off the northeastern coast of the United States.
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Amanda Naseem
Supervising Producer, VICE Media, Inc.
Amanda is a New York-based independent film producer who has been at the forefront of digital …
Read More…Amanda is a New York-based independent film producer who has been at the forefront of digital storytelling. She produced 'The Outs', which was named one of the Atlantic’s Best TV Episodes of 2013 and 'Whatever this is.'—IndieWire’s Best dramatic web series of 2013. She also produced the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival feature selection Mark Meyers’ 'How He Fell In Love' starring Matt McGorry and Amy Hargreaves. Amanda is currently developing feature film and digital series projects, as well as the travel content platform, #VacationLordz. Previously, she served as Director of Exhibitor Relations at Adopt Films, theatrically and digitally distributing internationally award-winning films from Cannes, TIFF, NYFF, and the Berlinale. Amanda is currently working as a Supervising Producer at VICE Media for branded content campaigns, including episodic series, documentaries, music videos, and commercials.
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Amy Dotson
Head of Programme
Amy Dotson is the deputy director & head of programming for IFP, where her responsibilities include the …
Read More…creative oversight of all domestic and international programming. She is also one of three group leaders of the prestigious Venice Biennale College - Cinema, as well as senior programme advisor at the new ‘Made In NY’ media centre by IFP in DUMBO, Brooklyn. She was the keynote speaker at this year’s Seattle Film Festival prestigious ‘Catalyst’ programme and has served as a juror at a wide variety of film festivals such as Atlanta, Ashland, IDFA, Indie Memphis, Istanbul, Karlovy Vary, Slamdance, Sidewalk, SXSW, and Woodstock.
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Aranka Matits
Sales Expert
Aranka Matits, as the founder of Featurette, advises distributors and sales agents on their... …
Read More…Aranka Matits, as the founder of Featurette, advises distributors and sales agents on their acquisitions, co-productions and strategic planning. At the forefront of the ever-changing media landscape, she consults them on the evolving practices of distribution and production, creating opportunities for them to exploit new markets. She works with a range of clients such as theatrical distributors Version Originale (France), immersive cinema enterprise Secret Cinema, and on-demand platform SundanceNOW. Aranka’s acquisitions include Oscar-winning box office successes like ‘Still Alice’ or Amour, festival hits like ‘Toni Erdmann’ and ‘The Florida Project’ as well as breakout debuts such as ‘Wadjda’ or ‘Mustang’.
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Ayman El Amir
Script Consultant
Ayman El Amir is an Egyptian filmmaker and academic. Originally a doctor, El Amir obtained an MFA in Film …
Read More…Production and Screenwriting from the Red Sea Institute for Cinematic Arts in Jordan in 2013. That same year, he founded a film production programme in the Department of Visual and Digital Production of the Faculty of Architecture and Design in Saudi Arabia’s Effat University. His work in film includes writing, directing and producing fiction and documentary films, which have screened in numerous international film festivals. In 2015, El Amir returned to Egypt to give a number of workshops and masterclasses on screenwriting, while working as a script reader and editor for the Torino Film Lab and the Doha Film Institute.
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Bassem Breche
Script Editor
Bassem Breche is an Emmy Award-winning scriptwriter. He began his career as an actor in Lebanon and …
Read More…the UK, appearing in John Furse’s ‘Blind Flight’ (2003) and Antonia Bird’s ‘The Hamburg Cell’ (2004). His first short film, ‘Both’ (2007), was selected for the Critics’ Week at the Festival de Cannes. From 2009 through 2011, Breche worked on the Emmy Award-winning web-drama ‘Shankaboot’ as Lead Writer and Online Content Producer. He also worked as a scriptwriter on the award-winning web series ‘Fasateen’. In 2013, Breche won the Robert Bosch Foundation Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival for his short film ‘Free Range’ (2014). He is the director of the screenwriters’ collective Scenario Beirut.
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Brice Cauvin
Director and writer
is a film director and a writer who studied literature, linguistics and cinema at La Sorbonne Paris. …
Read More…He has been involved in the film industry for 25 years, working in both France and abroad. Brice's first film was selected at the Berlinale and received the Variety Award. His latest film 'The Easy Way Out' was released in France in March 2016, and has screened in almost 20 countries. He has been teaching for more than 15 years and is currently the Head of the Directing department at la Fémis since September 2017.
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Britta Krause
Script Editor
Britta Krause is a script editor and director based in Berlin …
Read More…She has been working as a tutor with emerging screenwriters for Kultburo Moscow, Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf, Nipkow Programm, Berlin, and Nisi Masa’s European Short Pitch workshops. She was a script editor trainee at TorinoFilmLab’s Script&Pitch workshop in 2012 before joining the laboratory again in 2018 as trainer for FeatureLab. Britta is currently teaching Script Development Strategies at Filmakademie Ludwigsburg to students of the International Producing program as well as working one on one with writers and directors from all over Europe.
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Camilla Bubna-Kasteliz
Script Consultant
After graduating from Trinity College, Cambridge, Camilla Bubna-Kasteliz started her career as …
Read More…a researcher for documentaries, before moving into fiction films. As a script reader and then story editor, she has worked with most of the major film funders in the UK – from broadcasters and national film funds to script development schemes and screenwriting competitions, as well as for numerous independent production companies. She continues to work with a broad range of writers and genres, focusing particularly on new writers and writers new to film. She also teaches at the Central Film School in London. Bubna-Kasteliz studied screenwriting at the National Film and Television School in the UK and is developing a number of her own projects.
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Christopher Clements
Producer, Motto Pictures
Christopher Clements is an Emmy-nominated producer and partner at Motto Pictures. He is executive …
Read More…producer of ‘Weiner’ and co-producer of ‘Life, Animated’, both of which premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. Christopher also produced 'Chicken People' for CMT, and executive produced 'Art and Craft', which was shortlisted for the 2015 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. His camera work was featured in Cindy Meehl’s ‘Buck’, which won the Sundance Film Festival’s Audience Award. Christopher is also a writer/director of award-winning animated short subject, documentary and narrative films and in 2015 he published ‘The Push and Pull of Things’, an e-book that integrates audio-video material into a novel.
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Chris Turiello
Cinematography Mentor
Chris Turiello is a New York City-based cinematographer and camera operator. Since 2013, he has worked as …
Read More…the soundstage manager at Google, New York. He received his bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts from Eastern Connecticut State University in 2007 and his Masters degree in Media Studies: Film Form from The New School in New York City in 2010. While at The New School, Chris founded and produced First Features, an organisation dedicated to the awareness and support of directorial debut feature films. From 2011 to 2013, Chris worked closely with renowned Dutch cinematographer and director Leonard Retel-Helmrich, researching the latter’s famous single-shot cinema approach. Turiello has also worked with renowned Palestinian filmmaker Kamal Aljafari and Dutch writer-director Paul Ruven. In 2014, Turiello taught cinematography workshops at The New School. His work has been shown at the Berlin International Film Festival, the Portland Film Festival and the Anthology Film Archives in New York City, among other venues. He is currently in production with a feature-length documentary about his father's obsession with collecting toys.
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Christian Routh
Script Consultant
Christian Routh began his highly accomplished career in the film industry as a film (acquiring such …
Read More…titles as BRAZIL, THE KILLING FIELDS, HIGHLANDER, THE EMERALD FOREST, and LEGEND) and then became Head of Selection at the European Script Fund in the 1990s (working on such titles as BREAKING THE WAVES, NAKED, ORLANDO, ELIZABETH, ROB ROY, TOTO LE HERO, THE NEON BIBLE, LIVE FLESH and THE VAN).
He moved to Catalonia from the UK in 2000 to be a film consultant and is currently head of studies of two MEDIA supported training schemes: Four Corners and ScripTease. Christian is the co-author, with the late Dagmar Benke, of a book called SCRIPT DEVELOPMENT. He acts as a consultant, lecturer, screenwriter, and script editor, for various European production companies, state agencies and film schools; including the Binger Film Lab in Amsterdam, where he has been teaching for over 10 years. -
Dana J. Atrach
Dana J. Atrach is a Palestinian screenwriter who is fascinated by the world of untold stories... …
Read More…Dana J. Atrach is a Palestinian screenwriter who is fascinated by the world of untold stories. She creates to raise awareness and inspire change by tackling quotidian social issues through comedy. Atrach believes that every individual’s story is worth telling and aspires to be the outlet that enlightens viewers to see the enchantment behind every story.
Atrach holds a BS in Communication and Media Studies from Northwestern University in Qatar and an MFA in Screenwriting from the University of California, Los Angeles. Atrach is an Assistant Professor in Residence at Northwestern University in Qatar where she teaches screenwriting.
In 2014, Atrach’s first feature script, ‘Heeya Howa’, won Best Unproduced Script Based on a Family Drama at the St. Tropez International Film Festival. Her second feature script, ‘Alterations’, is currently under development. Atrach has also written and co-written several short films that have premiered in Doha and Los Angeles.
Atrach has mentored and consulted on scripts for Nouf Al Sulaiti’s ‘Gubgub’, Hassan Al Jahni’s ‘Ems7r’, Khalifa Al Marri’s ‘Olayan’, Khalifa Al Mana’s ‘Al-Tabbab’, and many more. Atrach is presently writing A.J. Al-Thani’s ‘Khuzama’, co-writing Noor Al Nasr’s ‘The Pearl’, and working on her first animated short, ‘Basreeli’. -
Dora Bouchoucha
Producer Expert
Dora Bouchoucha graduated with a degree in English Literature and has been a film producer since 1994. Th …
Read More…Dora Bouchoucha graduated with a degree in English Literature and has been a film producer since 1994. Through her company Nomadis Images, she has produced and coproduced several Tunisian and international documentary, short and feature-length films. Her films have been selected for film festivals in Venice, Cannes and Berlin.Bouchoucha founded the Carthage Film Festival Projects Workshop in 1992, and Takmil in 2014. She founded the Sud Écriture workshops in 1997, which she continues to run, and is actively involved in training and promoting southern cinema. She was a permanent member of the International Rotterdam Festival CineMart Board for more than 10 years, and was a consultant for Arab and African films for the selection committee of the Venice International Film Festival from 2007 to 2011. In 2010, Bouchoucha was appointed Head of Fonds Sud, and in 2012, she became President of the CNC Aide aux cinémas du monde. She headed the Carthage Film Festival in 2008, 2010 and 2014. At the 2015 Festival de Cannes, she was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture. The most recent film she produced, Mohamed Ben Attia’s ‘Hedi, was selected for the Official Competition of the 2016 Berlin International Film Festival, where it took the Silver Bear for best actor as well as the Best First Feature prize
Nomadis Images is a Tunisian audiovisual production company whose main activities include the production of short and feature-length fiction films, documentaries and commercials; service provision; and training. The company’s filmography includes ‘Hedi’ (2016), ‘Buried Secrets’ (2009), ‘Barakat’ (2006) and ‘Satin Rouge’ (2002). -
Falah Hannoun
LAB MENTOR
Falah Hannoun is a sound recordist and sound designer who currently works at Doha Film Institute …
Read More…recording and designing short films, and also conducting some of their labs and workshops. He has worked as a recordist on many feature films such as the Oscar Nominated 'Theeb' and John Stuart’s debut, 'Rosewater'. He holds an MFA in Directing and Sound from RSICA and a BFA in Acting and Directing.
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Fahad Ahmed Al-kuwari
Fahad Ahmed Al-kuwari is a writer and art director, who was born in Qatar. He comes from an art and... …
Read More…Fahad Ahmed Al-kuwari is a writer and art director, who was born in Qatar. He comes from an art and design background, and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a Master’s Degree in Film and Screen Studies from Goldsmiths, University of London.
He began his career in filmmaking through working in the art department with the Qatari production house Innovation Films, and went on to join Doha Film Institute as an Art Director and a Youth Programmes Coordinator. He was a member of the Ajyal Film Festival creative committee, and has been involved in the education sector as a guest lecturer at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar. Along with his colleagues, Johan Granberg and Ben Robinson, Fahad Al-kuwari received a Merit Award from The CIDA Awards for Excellence for developing a production design curriculum to be taught at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar.
Throughout his Career, Fahad worked on several short films as part of the Doha Film Institute “Qatari Film Fund” initiative, including ‘Aljohara’ (2016), ‘Our Time is Running Out’ (2017), and ‘A Journey to from Love’ (2016). He also wrote and directed ‘Ruqya’ (2011), and wrote ‘I’ (2012). His first participation in a feature-length film was on set of Mira Niar’s ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ (2012). -
François Pirot
Script Editor
François Pirot is a Belgian director and screenwriter. After directing three short films …
Read More…(including ‘Retraite’, awarded best first European short film at Premiers Plans film festival in Angers) and a medium-length documentary, his first fiction feature film, ‘Mobile Home’ (selected for the official competition at the 65th Locarno Film Festival), was released in 2012. Since then, he directed a feature documentary, ‘Eurovillage’, released in 2016, and is currently developing his second fiction feature, ‘Life in the woods’, to be shot in 2018.
As a scriptwriter, he co-wrote several fiction feature films, including two with Joachim Lafosse: ‘Private Property’ (official competition at the 63rd Venice Film Festival) and ‘Private Lessons’ (Cannes 2008, Directors' Fortnight), and works as a consultant on numerous scripts.
He also worked as a tutor in different programs (Talent Campus Short film station, Nisi Masa European Short Pitch) and since 2013, supervises directors on their graduation movies at the Belgian film school IAD (Institut des arts de diffusion). -
Frédéric Pittoors d’Haveskercke
International Production & Distribution Advisor at Series Mania
Frédéric Pittoors d’Haveskercke started his career at the Media Programme of the European Commission …
Read More…Frédéric Pittoors d’Haveskercke started his career at the Media Programme of the European Commission in Brussels and the then called 'Gaumont Television'. After that, he led the Institutional Financings team at StudioCanal before launching his independent consultancy company in 2005. Since then, he consults for various European producers and distributors, including All3Media, Makever and many more, helping them to build their international strategy and development either on a project by project basis or as part of a more long-sighted corporate vision. He joined Series Mania Festival in 2012 to create, organise and develop the professional days within the Festival's Co-production Forum.
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FX Goby
Fx Goby is an Emmy Award-nominated filmmaker known for his use of compelling storytelling in both... …
Read More…Fx Goby is an Emmy Award-nominated filmmaker known for his use of compelling storytelling in both animation and live action. He works between Paris, London and Los Angeles—directing films, music videos, commercials and documentaries. In May 2018, he released ‘Back to the Moon’, a 360/VR homage to Georges Melies which appeared on the front page of google.com worldwide. The film went viral, becoming the #1 trending video on YouTube and achieving over 200 million views in two days, and was nominated for an Emmy. His multi-awarded animated short film ‘To Build a Fire’ received 100 selections at festivals spanning five continents. He is currently working on a feature documentary and writing his first feature film.
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Gabriele Capolino
Programme Producer
Gabriele Capolino is a programmer at IFP, where he manages the International feature film and series …
Read More…Gabriele Capolino is a programmer at IFP, where he manages the International feature film and series projects’ programmes, as well as contributing to other programmes year-round, including the IFP Gotham Awards (where he serves as Associate Producer) and the Narrative Labs. He produces the IFP Episodic Lab, an intense ‘boot camp’ programme dedicated to independent content creators working on serialised content. He manages the international and series projects at IFP Week, the signature programme of the organisation that connects independent filmmaker and creators to key players in the industry. Previously he worked for the Biennale of Venice and has 10+ years of experience in film criticism, having worked for one of Italy's most prominent trades, Blogo.it.
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Ghassan Salhab
Script Consultant
Born in Dakar, Ghassan Salhab has directed six feature films, all of which have screened at …
Read More…international festivals: ‘Beyrouth fantôme’ (1998); ‘Terra incognita’ (2002), which was selected for the Un Certain Regard section of the Festival de Cannes; ‘The Last Man’ (2006); ‘1958’ (2009); ‘The Mountain’ (2011); and 'The Valley' (2014). He has also directed numerous short films and videos, including ‘Posthumous’ (2007), ‘Narcisse perdu’ (2004), ‘My Living Body, My Dead Body’ (2003), ‘La Rose de personne’ (2000), ‘Baalbeck’ (co-directed with Akram Zaatari and Mohamad Soueid, 2000), ‘Afrique fantôme’ (1994) and ‘Après la mort’ (1991).
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Hisham Saqr
Editor Mentor
Hisham Saqr was born in Cairo, and began his career in 2005. He has worked with a number of acclaimed …
Read More…Egyptian directors, notably with Ahmad Abdalla on the award-winning ‘Rags and Tatters’ (2013). The two previously collaborated on ‘Microphone’ (2010), for which Saqr won the award for Best Film Editor at the Dubai International Film Festival. He also edited Ibrahim Al Batout’s ‘Winter of Discontent’ (2012), starring Amr Waked, which earned Saqr a Best African Editor nomination from the 2013 African Film Development Foundation Awards. Saqr's credits as editor include five feature-length and four short films, and seven documentaries. He has directed two short films. In addition to directing and editing, Saqr teaches Film Editing at the Jesuit Cinema School in Cairo.
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Hisham Zaman
Qatar Film Fund Director Mentor
Hisham Zaman is a Norwegian film director with kurdish decent. Arguably his breakthrough film, Bawke …
Read More…(2005) became a hit on the international festival circuit, and has received more than 40 national and international awards including a nomination for best European short in 2005. In 2007 he directed another noteworthy mid-length film; the comedic drama "Winterland", a warm and humorous diaspora-story about a man settled in godforsaken spot in Northern Norway. In 2013 Zaman made his debut feature "Before Snowfall" - A road movie that becomes an odyssey from East to west. Zaman won Dragon award for Best Nordic film for "Before Snowfall” at Gothenburg film festival. The film won also best cinematography at Tribeca . Just a year after Zaman was ready with his next feature film "Letter to the King"(2014) and once again was awarded the prestige Dragon award for Best Nordic film and received also FIPRESCI award at European cinema festival of Lecce.
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Ida Grøn
Director
Ida Grøn is a Danish documentary director. She attended The National Film and Television School …
Read More…Ida Grøn is a Danish documentary director. She attended The National Film and Television School in England (2009) and holds a BA in art history from The University of Copenhagen (2006). Ida has worked with documentary films since 2003, where she had her first short films selected for the Berlinale Talent Campus and shown on Danish national TV. She was a part of the artist-driven independent TV station TVTV, in the editorial group Chamber of Public Secrets (2004-2006) in Copenhagen. Since then her documentaries 'Klara - Thoughts from the Taiga' (2004), 'The Kid and the Clown' (2011) and 'Stay Behind - My Grandfather’s Secret War' (2017) have been broadcasted on various national and international TV channels as well as acclaimed international film festivals. As co-founder of the artist-curator group Tagging Art, Ida has exhibited a VR/real-life video installation on the National Gallery of Denmark. Besides directing her own documentaries Ida works as a freelance TV-content producer and VJ, currently on a series for the Danish national youth channel DR3. She also regularly gives hands-on workshops in poetic documentary to school students.
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Jad Abi Khalil
Projects Coach
Jad Abi-Khalil was born in Lebanon and completed his cinema studies at the Université Saint-Joseph in …
Read More…Jad Abi-Khalil was born in Lebanon and completed his cinema studies at the Université Saint-Joseph in 1998. He has directed numerous short films and feature-length documentaries, and began producing feature documentaries in 2007. Abi-Khalil is a founding member of Beirut DC, the cultural association for Arabic cinema, and chaired its board of directors from 2009 to 2013. He was Head of the DOCmed programme from 2011 to 2013. Currently, Abi-Khalil is Head of the Beirut Cinema Platform.
Beirut DC is a Lebanese cultural association, created in 1999 by a group of filmmakers and arts advocates. The association’s main activities are producing independent documentaries; organising capacity-building workshops with young Arab filmmakers; and staging the biennal Beirut Cinema Days film festival as well as several Arab film weeks in Europe and in the Arab world. -
Jakob Foged
Storyboard artist and teacher in animation and live-action
Jakob Foged is a senior storyboard artist with more than 12 years of professional experience in animation …
Read More…Jakob Foged is a senior storyboard artist with more than 12 years of professional experience in animation and film. Graduating in 2007, as a Character Animator from The Animation Workshop, VIA University College, Jakob had his first storyboard job at Cartoon Saloon, and has since worked with several studios in Denmark and abroad. Some of his projects include the acclaimed animated tv-series ‘Ninjago’, ‘Lego Freemakers’, ‘Talking Tom’, ‘Space chickens in Space’ and many more. Recently he has been working on the Netflix tv-series ‘Watership Down’ and the upcoming Netflix tv-series ‘Halo’. Alongside his professional career as a Storyboard artist, Jakob is a recurrent teacher and supervisor at The Animation Workshop, VIA University College’s Professional Storyboard Training Course, a 16-week course running every year in Viborg, Denmark. Jakob works and lives as a storyboard freelancer in Copenhagen, Denmark.
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Jana Wehbe
Project Coach
Jana Wehbe studied filmmaking at IESAV, Beirut and modern oriental singing at the Lebanese National High …
Read More…Music Conservatory.
She has worked with renowned directors such as Maryam Keshavarez, Nadine Labaki, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Greige. Working with production companies in Lebanon and the region, she has produced a range of film from documentaries and fiction, to TV commercials. These include 'Tannoura Maxi', 'The Lebanese Rocket Society', 'The Taste of Cement', 'Tombe du ciel', and many more. Along with like-minded artists, she co-founded 'The Attic' boutique production company in 2009. Before joining the Doha Film Institute in 2011, where she now works on their busy annual festivals.
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Jani Thiltges
Head of Studies, EAVE
Born in 1962, Jani Thiltges studied film at INSAS in Brussels from 1984 to 1988. Since 1986, Jani is... …
Read More…Born in 1962, Jani Thiltges studied film at INSAS in Brussels from 1984 to 1988. Since 1986, Jani is co-founder, partner and CEO of SAMSA FILM in Luxembourg. He is also co-founder and partner of ARTEMIS PRODUCTIONS (Belgium), FADO FILMES (Portugal), LIAISON CINEMATOGRAPHIQUE (Paris) and, more recently, with his partner Claude Waringo, and through their holding CODECA, they created a Berlin-based company, IGC FILMS, with the collaboration of the German producer, Roshanak Behesht Nedjad. They are also involved in French famous distribution company BAC FILMS.
At SAMSA FILM, in association with his partner/producer Claude WARINGO, they succeeded in building the company’s strong reputation and capacity in producing commercial art house films. So far, Jani has produced and co-produced more than 60 feature films. Jani THILTGES is also Head of Studies of EAVE. In 2004, he was decorated by the Luxembourg Grand-Duke for his activities in the cinematographic field. In 2010, he was awarded the prestigious Prix Eurimages, together with Diana Elbaum. From 2012 to 2014, Jani Thiltges was Board Member of the European Film Academy
With his partners Claude Waringo and Bernard Michaux, he manages SAMSA FILM which is, by its size and number of its productions, the first production company in Luxembourg.He has recently produced Sam Garbarski’s fifth feature film, “Es war einmal in Deutschland…” (aka “Bye Bye Germany”), starring Moritz Bleibtreu, Antje Trau and Mark Ivanir in the main parts. The film was selected at the 2017 Berlinale in the section “Berlinale Special Gala”.
We can find his name in the credits of, a.o., these acclaimed or successful productions: “Möbius” (Eric Rochant), “A perdre la raison” (Joachim Lafosse), “Ne te retourne pas” (Marina de Van), “JCVD” (Mabrouk El Mechri), “Irina Palm” (Sam Garbarski), “Comme t’y es belle” (Lisa Azuelos), “Une Liaison Pornographique” (Frédéric Fonteyne).
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Jerome Boivin
Qatar Film Fund Director Mentor
Born in 1954, Jerome Boivin studied law, sociology and political science before directing two short …
Read More…films that won awards from French and international film festivals. He then made documentaries, commercials and television movies, worked as a screenwriter and consultant, and directed the feature films ‘Baxter’ (1989), starring Lise Delamarre, Jean Mercure, François Driancourt and Baxter the dog, and ‘Confessions d’un Barjo’ (1992), featuring Anne Brochet, Richard Bohringer and Hippolyte Girardot. He teaches in Paris at FEMIS and at the École Louis Lumière. He is currently preparing his next feature film, ‘Un Deux Quatre Trois Cinq’, which is slated to shoot in December, 2015.
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Joelle Touma
SCRIPT CONSULTANT
A screenwriter and script doctor, Joelle Touma started writing screenplays in 1998. …
Read More…At that time she was also a TV host and an actress in Lebanon. She then became the Beirut correspondent for the French daily 'Liberation' and the Belgian daily 'Le Soir', also working as a fixer in Lebanon with several media outlets. Since 2006, she has been dedicating herself only to writing screenplays. She has worked with Ziad Doueiri (‘Lila says’ 2004, ‘The Attack’ 2011 and ‘The Insult’, nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2018) and Rachid Bouchareb (‘Just Like a Woman’ 2011). She also wrote for 'Le Bureau des Legendes', a French series produced for Canal+ and is developing a new feature film with Ziad Doueiri.
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Jovan Marjanović
Lab leader
Jovan Marjanović has been involved in the Sarajevo Film Festival since 1999, first as a technician and pr …
Read More…Head of Industry | Sarajevo Film Festival
Jovan Marjanović has been involved in the Sarajevo Film Festival since 1999, first as a technician and programme coordinator and later as the CineLink manager. He is now on the festival’s Executive Board as Head of Industry. Marjanović has produced a number of award-winning documentaries, shorts and feature films and consults for several international film institutions. He was on the Board of Management of the Bosnian National Film Fund from 2011 and headed it from 2014 to 2016. He has served as the National Representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Eurimages since 2006. He holds an MSc from the Cass Business School in London, and teaches Film Business at the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo.
In 1995, towards the end of the four-year-long Siege of Sarajevo, the Obala Art Centre initiated the Sarajevo Film Festival with the aim of helping to reconstruct civil society and retain the cosmopolitan spirit of its city. Today, over two decades later, it is a trailblazing film festival with a special focus on the region of Southeast Europe that shines an international spotlight on the region’s talent, their current films and future projects. High-quality programming, a strong industry segment, and an educational and networking platform for young filmmakers attract the international film industry, film authors and media representatives to the event, along with a public audience of more than 100,000. Together, this makes it a leading film festival in Southeastern Europe. -
Julie Goldman
Producer, Motto Pictures
Julie Goldman founded Motto Pictures in 2009. She is an Oscar-nominated and Emmy Award-winning producer …
Read More…and executive producer of documentary feature films. She is the producer of 'Life, Animated' and executive producer of 'Weiner', both of which premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. 'Life, Animated' won the U.S. Documentary Directing Award, and 'Weiner' won the U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize. Julie has also consulted on the Academy Award-winning 'The Cove' and produced the Oscar-shortlisted 'Sergio'. She is on the Board of the Producers Guild of America (PGA) and a member of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).
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Julien Dexant
Julien Dexant holds a BTS in Visual Communication and a European Master's degree in Media Art with a …
Read More…Julien Dexant holds a BTS in Visual Communication and a European Master's degree in Media Art with a specialisation in 2D Animation. He has extensive experience working on both short and feature-length films such as 'Loulou: The Incredible Secret' by Grégoire Solotareff which received the César (French Oscar) for Best Feature-Length Animation in 2014, 'The Red Turtle' by Michäel Dudok De Wit (produced by the Japanese studio Ghibli, 2016) and 'The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily' by Lorenzo Mattotti (2019). Dexant also teaches animation at the Gobelins school in Paris and the EMCA in Angouleme.
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Kamal Aljafari
Short Filmmaking Lab Mentor
Kamal Aljafari’s filmography includes ‘Recollection’ (2015), ‘Port of Memory’ (2009) and …
Read More…‘The Roof’ (2006). He was a featured artist at the 2009 Robert Flaherty Film Seminar in New York, and in 2009/2010 was the Benjamin White Whitney Fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute and Film Study Center. In 2010, he taught film at The New School in New York City, and from 2011 to 2013 he was a senior lecturer and head of the directing program for the German Film and Television Academy (DFFB), Berlin. He is the recipient of numerous film prizes and art grants. In 2013, Aljafari received the art medal of the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. A retrospect of his work is planned for 2016 at Lussas Film Festival in France and at the Cinémathèque québécoise.
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Konstantina Stavrianou
Post-Production Expert
Konstantina Stavrianou co-founded Graal, in 1999. Since 2003 she has been working in the film industry …
Read More…Konstantina Stavrianou co-founded Graal, in 1999. Since 2003 she has been working in the film industry as a post-production producer on short and feature films as well as documentaries. She oversees the co-production sectors for both Greek and international productions and is Graal’s co-managing director. In 2012 and 2013 she was part of the Hellenic Film’s Academy organising committee for the two-day conference “Riding the Greek Wave” in Athens. Its first instalment focused on development and festival strategies, while in 2013 it was on international co-production and distribution. She has served as a jury member at co-production markets, at Thessaloniki Film Festival, Istanbul, Romania and Jerusalem Film Festival. She is currently producing two feature films as well as co-producing four international projects. Since 2014, she attends workshops as a post-production consultant and has been a member of the pre-selection committee for Torino Film Lab and the Berlinale co-pro series. She is also a Berlinale talents alumna and member of the EAVE network.
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Leonardo Staglianò
Script Editor
Leonardo Staglianò is a writer and story editor who studied Philosophy at the University of …
Read More…Florence, Techniques of Narration at Scuola Holden and Dramatic Writing at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He wrote the feature film ‘Yuri Esposito’, which won the Biennale College at the Venice Film Festival, the play ‘Cashmere, WA’, winner of the Diego Fabbri Award, and short stories that have been published in various literary magazines. Currently, he is the Programme Coordinator at the College of Storytelling at the Scuola Holden, where he teaches dramaturgy.
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Lise Lense-Møller
Producer and Head of Studies, EAVE
Lise is a film producer, founder, and CEO of Magic Hour Films. She has produced and co-produced over 60 …
Read More…Lise is a film producer, founder, and CEO of Magic Hour Films. She has produced and co-produced over 60 films, both documentary and fiction with many of them international co-productions and internationally awarded. In addition, she has a long track record in professional education and consultancy since 1993, working as an expert and group leader for EAVE, and a post-educational programmer with three annual international workshops for independent producers. Lise has also been engaged in national film politics as a board member of the Producer’s Association for decades. Lise also runs a small publishing house, The Wisdom Books.
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Louis Thomas
Louis Thomas is a graduate of Gobelins in Paris and CalArts in Los Angeles. …
Read More…He worked full time in various Californian animation studios, before returning to France. Louis currently lives and works with his cat Pipo in his art studio, which can be found between the Pantheon and the Luxembourg Gardens. His clients include Pixar, Sony, Universal, Illumination, Laika, Cartoon Network, Macmillan, Thames and Hudson, and Penguin.
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Mahalia Cohen
Executive, TOPIC
Mahalia Cohen is an executive at TOPIC. She is also a director, producer and editor. …
Read More…Originally from Portland, Oregon, she is now based in New York City. Mahalia has produced numerous award winning short, feature films, and series. Among her features she produced “H.”, directed by Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia, which premiered at Sundance NEXT, 2015 and went on to screen at The Berlinale and festivals around the world. She also produced “Recommended by Enrique”, which won Best Ensemble Cast at the L.A. Film Festival, 2014, and “Hinkerort Zorasune” (The Fifth Column) which was awarded 3rd prize by the 63rd Cannes Film Festival – Cinéfondation, La Selection in 2010. As a director, Mahalia has made both documentaries and narrative shorts. In 2009 she completed “Balance”, which traced the final years of dancer Homer Avila’s life. “Balance” premiered at Visions du Réel in Nyon, Switzerland. In 2011 her narrative short “Ama at Sea” screened at film festivals across Europe. Mahalia holds an MFA in film from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
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Marietta von Hausswolff von Baumgarten
Script Consultant
Swedish screenwriter Marietta von Hausswolff von Baumgarten is a member of the Swedish Drama Union …
Read More…and the European Film Academy. She wrote and co-produced ‘Call Girl’, which won the FIPRESCI Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival and was shown in numerous festivals worldwide. Since 2007, she has been connected as a script consultant with TorinoFilmLab, Binger Film Lab and the Venice Biennale College Microbudget lab, on films including ‘The Babadook’, ‘Djeca, Children of Sarajevo’, ‘Hi-So’, ‘Los Hongos’, ‘Les Quottro Volte’, ‘Beyond /Svinalängorna’, ‘H’, ‘The Fits’ and ‘Mediterranea’. Other related programmes are Qumra, Feature Expanded, Bridging the Dragon, TIFF STUDIO Toronto, Boost Rotterdam, the Rutger Hauer Master Classes, Generation Campus Moscow, Script Lab Russia, the Balkan Film Fund Athens, Talent Campus, the Irish Film Board and Filmpool Nord. She also consults privately on films, and has worked with filmmakers from more than 45 countries. She has a background in drama writing for television and literary journalism, and has worked in production, mainly with script continuity. Since 1996, Marietta is the Minister of a micro-nation called Elgaland-Vargaland, or KREV.
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Marcus Zaiser
Lab Mentor
Marcus Zaiser was born in 1976. He has been active in the film industry since 1998, and has worked on ... …
Read More…...more than 100 productions in various positions. From 2000 to 2006, he studied Film and Media with a focus on Cinematography at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg, Germany. He also studied at the renowned PWSFTViT Film School in Łódź, Poland. Since 2007, Marcus has been working as a cinematographer in both cinema and television, and since 2010, he has been a consultant for stereoscopic film projects in addition to his jobs behind the camera.
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Mathew Luhn
Pixar Seminar Panelist
As a Pixar Story Supervisor, Mathew Luhn teaches students, graduates and working professionals the …
Read More…story methods he has developed over the last 20 years while creating award-winning stories and characters for ‘Toy Story 2’ (1999), ‘Monsters Inc.’ (2001), ‘Finding Nemo’ (2003), ‘Cars’ (2006), ‘Ratatouille’ (2007), ‘Up’ (2009), ‘Toy Story 3’ (2010) and ‘Monsters University’ (2013), as well as Pixar shorts, specials, and television shows. Attendees of Luhn’s story seminars, workshops and keynote addresses have included writers, artists, directors and creative leaders from Apple, Sony, the Cartoon Network, Paramount Pictures, the BBC, Warner Bros., Dreamworks and many others.
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Matthieu Darras
Lab Advisor
Matthieu Darras is Artistic Director of the TorinoFilmLab, …
Read More…and collaborates with various film initiatives including the Venice Biennale College and When East Meets West’s First Cut Lab. He founded and directed the European Network of Young Cinema NISI MASA and wrote for the film magazine ‘Positif’. He has also worked as a curator for various film festivals, notably for the Festival de Cannes’ Critics’ Week. He is the delegate in charge of Eastern Europe for the San Sebastian Film Festival.
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Matthieu Taponier
SCRIPT CONSULTANT
Born in 1982, Matthieu Taponier is a Franco-American script consultant, …
Read More…screenwriter and film editor. After studying Modern Literature in Paris, he completed a MFA in filmmaking at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He was trained as a story editor by the TorinoFilmLab Script&Pitch program in 2013 and has been tutoring since in workshops such as Next Step, Biennale College-Cinema, and Le Groupe Ouest. He collaborated both as a script consultant and film editor on 'Son of Saul' by László Nemes (Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival 2015, Oscar 2016 for Best Foreign Language Film), and as co-writer and film editor on Nemes’ second feature film, 'Sunset', to be released in 2018.
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Miguel García
Editor
Miguel García is an editor, cameraman and digital imaging technician (DIT) at the Spanish production …
Read More…Miguel García is an editor, cameraman and digital imaging technician (DIT) at the Spanish production company Arena Comunicación. Since 2009, he has edited and filmed numerous projects for Arena. Most notably, he acted as camera assistant, DIT and sound recordist on the feature documentary ‘District Zero’ (2015), an internationally acclaimed project produced for Oxfam and ECHO and filmed in Jordanian refugee camps. The film had its premiere at the San Sebastián International Film Festival.
He is currently working as sound recordist and camera assistant on the feature-length documentary ‘Together’, which is being filmed in the United States.
García also has experience as a cameraman and editor for NGO films, corporate videos, and films for the National Archaeological Museum of Spain, as well as the Museo de Málaga. -
Michael Hansen
Michael Hansen is a VFX artist and filmmaker... …
Read More…Michael Hansen is a VFX artist and filmmaker. He graduated from The Animation Workshop in 2017, and has worked overseas on many different TV shows and films like ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows’, ‘X-Files’, ‘The 100’, ‘The Mist’, and ‘Future man’. Working in a high paced environment, Michael Hansen has a unique angle on how to work efficiently with VFX and is developing techniques and tools for companies to make their VFX even more effective.
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Michael Ho
Doc Lab Editor Mentor
Michael Ho’s work in sound and picture editing has covered a diverse range of programming, including …
Read More…commercials and corporate films, music videos, documentaries and drama for television, feature films, and short films for the festival circuit. As well as working in the commercial field, Michael has been a filmmaking mentor at the National Film and Television School, as well as for other student film projects.
Ho worked as an assistant editor on Wes Anderson’s stop-frame adaptation of Roald Dahl’s ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ (2009), and the recent BBC 4 drama ‘Spies of Warsaw’.
He has just finished editing ‘Falling’, a short film directed by Gabrielle Russell, and ‘Urban Birds’, a documentary about female bicycle couriers working in London. -
Moh Hefzy
Producer Expert
Mohamed Hefzy studied Metallurgical Engineering in London and works in his field of study overseesing his …
Read More…Mohamed Hefzy studied Metallurgical Engineering in London and works in his field of study overseesing his family business. Over the last 10 years, he has managed to establish himself as one of the most prominent young scriptwriters and producers in the Arab world. In 2013, he was the only Arab to be selected by ‘Screen International’ as one of the world’s most influential filmmakers. In 2005, he founded Film Clinic, a development and production company, and in 10 years, he has produced or co-produced 19 feature films in Egypt, the United States, the UK and the Arab world.
Film Clinicwas founded in 2006 and is managed by renowned producer and scriptwriter Mohamed Hefzy. The company is now considered one of the leading production houses in the MENA region; it not only creates unique feature films, but also empowers talent to do so. We are passionate about the filmmaking industry, as we enjoy operating in all its diverse fields on both national and international platforms. Our philosophy is to blend the creative, vibrant ideas of the younger generation with the expertise of the best in cinema, in order to present powerful films to audiences who have exquisite taste and admiration for the beloved silver screen -
Mona Panchal
Executive Producer, First Look Media
After spending many years in feature film development at companies like MGM, Morgan Creek and Paramount …
Read More…Pictures, Mona moved to New York and began making films independently. She recently produced the award-winning 30 for 30 animated documentary, 'The Shining Star of Loses Everywhere'. Mona was a Senior Producer at Fusion.net where she made news and culture videos. She’s now EP of Digital at TOPIC, First Look Media owned platform. Mona oversees digital series, short films, VR, and live-streaming projects; manages budgets, day-to-day production and delivery of digital content; working closely with business affairs, audience development, and sales teams on digital strategy.
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Nadine Salib
Short Narrative Lab Mentor
Nadine Salib was born in 1984 in Egypt, where she graduated from film school in 2006. She started her …
Read More…career as an assistant director and worked as a first assistant director and script supervisor on several short and feature-length films, among them Ibrahim El Batout’s ‘Winter of Discontent’ (2012). ‘Dawn’ (also 2012), her first short documentary, won second prize in the Arab women filmmakers’ competition at the Baghdad International Film Festival and first prize at the Goethe Independent Film Festival in Egypt.
Salib has participated in many filmmaking workshops, including the Durban Talent Campus in 2011 and the Documentary Campus in 2012. ‘Mother of the Unborn’, her first feature-length documentary, premiered in IDFA 2014, where it won the Peter Wintonick Special Jury Award for First Appearance; it also won the FIPRESCI prize for Best Documentary at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival in 2014. The film has been screened at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, the Carthage Film Festival, the Sheffield International Documentary Festival and the Transylvania International Film Festival, among many others. Salib is currently working on her first feature-length narrative film, ‘Shadi and I’. -
Neerja Narayanan
Lab Leader
Neerja is an international media producer, and studio executive with 17 years of experience across... …
Read More…Neerja is an international media producer, and studio executive with 17 years of experience across Asia, Europe, Africa and North/South America. She has held senior executive management positions at major studios such as 21st Century Fox and Disney Studios, also working with Channel Four UK and the British Film Institute. Neerja is experienced in 2D & 3D live action and animated content, and her core strengths include identifying material/talent, acquiring and curating properties, developing new IP, and producing feature-length films. She is currently working with Sony Pictures International Productions and has also been a speaker at several international film festivals and Ivy League universities.
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Pablo Iraburu
Lead Mentor
Pablo Iraburu is a documentary film director. After graduating from the University of Navarra with …
Read More…Pablo Iraburu is a documentary film director. After graduating from the University of Navarra with a degree in Information Sciences, he began a career as a cameraman, film editor and scriptwriter in many different formats, from music videos to fiction, dance and experimental films.
After discovering his vocation for documentary film, he directed and produced several documentaries about human issues around the world, among them the fall of Nicolae Ceaușescu in Romania, the Balkan Wars, AIDS in Malawi, the peace process in Guatemala, the Landless Workers Movement in Brazil, education projects in Peru, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Ecuador. He has also shot and post-produced documentaries on topics like leprosy in Mumbai, healthcare in the Peruvian Amazon, sustainable fisheries in Madagascar and fair trade in Côte d’Ivoire, among many others.
In 2000, he founded Arena Comunicación, a film production company that specialises in documentary filmmaking and audiovisual installations for museums. He has been Arena’s creative director since its launch.
Iraburu co-directed the documentary films ‘Nömadak Tx’ (2006), ‘Pura vida – The Ridge’ (2012), ‘District Zero’ (2015) and ‘Walls’ (2015), among others. He also directed the documentary television series ‘Everest Without Oxygen’. The common element in his projects is his approach to issues with a global reach accessed via a specific story, element or character.
He is Associate Professor of Documentary Film at the University of Navarra, and has given workshops and master classes in documentary film at festivals such as the International Documentary Festiva Amsterdam, Docs Barcelona Medellin, the Duhok Film Festival, DocsDF México and One World Praga. -
Patrick Doyle
A classically trained musician, Patrick Doyle first ventured into the world of film scores with …
Read More…A classically trained musician, Patrick Doyle first ventured into the world of film scores with Kenneth Branagh’s ‘Henry V’ (1989) and has since collaborated with Branagh on 11 further films. He has composed scores for more than 50 films, among them Brian De Palma’s ‘Carlito’s Way’ (1993), Ang Lee’s ‘Sense and Sensibility’ (1995), Robert Altman’s ‘Gosford Park’ (2001) and Mike Newell’s ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ (2005).
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Peter Chappell
Doc Lab Mentor
Peter Chappell has worked extensively in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. As director, he …
Read More…made a drama adapted from Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer’s book ‘Oral History’. His films have won numerous international awards, including the Canadian Film and Television Academy’s Award for Best Scientific Documentary and the Parliamentary Assembly of Europe’s Prix Europa for ‘The Origins of AIDS’, and the Silver FIPA for ‘Our Friends at the Bank’, which also won the Outstanding Journalism Award at the Ökomedia Festival in Germany. Chappell has organised workshops in Tunisia, Palestine and Qatar, and is on the advisory board of MAISHA in Uganda.
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Peter Peake
Animation Workshop Mentor
Peter Peake is a UK-based animation director with over 23 years’ experience in the industry, covering …
Read More…a range of techniques including stop-motion, CGI, Flash and live action. He has worked extensively for the UK’s Aardman Animations, creators of Wallace & Gromit, ‘Chicken Run’ and ‘The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!’ As a stop-motion key animator, his work on Nick Park’s Academy Award-winning ‘A Close Shave’ included developing the character of Shaun the Sheep. In 1994, he made his first short film for Aardman, ‘Pib and Pog’, which won the McLaren Award at the Edinburgh Film Festival and was nominated for a BAFTA. This was followed in 1998 by ‘Humdrum’, which also won the McLaren Award and was nominated for aBAFTA and an Oscar. In 2002, he directed the half-hour special ‘Robbie the Reindeer II – Legend of the Lost Tribe’ for Comic Relief and BBC Worldwide, which won an International Emmy. He continues to work with Aardman directing television series, short films and commercials for clients including Coca Cola, Hotels.com and Wrigleys. His most recent short film for Aardman, ‘Pythagasaurus’, was completed in 2011.
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Raquel Cabrera Simón
Marketing Expert
Raquel is The Film Agency’s account manager of transnational and innovative initiatives such as ‘Walk... …
Read More…Raquel is The Film Agency’s account manager of transnational and innovative initiatives such as ‘Walk This Way’ and branded-content projects such as ‘Brandstorm’, and the second edition of the Correos Film Festival. She is responsible for liaising with brand and media partners for the vast majority of The Film Agency’s campaign activity. She has also coordinated marketing campaigns for clients like Morena Films, Telecinco, Mod Producciones, Royal Opera House of London, Fox or Mediapro, among others.
Raquel had previous experience in production companies such as Morena Films and Mediaset, and Spanish companies like Mapfre and Endesa. -
Richard Peña
Professor
Born and raised in New York, from 1988 until 2012, Richard Peña was the Director of the New York Film …
Read More…Festival. He has also had a simultaneous career in academia, joining the faculty of Columbia University in 1996, where he has been tenured since 2003. He has taught at Harvard, MIT, Princeton, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of São Paulo and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
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Rithy Panh
Lead Mentor, Documentary Filmmaker
Rithy Panh is a Cambodian-French filmmaker, writer and producer. …
Read More…Born in Cambodia, he studied filmmaking at the Institut des Hautes Études Cinematographiques in France. His work focuses primarily on the genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge regime in his homeland. Rooted in first-hand experience, Panh’s works have a rare and striking authority.
He has directed numerous internationally acclaimed films, including ‘The Rice People’, which was selected for the Official Competition of the Festival de Cannes in 1994; ‘The Land of Wandering Souls’ (2000); the influential ‘S21: The Khmer Rouge Death Machine’ (2004), which took numerous awards around the world; ‘Paper Cannot Wrap Embers’ (2007), ‘The Sea Wall’ (2008) and ‘Duch, Master of the Forges of Hell’ (2012).
In 2013, Panh directed ‘The Missing Picture’, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and won the Grand Prix in the Un Certain Regard section at the Festival de Cannes. His most recent directorial effort, ‘Exile’, won wide critical and public acclaim at Cannes in 2016. -
Ryan O’nan
TV Writer and Showrunner
Ryan O'Nan is an American TV writer and actor. He started his work as TV writer for MTV’s 'Skins' in 2011 …
Read More…He is a story editor on USA Network's 'Queen of the South', in which he also plays the recurring role of King George. He is also a writer on FX’s 'Legion'. He was a guest star as Jared Hale in the FX series 'Justified' in the very first season premiere episode 'Fire in the Hole'. He had recurring roles in 'Mercy' and 'The Unusuals', and has appeared, among others, in the films 'Eat Pray Love' and 'The Dry Land'. He wrote, directed and starred in the independent comedy 'The Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best', defined as one of the best musical comedies of recent years. 'The Dry Land' saw him team up again with both Jason Ritter and Melissa Leo from his earlier film.
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Séverin Favriau
Lab Mentor
A sound designer, sound supervisor and music composer. He discovered cinema through... …
Read More…A sound designer, sound supervisor and music composer. He discovered cinema through his studies at ETPA (AudioVisual School) at Rennes between 1997 and 2000. After 5 years as a sound recordist in various documentaries, he began sound design at 28 years old. His collaboration with Amos Gitaï and Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire gave him a new musical approach of sound design, and today, these two components are present in his work. He was nominated twice for the Best Sound César (French Academy awards) with Mathieu Amalric’s movie 'On Tour' in 2011, and 'Raw' directed by Julia Ducournau in 2018. As a natural continuation of his work on 'Raw', he wrote his first music score for Jeremie Guez’s movie: 'A Bluebird in my Heart', selected in the famous SXSW Austin Film Festival. He also teaches regularly at La Fémis, the National French Film School.
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Simona Nobile
Script Consultant
Simona Nobile has worked as a story editor, screenwriter and script consultant for Italian and …
Read More…international production companies and European funding bodies for more than 10 years. A member of the Selection Committee of the Italian MIBACT – Cinema Department, she is responsible for national funding for the development and production of Italian films, including medium- to high-budget features; first- and second features; documentaries; and short films. She is an external expert for the Eurimages Council of Europe and for EACEA in the Creative Europe MEDIA subprogramme, and is responsible for the selection of applications from European production companies requesting funding from the MEDIA Development Fund. Nobile also works as script consultant for several international co-production and funding bodies, and has been instrumental in scouting new European talent and the development of several feature films and TV series.
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Socheat Cheng
Supporting Mentor
Socheat Cheng holds a Bachelor Degree in Information Technology. During his studies, …
Read More…he was always passionate about filmmaking.
After his graduation, he got involved in numerous activities in the film industry such as documentary and fiction filmmaking, editing, colour grading, cinematography, camera assistant and visual effects. In addition, he participated in a year-long documentary film training program initiated by Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center. He also worked with many foreign film crews and production companies from France, Korea, and the USA. He recently became an assistant to Mr Rithy Panh and has helped make the films 'The Missing Pictures' (2013), 'Exile' (2016), 'Bangskol: A Requiem for Cambodia' (2017).
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Stacey Eberschlag
Toon Boon Course Mentor
Stacey Eberschlag graduated with honours from Sheridan College in Classical Animation and has worked for …
Read More…close to 20 years in the animation industry in a variety of positions. He joined Toon Boom Animation in 2010; prior to this he held the position of Director at Amberwood Entertainment for eight years. He has directed numerous programmes, including ‘Zeroman’ and ‘Hoze Houndz’, and worked on many critically acclaimed programmes, including ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’, ‘The Ron White Animated Show’, ‘The Secret World of Benjamin Bear’, and the Emmy Award-winning ‘Tutenstein’. Eberschlag also worked as a senior animator for Mercury Filmworks, and his animation work was featured in ‘Jimmy Two-Shoes’, ‘Mischief City’ and ‘Kick Buttowski’, a Walt Disney series. His solid background in Harmony animation and a broad expertise in digital character building make Eberschlag an esteemed member of the Toon Boom Animation family.
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Tashi Trieu
Lead Mentor
Tashi Trieu has more than 10 years of post-production finishing experience as well as an intensive …
Read More…background in compositing and digital and film photography. Relying on a strong eye for story-centric visual aesthetics, Trieu combines technical and artistic prowess to enhance feature films, commercials, short-form work and episodic productions.
In today’s fast-paced post-production environment colourists need a rich understanding of visual effects and motion picture imaging science to produce creative results quickly and effectively. Tashi’s artistic skill set is strengthened by a rich background in colour science, image processing and digital post-production workflow. He is the co-author of the textbook ‘Modern Post’, an internationally recognised authority on modern Hollywood post-production finishing.
Tashi has been a contributor to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Science's ACES project, and regularly contributes his expertise in colour science to Lattice, a popular Swiss army-knife app. Additionally, he serves as a consultant for numerous major software vendors and manufacturers.
He teaches digital intermediate colour grading and finishing at Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film & Media Arts in Southern California and at Taipei National University of the Arts in Taiwan. He also serves as a post-production consultant to major film studios and post-production facilities in Taiwan. -
Thorsten Schütte
Lab Advisor
German documentary filmmaker Thorsten Schütte has worked for more than 20 years as a writer, director... …
Read More…...and producer. He has produced and directed numerous television films and series, including WORLD JAZZ (1998), TRIP TO BRAZIL (2001), THE CACTUS OF KNOWLEDGE (2001) and NAMIBIA GENERATION X (2005). His thought-provoking and well-reviewed films have been widely shown at international film festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam and the Berlin International Film Festival.
Parallel to his passion for music documentaries, Schütte dedicates a substantial part of his work to film-based environmental and labour activism in Southern Africa. Some of his documentaries, like LAND MATTERS (2008) and THE FORGOTTEN (2015), deal with subjects like land ownership, affirmative action and farm workers’ rights.
As a founding member of the Stolen Moments-Namibian Music History Untold Research Group, Schütte and his team members have for several years been exploring the Namibian music culture that was almost forgotten, suppressed under apartheid. He currently runs a digitalisation campaign in co-operation with the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation, and is co-curating an international exhibition that is scheduled to open in Berlin in the Fall of 2017.
Since 2002, in Germany, Schütte has co-ordinated documentary and fiction studies at the internationally renowned Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg.
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Violeta Bava
Producers Lab Advisor
Violeta Bava was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 2002, she received a double degree in Theory, …
Read More…Violeta Bava was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 2002, she received a double degree in Theory, Aesthetics and History of Cinema & Drama at Buenos Aires University (UBA). She has worked as a Programmer of the Buenos Aires International Film Festival (BAFICI) and Co-director of BAL, a leading co-production market for Latin American films. She has worked on the programming team of Bratislava International Film Festival and has collaborated on three editions of the Locarno International Film Festival at the Open Doors Programme.
Violeta has an impressive background in training and development and has worked as a film consultant and production tutor for several funds, organisations and festivals worldwide. She has also taught Cinema
Aesthetics and Ethics at Centro de Investigación Cinematográfica (Buenos Aires). She was part of the Advisory Board of Torino Film Lab for ten years. She has also played a key role in the development of initiatives devoted to support filmmakers and producers in Latin American region such as: Puentes workshop in connection with EAVE, Produire au Sud Buenos Aires in collaboration with 3 Continents Film Festival (Nantes), 3 Puertos Cine (with AustralLab and Cinemart – IFF Rotterdam) and BAL goes to Cannes with Marché du Film – Cannes Film Festival. Recently, she became part of the Programming team of the International Film Festival & Awards Macau and Industry Advisor of Visions du Réel.
Founder of Ruda Cine, she has produced 'Too Late to Die Young', by Dominga Sotomayor (2018), Best Director Award at Locarno; Eduardo Williams debut feature 'The Human Surge' (2016), winner of Pardo d’Oro for Best Film, and Abrir 'puertas y ventanas' (2012), by Milagros Mumenthaler, winner of Pardo d’Oro for Best Film, Pardo d’Argento for Best Actress and FIPRESCI Award at Locarno Film Festival. Since 2012, Violeta has been the Latin American Consultant for the Venice International Film Festival. She is also an Industry and Programme Advisor for Doha Film Institute. -
Will Collins
Screenwriting Workshop Mentor
Will Collins is a screenwriter whose credits include the Academy Award-nominated, ‘Song of the Sea’ …
Read More…(2014), for which he received an Annie Award nomination for Writing in a Feature Production and an IFTA nomination for Best Film Script. He also wrote ‘My Brothers’, his award-winning live-action feature-length debut, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was the opening film of the Galway Film Fleadh in 2010. Collins won the Pitching Award at the Galway Film Fleadh in 2007 and was nominated for Best Film Script at IFTA in 2011. He graduated from the NUIG Huston School of Film and Digital Media with a Master’s degree in Screenwriting.