Agustina Chiarino – Producer tutor

Agustina Chiarino was born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1977. She studied Political Sciences, is a Bachelor in Social Communication and Master in Creative Documentary.

She was a partner in CONTROL Z FILMS and then founded MUTANTE CINE with Fernando Epstein. She’s now launching her new production company, BOCACHA FILMS. She produced the features: Miguel Calderón’s The Disciple of Speed, Adrián Biniez’s Giant, El 5 and The Waves, Pablo Stoll’s Hiroshima and 3, Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge’s So Much Water, Leticia Jorge’s Alelí, Pablo Solarz’s I Woke Up With a Dream and the documentaries Madness On Air by Alicia Cano y Leticia Cuba, Alicia Cano’s Bosco and Joaquín González Vaillant’s Alter. She co-produced Benjamín Nahistat’s History of Fear, Ana Katz’s My Friend from the Park, Gustavo Pizzi’s Loveling, Marcelo Martinessi’s The Heiresses, Alejandro Landes’ Monos, Vanina Spataro’s Shipwrecks (in post-production) and Sebastián Peña Escobar’s The Last (in post-production). Her films have premiered at Festivals such as Cannes, Berlinale, Venice, San Sebastián, Sundance and Toronto, receiving several international awards.

She chaired Channel 10′s National Production Department’s committee for receiving and developing new projects for 8 years. She taught courses EICTV Cuba and at various universities in
Uruguay. She has tutored at Biennale College (Venice Film festival), BrLab (Brasil), BiobioLab (Chile) and PUENTES –of which she is a co-organizer alongside EAVE international–, and has been an evaluator at the Torino Scriptlab, INCAA’s Incubator, Doha Film Institute, Sundance, Locarno’s Open Doors and Ventana Sur. She is part of the pre-selection committee at San Sebastián’s Festival Co-production Forum. She has been a jury member at different project development and finalization competitions and at international film festivals such as San Sebastián, BAFICI, Miami, Locarno and Cartagena and Guadalajara.

Aida Holly Nambi – Group leader

Aida Holly-Nambi is the co-founder of the podcast production company, Fathom Sirens, established in East Africa and the UK. Her latest project, Blood & Spice is an epic historical fiction series in development with Audible. From 2017 to 2020, Aida was the Director of Arts and Culture for the Africa-wide LGBT digital media organization, None on Record, where, along with award-winning podcast AfroQueer, she produced short films, live events, podcasts, and photography projects. Prior to joining None on Record, Aida was an Outreach Director for the Doc Society Foundation in London; an Outreach Director for Docubox: The East African Documentary Film Fund; and the Artistic Director of Maisha Garden in Uganda. She was also a member of the International Jury for the One World Film Festival in Prague. An Ugandan born and raised in Kenya, Aida received a dual PhD in Drama and Humanities from Stanford University in California in 2013, where she won the Geballe Dissertation Prize fellowship for her work. Aida sits on the board of the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission in Kenya, and is also part of the Black Queer Travel Group steering Committee in the U.K. She is a story editor across mediums, including film, text, audio, and virtual reality. Aida was a story developer for the Venice Biennale College Cinema Virtual Reality program from 2019 through to 2021. She was a group leader for the 10th anniversary Venice Biennale College Cinema film program in 2020.

Christina Kallas – Script tutor

Christina Kallas is the New York based writer-director of critically-acclaimed ensemble dramas THE RAINBOW EXPERIMENT (2018) and 42 SECONDS OF HAPPINESS (2016) and the writer and producer of the John Hurt starring, Golden Berlin Bear nominated political thriller THE
COMMISSIONER. THE RAINBOW EXPERIMENT was lauded as a ’21st Century Rashomon’ and debuted at Slamdance and Moscow Int’l Film Festivals in 2018. It had an impressive run at festivals such as Cinequest, Cleveland, St. Louis and FIRST Int’l FF in China, winning several accolades. In 2016, Kallas scored on the international film festival circuit with her award-winning feature, 42 SECONDS OF HAPPINESS. Prior credits as a producer include BBC Films’ hooligan drama, I.D. and the feature film MOTHERS directed by Milcho Manchevski, in official selection in Toronto and Berlin 2012. Her prior credits as a writer include European TV series hits EDEL&STARCK and DANNI LOWINSKI. Kallas has taught in several distinctive film programs over the years—including the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin, Columbia University’s School of the Arts, Barnard College and the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema—and is also known as author of books such as ‘Creative Screenwriting: Understanding Emotional Structure’ and ‘Inside the Writers’ Room.’ She was the President of the FSE, the European equivalent of the Writers Guild of America for eight consecutive years and has served as chair of committees, funds and subsidies in several countries, including the German Federal Film Board FFA and the Balkan Fund. Most recently she was a narrative features programmer for Slamdance Int’l FF and Head of Jury for the Emerging Director Award at the St. Louis Int’l FF. In 2019 she was nominated for Film Threat’s inaugural Award This! in the category of ‘Best Directress’ alongside Debra Granik, Josephine Decker, Jen McGowan, Angie Wang, Chloe Zhao
and Mimi Leder. Kallas is a member of the European Film Academy and of the German Film Academy.

Michel Kammoun – Script tutor

Michel Kammoun studied filmmaking in Paris after architecture studies in Beirut. His short films have participated in prestigious international festivals and have been widely broadcasted. His debut feature film, Falafel, won top international awards, participated in major film festivals worldwide and earned international acclaim. His upcoming feature film, Beirut Hold’em, will be released in 2022. Michel teaches directing and screenwriting at the Lebanese University, Faculty of Fine Arts and at the Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts, Beirut. He’s a frequent collaborator at the Ecole Superieure d’Etudes Cinematographiques, Paris. Michel is currently working on his third feature film, The Brother.

Judy Kibinge – Group leader

Judy Kibinge began her career in advertising at McCann Ericksonwhere she created many Pan African campaigns for big brands suchas Coca Cola, Unilever, Elida Ponds and Kenya Breweries. Her award-winning campaign for Tusker (My Country My Beer) was one of EastAfrica’s most acclaimed and loved adverts on the 1990’s. She isproud to have been the first non-expatriate, native African CreativeDirector of a large multinational agency in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Judy left advertising in 2000 to make films and her first narrativefeature Dangerous Affair is credited by academics and festivaldirectors as having kicked off the wave of contemporary filmmakingin East Africa winning Best East African Production at the Zanzibar International Film Festival in 2002.

Her film Killer Necklace was awarded best Production and BestDirection at the inaugural Kenyan Kalasha Award and her Short documentary film Coming of Age was heavily awarded includingBest Documentary at the AMAA’s in Nigeria (2009) and her featurelength narrative fiction film Something Necessary (2012) premieredat TIFF and showed in numerous global festivals across the US,Europe and Africa. Other Documentary films of acclaim include Headlines in Historycommemorating the 50 year story of the Nation Media Group andScarred: The Anatomy of a Massacre.

In 2013 she founded DOCUBOX, Sub Saharan Africa’s firsthomegrown fund and hub for independent filmmakers. Films supported by the fund have been awarded across the world whathas been described as a new-wave of award-winning Documentary filmmaking in Kenya. These include The Letter by Maia Lekow andChris King which won Best Documentary at Barcelona Doc Festivaland was Kenyas entry for the Oscars in 2020, Softie (Sam Soko)which won Best Editing at Sundance (2020) and New Moon and Softiewhich both won best film at the Durban International film Festival in2019 and 2021 respectively and more.

She a member of the Academy of Motion Picture and Sciences (theOscars) since 2018 and sits on the Documentary Branch SteeringCommittee charged with reviewing new Academy membership, rulesas well as adjudicating award issues in the run up to the Oscars.

Mike Ryan – Producer tutor

Mike S. Ryan is the bold independent producer behind such remarkable and ground-breaking art-house films as Todd Solondz’s Palindromes and Life During Wartime, Bela Tarr’s Turin Horse, Phil Morrison’s Junebug, Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy and Meek’s Cutoff, Rick Alverson’s The Comedy and Jake Mahaffy’s Free in Deed.
Mike S. Ryan is president of GREYSHACK FILMS and a veteran of the independent film community, who started out as a Location Manager in the industry’s 1990’s heyday with
films like Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm and Todd Haynes’ Far from Heaven. As a producer and executive producer, he has helped realize many ground-breaking films in the last fifteen years, most made under $3 million. He was nominated for an Independent Spirit “Producer of the Year” Award, and was one of Variety’s 2007 “10 Producers to Watch.” His films have garnered nominations and prizes from the Academy Awards, Independent Spirit Awards, Gotham Awards and many more. He has taught workshops and given lectures at universities and festivals including Columbia, Yale, NYU, Bard, Sacred Heart, Emerson, the Atlantic Film Festival, VIFF, Indie Memphis, the San Francisco Film Society, and for the past several years has mentored as a Producer Leader at the Biennale College Cinema and participated as a producer/mentor at EAVE PLUS in Luxembourg. He has seen an enormous number of films and writes criticism for the online site Hammer to Nail, which he cofounded with Ted Hope, and as a regular contributor to Filmmaker Magazine.

Yorgos Tsourgiannis – Producer tutor

Yorgos Tsourgiannis is an independent film producer and the founder and managing director of the Athens-based production label Horsefly Films. He began producing films and numerous TV commercials in various capacities after graduating with an MBA from the University of Southampton in 2001 and a Masters in audiovisual management (EMAM) from Rome. He has worked as a producer and head of international services and productions at Kino TV & Film Productions until 2008 and as head of feature film production at Boo Productions until 2010 after which he devoted his energies exclusively to his own production company.

He is currently working on the debut feature film of Efthimis Kosemund Sanidis “Little Death” and the upcoming feature of Berlin based filmmaker Athanasios Karanikolas amongst others.

His credits include: the fourth feature film of Emin Alper “Burning Days” a co production between Turkey, Germany, Netherlands, France, Croatia and Greece which premiered in the Un Certain Regard Section of the 2022 Cannes International film festival, “All the Pretty Little Horses”, by Michalis Konstantatos, (2020, premiered in Shanghai International Film Festival), “A Tale of Three Sisters” by Emin Alper (2019, premiered in Berlin International Competition section), “Norway” by Yiannis Veslemes (2014, premiered in Karlovy Vary and Fantastic Fest, won five Hellenic Film Academy awards including Best First Feature and the Fipresci Prize at Thessaloniki International Film Festival), “Luton” by Michalis Konstantatos (2013, premiered in San Sebastian, “Dogtooth” by Yorgos Lanthimos (2009, premiered in Cannes, won Grand Prix Un Certain Regard and numerous other awards, was nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign language film in 2011).

Yorgos Tsourgiannis has been teaching feature film development at the School of Film Studies of the Fine Arts department of the Thessaloniki Aristotle University as well as the film production module at SAE School of Athens. He is regularly working as a script and production consultant, collaborating with a number of European workshops and institutions. He has been a member of the ACE Producers Network since 2010. He is a EFP Producers on The Move 2010 alumni, a member of the board of Hellenic Film Academy and a member of the European Film Academy.

Marietta Von Hausswolff Von Baumgarten – Script tutor

Marietta is a Swedish screenwriter for film and TV, and an international script consultant whose work over the last 14 years includes Sundance Labs, Torino Film Lab, Binger (Amsterdam), Biennale College Cinema (international and national), Feature Expanded (Manchester, Florens), Hezaya (Doha), Tiff Studio Toronto FF, Cinelink Drama Sarajevo, Bridging the Dragon, Talent Campus, Midpoint, Fly Film lab (Philippines, Korea), Locarno open doors and Myanmar Script Fund (Yangon). She has done script development in Russia, China, Mongolia, Nepal and with Pakistan. She’s been in international juries, such as CPH Dox (Denmark) and San Miguel (Mexico) main competitions. Marietta studied at Tisch School of Arts NYC and is a voting member of the European film Academy and longtime member of the Swedish Writers Guild. She has worked extensively with development and writing of TV-series. She was for example in the writer’s room and as episode writer for Adam Price’s (Borgen) new Netflix series Ragnarok. The films Marietta has consulted on have competed in film festivals all around the world – such as The Babadook, Nancy, Hunting Season, H, Diamond island, The Fits, Le Quattro Volte, Svinalängorna, Too late to die young, Children of Sarajevo, The Heiresses, Jesus, The Load, Mediterranea, Sole, Litigante, Pari, Costa Brava and others. Her feature film Call Girl won the Fipresci award in Toronto, competed in places like Torino, Palm Springs, Stockholm, Buenos Aires, and Taipei. Together with Anthea Devotta she founded the Write Retreat, the right place to write.

Meinolf Zurhorst – Group leader

After studies of science of film and theatre, history of art, ethnology and philosophy, work as a film critic and author of several books about actors and cinema. Producer, writer and director of several documentaries mainly for German TV. Since 1992 commissioning editor for cinema at ARTE G.E.I.E., 1994 head of the cinema department. 2000 named as head of the cinema department at ZDF/arte, 2016-2019 head of fiction at ZDF/arte. For ZDF/arte co-, executive- or associate-producer of more than 100 movies by directors like Lars von Trier, Bent Hamer, Carlos Reygadas, Bela Tarr, Aki Kaurismäki, Yesim Ustaoglu, Michelangelo Frammartino, Jessica Hauser, Barbara Albert, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and many others. Since 2019 work as tutor and expert/consultant for drama series and movies. Developing a limited series.
Jury member at several festivals, member of the selection committee of the Luxembourg Film Fund.

Alec Von Bargen – Visual advisor

Born in New York City, Alec Von Bargen studied Dramatic Arts, Art History and Photography.He has worked as an actor in productions screened at the Cannes, Berlin and Sundance film festivals, helmed by the likes of Robert de Niro, Francis Ford Coppola, Gary Walkow, and Gabriel Beristain, among others. He has produced, directed and written for the stage, film and television. He studied dramaturgy in Mexico City under renowned Mexican playwright Hugo Argüelles and at Oxford University, UK. He adapted the award-winning stage production of Closet Land (winner of Mexico’s FONCA grant) and wrote ‘Tarantata’ (Onassis Playwriting Competition Finalist, Greece). Von Bargen is also a well-established visual artist, most recently exhibiting at the 54th and 56th editions of the Venice Biennale, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the OCAT Museum, Shanghai and Les Rencontres D’Arles Festival, France. His work has won numerous awards and is included in public and private collections worldwide. Alec Von Bargen is Head of Program/Chief Curator of the SWATCH artistic mentorship program (Swatch @rt Pe@ce Hotel) in Shanghai and Director/Chief Curator of The Living Archives program at the Ex Convitto Palmieri Museum in Lecce, Italy. He is also visual advisor/creative storytelling mentor for the Venice Film Festival’s Biennale College Cinema, Attagirl Feature Film Incubator (TIFF and Sydney Film Festival championed) and The Red SeaFilm Festival/TortinoFilmLab’s Red Sea Lodge.

Paul Tyler – Handling Ideas session

2006 Paul Tyler (UK) set-up Handling Ideas to provide online & in-person story consultancy for writers, directors and producers around the world. His unique method for handling stories draws out the relationship between story, theme and audience. He brings years of experience developing & creating concepts, strategies & projects within the cultural, public & corporate sectors that all started with four years in theatre production and touring, followed by twelve years at the BBC, ending up as a TV producer and studio gallery director. Paul applies a highly developed analytical, creative & often humorous approach to reveal the complex ecosystems in which we work, rest and play. Paul is based in Copenhagen.

Stefano Tealdi – Pitch trainer

Born in South Africa from Italian parents he established Stefilm in Turin, Italy, in 1985 where he develops, produces or directs documentary one-offs, doc series and feature length drama. Recent films: Rispet (feature length fiction film by Cecilia Bozza Wolf currently in post-production). When We Were Bullies by Jay Rosenblatt (short doc Oscar nomination 2022). Exemplary Behaviour (winner of Golden Dove, Fipresci and Interreligious award, 2019), My Home, in Libya (Locarno FF 2018); The Strange Sound of Happiness (Special Mention Next Masters DOKLeipzig 2017); Char, no man’s island (Berlinale Forum 2013). He tutors for Attagirl, Biennale Cinema and VR College Venice, Amman Film Industry, Marchè du Film Cannes, Documentary Campus, ESoDoc, La Fabrique Cinémas – Institute Francais, Factory, Films de 3 Continents – Produire au Sud, Imagination – Arab Film Scriptwriting, Jump In – Poitiers FF, Ouga Film Lab, Red Sea Lodge, TFL-Torino Film Lab, Scuola Holden, ZagrebDox Pro, ZELIG Film School.

Amra Bakšić Čamo – Production consultant

Amra is one of the founders of SCCA/pro.ba, independent film, video
and TV production from Sarajevo. She has produced and coproduced awarded short films and art videos, documentaries, TV programs and feature films. For 17 years, she is head of the CineLink, regional co-production market, work in progress and project development workshop of Sarajevo Film Festival. She is a member of ACE and EAVE networks and member EFA. Since the beginning of  2019, she is one of curators of Torino Film Lab.Amra is working at the Academy of Preforming Arts in Sarajevo, Production Department as a lecturer.

Amy Dotson – Production consultant

Amy Dotson is Director of the Northwest Film Center and inaugural curator of film & new media at the Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon. She also works as one of the founding Group Leaders of the prestigious Biennale College-Cinema program, as a story expert at the Biennale College-Cinema VR and is the Head of Studies at Doha Film Institute’s Series Lab.
For thirteen years, she was the Deputy Director & Head of Programming for IFP; her responsibilities included the financial and creative oversight of all domestic and international programming, partnerships and memberships for the organization’s signature programs including: IFP Feature Film, Documentary, Series & Audio Labs, IFP Week & Conference, IFP Expanded International Labs, as well as numerous year-round membership and sponsor-drive programs and initiatives. She oversaw the yearly selection of over 150 fiction & non-fiction projects and managed 18 international partners in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and Canada, creating custom programming for their producers, showrunners and filmmakers throughout the year. She also managed the talent and juries for the IFP’s Gotham Awards, which kicks off US awards season each year and was one of three key staff leaders to help secure and open the Made in NY Media Center by IFP, a 22,000 square foot talent incubator for creators at the intersection of story and tech in DUMBO, Brooklyn.
Before joining IFP, Dotson held the position of Programmer/Special Programs Producer for SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, The AFI Silver’s Latin American Film Festival and The AFI Silver’s The European Union Film Showcase in Washington, DC. Prior, Amy worked with producer Fred Berner (Pollock), as well as at Curious Pictures (Pee Wee’s Playhouse) and Miramax Films, where her responsibilities included a wide variety of production, development, administrative and business affairs duties, as well as extensive script and book coverage. Dotson also produced Brad Beesley’s feature documentary, Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo (SXSW 2009; HBO and BBC), was a supervising producer for Matt Porterfield’s feature I Used To Be Darker (Sundance 2013; Strand Releasing) and worked closely with director Tim Sutton as a producing advisor on doc/narrative hybrid, Memphis (Sundance 2014; Kino Lorber). She is currently producing Bo McGuire’s upcoming documentary feature, Socks on Fire. She was the 2019 Keynote Speaker at BAM Cinemafest as well as at the 2015 Seattle Film Festival Catalyst Program.
Dotson has served as a juror at a wide variety of festivals such as Atlanta, Ashland, IDFA, IndieMemphis, Istanbul, Karlovy Vary, Slamdance, Sidewalk, SXSW, Woodstock, and World Air Guitar Championships in Oluu, Finland. She has also been a butterfly wrangler, fashion stylist, licensed welder, art director’s assistant and freelance writer for publications such as Maisonneuve and BUST Magazine. She graduated from NYU with a Masters in Media Ecology where she studied the intersection of media, art and technology and holds a duel undergrad degree in communications and fine arts from Wake Forest University.

Kishori Rajan – production consultant

Kishori Rajan is a filmmaker based in New York. She joined actress and producer Tessa Thompson as her producing partner to build the production company Viva Maude, which is anchored by a first look deal at HBO and HBO Max for television and a producing deal with Lionsgate for film. Viva Maude currently has over twenty film and television projects in development. Rajan is also the Executive Producer of the HBO show Random Acts of Flyness, for which she won a Peabody Award for “breaking the mold of television.” The show’s second season will be premiering this year. Rajan has also worked as an independent film producer for over a decade, with feature films premiering at Sundance, SXSW, Cannes and Tribeca, and has taught film producing at NYU and Johns Hopkins. Rajan is the recipient of Cinereach’s Producer Award for her “remarkable commitment to making complex and authentic films”. Additional work includes directing for Disney+’s show Growing Up, and producing on Hulu’s Eater’s Guide to the World. She is a member of the DGA and on the founding committee of the Producers Union. She earned her B.A. in Film Studies from Columbia University.

Mary Stephen – editor

Born in Hong Kong, graduated from Communications Arts at Concordia University in Canada, Mary is based in Paris and was French New Wave director Eric Rohmer’s film editor and music co-composer, from « Winter’s Tale » to his last feature « The Romance of Astrea and Celadon ». She also worked extensively with fiction and documentary filmmakers from several continents as film editor, associate-producer or script advisor. A partial list of these include Yoïchiro Okutani’s “Nude at Heart” Japan-French (Arte) coproduction; Ann Hui’s « Love After Love » (Venice Biennale 2020 Life Achievement Award), « Our Time Will Come », “Septet, a story of Hong Kong” (Cannes 2020); Nicole Shafer’s « Buddha In Africa » (NHK Best Film and Youth Film Awards); Tiffany Hsiung’s « The Apology » (Peabody Award); Seren Yüce’s « Majority »(Venice Lion of the Future); Du Haibin’s «Umbrella», «1428» (Venice Orizzonti Doc Award), and « A Young Patriot »; Lixin Fan’s« Last Train Home »(IDFA Grand Prize); Joan Chen’s « Shanghaï Strangers »(China Golden Rooster Web-film award); Li Yang’s « Blind Mountain »(Cannes Un Certain Regard) ; Hüseyin Karabey’s « My Marlon and Brando »(Tribeca Best New Director), and « Do Not Forget Me Istanbul » omnibus film with directors from the Baltic region : Hany Abou-Assad (Palestine), Aida Begic (Bosnia), Stefan Arsenijevic (Serbia), Stergios Niziris (Greece), Eric Nazarian (Armenia). She has been nominated for her editing for the Golden Horse, the Independent Eye, the Turkish Yeşilçam, the Hong Kong Film and Asian Film Awards. She is in juries and training workshops at IDFA, Venice Biennale, Yamagata Documentary Dojo, Asia Pacific Screen Academy, Hong Kong, Kerala, Busan, Salaya (Bangkok,Thailand), Wathann (Yangon, Myanmar), Singapore etc, Mary is also editing-consultant with filmmakers on works-in-progress and guest-teaches with universities and film institutions. Her directorial films include “The Memory of Water” (fiction short) and “Vision From The Edge: Breyten Breytenbach Painting The Lines”(documentary). She is currently in pre-production of her new documentary “Palimpsest: Re-writing the Self from Wuhan to Bloomsbury”. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.