Mentors

Marie Amachoukeli, director and screenwriter, graduate of La Fémis. She wrote and directed the film Forbach which received the Grand Prix de Clermont-Ferrand in 2009, It’s Free for Girls, awarded César for best short film in 2010, and Demolition Party with Claire Burger.

In 2014, she made a feature film Party Girl in collaboration with Samuel Theis and Claire Burger that won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and numerous international awards.

In 2017, she finalized I Want Pluto to be a Planet Again, an animated film co-directed by Vladimir Mavounia-Kouka, nominated for the 2018 Césars. In 2020, she wrote Litigante directed by Franco Lolli, screened as the opening title of the Critics’ Week at the Cannes Film Festival and awarded for best screenplay by the Colombian Academy of Arts in 2021.

In 2022, she finalized Hypno, an installation for the Paris Opera and the Third Stage in collaboration with Flavien Berger.

She writes and directs her second feature film Ama Gloria, produced by Lilies Films.

As a consultant, she works with Clément Cogitore, Julia Ducourneau, Guillaume Gouix and intervenes in international writing workshops including Next Step or the Ateliers de l’Atlas.

Thanos Anastopoulos is scriptwriter, director and film producer.  In 2004 his first feature film “Atlas – All the weight of the world” premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival. His second feature film “Correction” premiered at the Berlin Film Festival (Forum) and his third feature film “The Daughter“ premiered at the Berlin Film Festival (Forum). In 2016 his latest film “L’ultima spiaggia” (co-directed with Davide Del Degan) made its world premiere in the official selection of Cannes Film Festival.

After a PhD in Sociology, Erica Barbiani left the secluded academic world with a longing for storytelling. Plots, she suspected, were a better way to capture the audience’s attention. Since 2003, she has been producing films for Videomante, a company based in Italy. Her recent productions include THE SPECIAL NEED by Carlo Zoratti, co-produced with DETAiLFILM, premiered at the Locarno Film Festival and winner of the Golden Dove at DOK Leipzig, and THE GOOD LIFE, the first documentary of the Italian author Niccolo Ammaniti. She is co-writing the script of WISHING ON A STAR, by Slovakian director Peter Kerekes. Erica is a published author of two novels. Her latest work, Pericolo Gattino – an illustrated short story about a group of cats who enjoy crossing the streets unsafely – was just released in Italian bookstores. Erica is stepping away from production to dedicate herself full-time to writing and story editing. She can read scripts in English, French, Spanish and Italian, her mother tongue.

Tamas Beregi is a writer, movie script writer and script doctor. He lives in Budapest, where he graduated in Art History and Film Studies.  He published five novels and worked as a scriptwriter on various movies and short films, including My One and Onlies (2006, dir. Gyula Nemes), Zero (2016, dir. Gyula Nemes), and Hier (2018, dir. Bálint Kenyeres).

From 2011 to 2019 he worked at the Hungarian National Film Found as a script advisor, where he helped to develop movies like Son of Saul and Sunset. He is also an expert on the history and culture of video games.

Helen Beltrame-Linné is a Brazilian screenwriter and script consultant with a wide artistic and corporate background. Helen graduated from Brazil’s most prestigious Law School and worked as a corporate lawyer for many years before giving in to her passion and attending Film Studies in Paris. She worked for years with Brazilian director José Padilha and his Rio de Janeiro-based production company Zazen, where she managed the private funding and independent distribution of the Brazilian all-time box office record, Elite Squad: The Enemy Within (2010). In 2014, Helen was hired as CEO of The Bergman Center Foundation and festival director of the Bergman Week, both based on the island of Fårö (Sweden). where she also acted. Back to Brazil in 2018, Helen served as editor for the country’s largest newspaper, Folha de São Paulo. Presently, her main focus is storytelling in fiction features and series, mostly in Brazil, the USA and Europe, where she has taken part in the TFL Script Lab and is currently a mentor in programs such as the Full Circle Lab and the Pop Up Film Residency. Her most recent works include the adaptation of Leonardo Padura’s The Man Who Loved Dogs, the Amazon series 5X Comedy and the reworking of Michelangelo Antonioni’s legendary script, Technically Sweet.

Julie Billy studied film in NYC and international co-productions at La Fémis’s Atelier in France and in Germany after working for Celluloid Dreams as a production assistant.
She has joined Haut et Court in 2010 and handled international co-productions such as Zero Motivation by Talya Lavie, The Kindergarden Teacher by Nadav Lapid and The Lobster by Yorgos Lanthimos as well as the production of A journey through China by Zoltan Mayer.

Born in Bucharest, in 1979, Catalin Cristuțiu has been working as an editor on some of the most appreciated films in recent Romanian cinema. He has a long-time collaboration with director Radu Jude, starting with Radu’s first widely acclaimed THE TUBE WITH A HAT and continuing for all his later projects to date, including AFERIM! (2015 Silver Bear for Best Direction in Berlinale) and BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN (2021 Golden Bear). Among his long list of credits: IF I WANT TO WHISTLE, I WHISTLE (directed by Florin Serban, awarded at Berlinale 2009 with The Alfred Bauer Prize and Jury Grand Prix), CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’ (by Cristian Nemescu, Prix Un Certain Regard, Cannes 2007), the animated documentary CRULIC – THE PATH TO BEYOND (by Anca Damian, awarded in Locarno, CPH:DOX, Annecy and Jihlava IFF), the documentaries APOCALYPSE ON WHEELS and COLD WAVES (both by Alexandru Solomon), BLUE BOY (directed by Manuel Abramovich – Silver Bear for Short Film, 2018) and SODIERS. STORY FROM FERENTARI (by Ivana Mladenovic, world premiere at TIFF 2017).

Slovak director Viera Čákanyová (1980) studied screenwriting at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava and documentary filmmaking at FAMU in Prague, where she received an award at the FAMUfest festival for her student films Piraňa (2007) and Alda (2009).
Her experimental documentary FREM premiered at the Ji.hlava IDFF 2019 and was further presented at the Berlinale 2020, Sheffield IDFF, or Vienale 2020. Its loose sequel White on White won the Opus Bonum prize at the Ji.hlava IDFF 2020 and went on to be screened at Sheffield IDFF 2021 and Montreal IDFF 2021.
Besides working on her own films, she also works as a script editor and editor of independent film projects and makes documentary films for non-profit organizations and television.

Davy Chou is an acclaimed filmmaker and producer known for his ability to bridge French and Cambodian cinema. His feature film “Diamond Island” won the SACD Award at the Cannes Critics’ Week and was celebrated for its evocative storytelling and striking visuals. With a background in both documentary and narrative filmmaking, Davy brings a versatile approach to cinema, making him an invaluable mentor for emerging filmmakers looking to refine their narrative techniques and visual storytelling skills.

Nadja Dumouchel is a script writer and story editor based in Berlin and Paris. She currently co-writes several international feature films, the series « Berliners » together with scriptwriter Nicolas Ducray, produced by La Onda (Paris), as well as documentary and short film projects. She collaborated on the script of “Sons of Ramses” by Clément Cogitore that premiered at Semaine de la Critique in 2022 and wrote the documentary series « Art Stories », broadcasted by ARTE in 2019. Nadja studied visual culture, literature and cinema in Brighton, Berlin and Valencia. She was trained as a story editor at Torino Film Lab in 2012 and has since then been working on scripts from all over the world. She is consulting and tutoring for various filmlabs and co-founded « La Scénaristerie » in 2014, a development hub for screenwriters based in Paris. She previously worked as a commissioning editor for ARTE. Since 2020 she teaches script writing and dramaturgy at Filmuniversität Konrad Wolf in Babelsberg, Germany.

Giacomo Durzi has mostly been working as a scriptwriter for several production companies and for television networks. His experience includes credits as creative producer on feature films and as script consultant in many film productions. Currently he’s story editor and creative producer for SKY Italy, consulting on the development of the original production of tv series. 

He has teached screenwriting at the DFFB (Deutsche Film und Fernsehakademie Berlin), IFS (International Filmschule Koln), MASPA-Università La Sapienza di Roma, and currently at Holden school of Torino, and works as tutor and script consultant for different film training programs.

Livia Ulman and Andris Feldmanis, based in Tallinn, have been writing together for over 10 years. Starting with successful local TV shows in Estonia, they moved on to feature writing. Their debut feature Pretenders (2016) premiered at the San Sebastian Film Festival official programme and a French remake is currently in the making by BAC Films.

They have successfully collaborated with a number of feature film directors: Compartment No 6 (2021) co-written with Juho Kuosmanen won the Grand Prix at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and January (2022) co-written with acclaimed Latvian director Viesturs Kairišs won the Best International Narrative Feature Award at 2022 Tribeca Film Festival.

In the coming year, two new feature films written by them will be released: Erik Stoneheart directed by Ilmar Raag and Dark Paradise directed and co-written by Triin Ruumet.

Lucile Hadzihalilovic studied art history before graduating from the Paris film school IDHEC (now La Fémis).
Her debut mini-feature LA BOUCHE DE JEAN-PIERRE premiered in Un Certain Regard in Cannes in 1996. In 2004, INNOCENCE received the awards for Best Film in San Sebastian in 2004, Best film and Best Photography in Stockholm Film Festival. EVOLUTION (co-written with Alanté Kavaïté) picked up the Special Jury Prize in San Sebastian in 2015, and Best director award at Dublin film festival. Her latest film EARWIG (co-written with Geoff Cox) received the Special Jury Prize in San Sebastian in 2021.
Additionally, she has directed the short films GOOD BOYS, NECTAR and DE NATURA.
She edited and produced Gaspar Noe’s CARNE and I STAND ALONE and has contributed to the writing of ENTER THE VOID. She is also his production partner in the company Les Cinémas de la Zone.

Pierre Hodgson was born in London in 1959. After Oxford, he came to Paris where he was coordinator on Olivier Assayas’ first film and 1st AD to Raul Ruiz on TREASURE ISLAND, shot in Portugal. The next years were split between a job as a TV producer in London and screenwriting for Joao Canijo in Lisbon. Two of these films went to Un Certain Regard. He continues to combine making documentaries with screenwriting.

Film director and scriptwriter. Holds a degree in Feature Film Direction from the FAMU Film Academy in Prague and a Master‘s degree in Law. Her graduation film Bába was awarded the first prize in the Cinéfondation Selection at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival. The movie was also showcased at a number of international film festivals and received many more prizes such as Prix Europeén France 2 at the 24th Brest European Short Film Festival. In recent years she collaborated with Czech television on several documentary films and TV series. Her debut feature project The Caravan won the Czech Film Foundation Scriptwriting Award and Torino Film Lab Production Award. Currently, she is script editing a feature Tony, Shelly and The Spirit which got Eurimages Co-production Development Award. 

Juraj Krasnohorský is a film producer based in Bratislava and a co-founder of Pop Up Film Residency. He lived for 14 years in Geneva, Bilbao and Paris where he studied physics, mathematics and film.
In 2010 he founded production company Artichoke and released his debut feature film as director Tigers in the City (2012). As a creative producer, he currently works on several animated, feature-length and documentary films. His co-produced short film Superbia (2016) competed at Semaine de la Critique in Cannes. He is an EAVE alumnus and head of the CEE Animation Workshop.
Among expected titles under his production aegis are a four-country stop motion animation Of Unwanted Things and People and animation White Plastic Sky.

Domenico La Porta is the editor of Cineuropa, the online media focusing on the European audiovisual industry and available in 4 languages since 2002.

He is experienced as a journalist, script doctor and a transmedia author/producer and he has been involved with 40+ narrative projects for the last 15 years including academy awards nominees.

In 2014, he became the head of the Wallimage Creative fund in Belgium. Wallimage Creative is investing 1M€ per year in digital creation and transmedia storytelling.

In 2016, he was appointed director of the R/O institute, a project-based incubator for Narrative Intellectual Properties (NIP). The 8-months training programme is helping a new generation of storytellers to unfold their narratives across platforms (gaming, series, film, VR, comics…) while keeping their story world in check. Talents are also developing a tailored made business model that will position their NIP as a competitive ecosystem in the global market.

Aside from those complementary activities, Domenico frequently works as an international consultant in storytelling, audience mapping, creative funding and multi streams revenue models. He gives lectures around the world and teaches transmedia related courses in a master programme.

Paraguayan director and screenwriter. He was executive director of the first Public TV in his home country from the beginning of the project in 2010 until the coup d’état of June 2012. Capturing his nation’s trauma during that political chaos he wrote and directed ‘La Voz Perdida’ (The Lost Voice), Best Short Film at Venice Film Festival in 2016. His first feature film, ‘Las Herederas’ (The Heiresses) was in Competition at the 2018 Berlinale and won two Silver Bears (Alfred Bauer and Best Actress awards) and the Fipresci prize.

Teodora Ana Mihai was born in Bucharest, Romania, studied film at Sarah Lawrence College in upstate New York. Upon returning to Belgium, she first started working in the industry as a script supervisor and assistant director, followed by a stint in the TV industry. Teodora is a member of the European Film Academy.

Her films take on the challenge of striking a balance between social relevance and audio-visual poetry. Among other things, the creative documentary Waiting for August was nominated for the European Film Awards in 2014, and in 2021, her La Civil, produced by her Belgian based company One for the Road bvba, in collaboration with Mexican writer Habacuc Antonio De Rosario premiered in the Un Certain Regard of the Festival de Cannes.

Luisa Mora Fernández (San José, 1989). Costa Rican screenwriter, author and podcast producer working as a script consultant. She is currently based in Stockholm, Sweden. She studied at Guionarte screenwriting school in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and complemented her education with courses in the subjects of History of Art, History of Theater, History of Cinema, Literature amongst others.

She is a published author of short stories and poetry. In her native San José, she designed and facilitated multiple workshops in screenwriting and podcasting and pursued a career as a script advisor for filmmakers in need of guidance and training. To this day she has worked in such a way for projects in the United States, Italy, Sweden, Perú and Costa Rica.

Luz Nocturna, the short film she co-wrote with director Kim Torres, was in competition for Palm D’Or at the 75th edition of the Cannes Film Festival. She has co-written four feature length scripts: Madame Godin directed by Nathalie Álvarez Mesén (currently in early development), 4EBER, directed by Ximena Valdivia (currently under advanced development), Las Primeras, directed by Valentina Maurel (currently in pre-production), and If We Don’t Burn How Do We Light Up the Night, directed by Kim Torres (currently in pre-production). As a script consultant she has worked closely with projects such as Delirio, by director Alexandra Latishev, Los Hombres Morimos Antes, by director Federico Montero, and The Wolf Will Tear You Immaculate Hands, by director Nathalie Alvarez Mesén, as well as many other short films, feature length films and documentaries.

Her personal work as a filmmaker consists mostly of video-poetry, video-art, sound installation and sound narrative.

Dénes Nagy was born in 1980 in Budapest. He studied film directing at the University of Theatre and Film Arts (SZFE) in Budapest in the class of János Szász. As a guest student, he spent a year at the Berlin Film Academy (DFFB).

He has made several documentaries and fiction films screened at many significant national and international festivals. His short fiction Soft Rain was first presented to the international audience in Cannes at the 45th Directors’ Fortnight selection, while his documentary Another Hungary had its premiere at the 43rd International Film Festival Rotterdam. His debut feature film, Natural Light, was selected for the 71st Berlin Film Festival 2021 and awarded Silver Bear for the Best Director.

He lives and works in Budapest.

Olivia Neergaard-Holm (Denmark) graduated from the National Film School of Denmark in 2013. Neergaard-Holm has worked as an editor on various Danish and international feature films and documentaries. She wrote and edited the award-winning feature VICTORIA (Sebastian Schipper, 2015). DAVID LYNCH: THE ART OF LIFE is her directorial debut.

Kallia Papadaki is a professional author, screenwriter and script doctor and works as the commissioning editor for the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation. Her first feature script for the Penny Panayotopoulou’s Greco-German coproduced film September won the International Balkan Fund Script Development Award in 2010, received a Nipkow scholarship in Berlin. The film premiered at the official competition of the 48^th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. In 2020, she co-wrote the mini-series 42 C which premiered on the Cosmote TV cable platform. Her second feature script Wishbone is a Greek-French-German-Cyrpiot coproduction scheduled to be filmed in February 2022.       

 She teaches scriptwriting in the Hellenic Cinema and Television School Stavrakos and creative writing in the post-graduate department of the Metropolitan College.

Following cinema and literature studies in Paris and Rome, Laura Piani started her professional life as a documentary director. She studied scriptwriting at the Conservatoire Européen d’Ecriture Audiovisuelle in Paris and graduated in 2011. She works as a script consultant for different productions company and she teaches scriptwriting at l’ESRA and at CEEA in Paris where she lives. She’s currently working on a romantic comedy produced by The Bureau and co-writing 2 épisodes of Walkyries, a french and german coproduction serie produced by Banijay

François Pirot is a Belgian director and screenwriter.

He wrote and directed two feature fiction films, Mobile Home (2012) and Life in the woods (just completed), and a feature documentary, Eurovillage (2016).

 As a scriptwriter, he co-wrote several fiction feature films, including three with Joachim Lafosse (Private Property, Private Lessons, The restless) and works as a script consultant on numerous productions.

He also works as a tutor/mentor in different script-developing programs, as a film directing teacher at the Belgian film school IAD, and is a member of the Belgian film commission.  

Jani Pösö, the CEO of It’s Alive Films, is a producer and screenwriter. He has produced 5 feature films and 3 TV-series, all of them internationally acclaimed. Jani wrote and produced his first theatre play in 1996, his first short film in 2006, his first feature in 2011 and his first book in 2018. He is also behind It’s Alive Films’ multi-remade TV-format Mental. Jani has also produced music, theatre and events, established two advertising agencies and overseen a fashion brand.

Argentine-British artist filmmaker, Jessica Sarah Rinland’s work has been screened and exhibited internationally at Toronto Film Festival, New York Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, Rotterdam, Oberhausen, Cinema du Reel, Taipei Biennial, Somerset House and Bloomberg New Contemporaries. She has won awards including Special Mention at the Locarno Film Festival, Best Film at Documenta Madrid, Primer Premio at Bienale de Imagen en Movimiento, Arts + Science Award at Ann Arbor Film Festival, ICA’s Best Experimental Film at LSFF, and M.I.T’s Schnitzer prize for excellence in the arts. Residencies include Film Studies Center at Harvard University, Somerset House Studios, MacDowell, Ikusmira Berriak and Flaherty Featured Artist. She currently teaches at University College London and Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola and works as a projectionist at the Barbican Center, London. She holds a BA (Honors) in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London and an MSc in Arts, Culture and Technology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Polish writer & director Agnieszka Smoczyńska made her feature debut with The Lure (2015) in which she experimented with musical & horror film genres. The film brought her dozens of awards around the world, incl. Montreal, Porto, Chicago, San Francisco, Sitges and at the Sundance Film Festival, where she received the Special Award for “unique vision and design” and was released via prestigious Janus Films and Criterion Collection in the US.
At the invitation of the Sydney Film Festival, Variety, and the European Film Promotion, Smoczyńska took part in the “European Cinema: Ten Women to Watch” program. Winner of the Global Filmmaking Award funded by the Sundance Institute.
Her second film Fugue (2018) was invited to the prestigious competition La Semaine de la Critique at the 71st Festival de Cannes and won several statuettes around the world.
Her English-language debut Silent Twins with Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrance has been selected for Un Certain Regard section of the 75th Festival de Cannes.

Sonja Tarokic (1988, Zagreb) has an MA degree in film directing at the Academy of Dramatic Arts and a BA degree in comparative literature at the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities in Zagreb.  She is the writer and director of several short films, while her debut feature film The Staffroom premiered at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2021, where it was awarded Special Mention. With this project she participated in Torino Film Lab Script&Pitch and Framework development programs. 

She has been running her own scriptwriting workshop for five years, aimed at developing short films by young local authors, and often works as a feature film script consultant, which continues to be her passion job. She finished script consultancy training at Midpoint Institute’s Feature Launch in 2022. 

She works as a film director in advertising, and in 2021 started teaching at the Zagreb Academy a class in directing the actors, for students of acting and film directing.

Joëlle Touma started writing screenplays in 1998. At that time she was also a TV host and an actress in Lebanon. She then became the Beirut correspondent for the French daily Libération 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 Film in 2018) and Rachid Bouchareb (Just Like a Woman 2011). She also wrote for Le Bureau des Légendes, a French series produced par Canal+.

Livia Ulman and Andris Feldmanis, based in Tallinn, have been writing together for over 10 years. Starting with successful local TV shows in Estonia, they moved on to feature writing. Their debut feature Pretenders (2016) premiered at the San Sebastian Film Festival official programme and a French remake is currently in the making by BAC Films.

They have successfully collaborated with a number of feature film directors: Compartment No 6 (2021) co-written with Juho Kuosmanen won the Grand Prix at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and January (2022) co-written with acclaimed Latvian director Viesturs Kairišs won the Best International Narrative Feature Award at 2022 Tribeca Film Festival.

In the coming year, two new feature films written by them will be released: Erik Stoneheart directed by Ilmar Raag and Dark Paradise directed and co-written by Triin Ruumet.

After studying psychology in Belgium, Wim Vanacker moved to Dublin to work as a psychologist in the field of drug addiction. Three years later, he started studying at EICAR where he made two shorts: Endgame and The Naked leading the Blind. After graduating, he discovered NISI MASA – European Network of Young Cinema where he became the Head of the Script Department and the Project manager of the MEDIA-funded project, European Short Pitch. He founded Sireal Films where he produced the VAF-funded short empire and he’s a member of the Selection Committee for the Official Short Film Competition of the Cannes Film Festival, he works as a script consultant, creative advisor, and tutor and guest speaker for many film festivals and projects in development. As a writer/director, he’s currently developing the short films [ˈsɪə.ri.əl ] and Psycho Revisited.

Sebastian Winkels was born in Kleve in 1968 as the fourth of five children. He is a director, cameraman, editor and dramaturge of observational documentaries. His short and feature films, such as 7 Brüder or Talking Money (2017), have received numerous awards and been shown at international festivals.
Sebastian Winkels teaches and develops training programs for creative documentary films. Since 2006 he has been working as a tutor for international documentary film forums. He is part of the FirstCutLab team as an editing consultant since 2019.

Éva Zabezsinszkij is a Hungarian scriptwriter, script consultant, story editor and casting director. She graduated from ELTE University Faculty of Arts and at SZFE Hungarian Academy of Film. She participated in several theatre projects with Árpád Schilling and Kornél Mundruczó. She worked with Laszló Nemes in Son of Saul, which won the American Academy Award USA Best Foreign Language Film prize, with Dénes Nagy in Natural Light, which won Silver Bear and with Laszló Csuja and Anna Nemes in Gentle, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival.

In 2015 she became a member of the Hungarian National Film Fund (HN FilmInstitute) Dramaturg Committee and developed more than 50 feature and documentary projects.

Ayman El Amir is a distinguished script consultant and producer from Egypt, renowned for his work in developing award-winning scripts. With a background in film production and screenwriting, Ayman has contributed to numerous successful projects in the Middle East and beyond. His deep understanding of narrative structure and character development will help participants craft engaging and impactful stories. Ayman’s mentorship focuses on screenplay development, ensuring that each project has a strong and compelling narrative foundation. His most recent film, The Brink of Dreams, has won the prestigious Golden Eye award at Cannes Film Festival in 2024.

Magali Negroni is a renowned producer and mentor with a rich background in the film industry. Her experience spans the production of critically acclaimed films that have made a significant impact on the international stage. Magali’s expertise covers production strategies, financing, and the practical aspects of film production. Her mentorship will provide participants with invaluable insights into the business side of filmmaking, helping them navigate the complexities of bringing a film from concept to completion.

Mariana Ricardo is an accomplished screenwriter and editor, recognized for her work on internationally acclaimed films. She has collaborated with notable directors and has a keen eye for storytelling and narrative pacing. Mariana’s experience in both writing and editing allows her to provide comprehensive guidance on script development and post-production. Her mentorship will emphasize the importance of a well-crafted narrative and the nuances of editing that bring a film to life.

Nadav Lapid is a writer and director born in Tel-Aviv. He studied philosophy at the University in Tel-Aviv, French literature in Paris and cinema at the Sam Spiegel Film School in Jerusalem. His first feature film, Policeman, won numerous awards in festivals, such as the Jury Prize at the Locarno Film Festival in 2011 and the Best Film award at the BAFICI and at the San Francisco International Film Festival. His second feature film, The Kindergarten Teacher, an Israeli-French coproduction, was the revelation of the 2014 Semaine de la Critique in Cannes. The film won more than twenty international awards and was successfully released in various countries, among which France and the United States. Nadav presently works on his third feature, Micro Robert, a French production that will be shot in Paris. His latest medium-length film, From the Diary of a Wedding Photographer, had a special screening at the 55th Semaine de la Critique.

Anita Doron is an award-winning Canadian-Hungarian writer, director and story editor. She was born in Transcarpathia, a little known land of nomadic ghosts, barley mush and apricot brandy. She was one of the youngest published poets in the former USSR and grew up in a family of high altitude mountaineers. At 12, Anita’s first film – an environmental protest piece – raised the ire of Soviet bureaucracy and set her on a path to cinema.

Anita’s movies have screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, SXSW, the International Film Festival Rotterdam and the Future of Cinema Salon at the Cannes Film Festival.  As writer and director, her features films include, The End of Silence, Late Fragment, Europa East, Mystico Fantastico! and The Lesser Blessed. The Lesser Blessed received a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Anita wrote the screenplay for the Academy Award and Golden Globe nominated animated feature film, The Breadwinner. Anita was nominated for an Annie Award, a Humanitas Prize, and won a Canadian Screen Award for her work on the screenplay.

Michaela studied at VŠMU (Slovakia), DAMU (Czech Republic) and UCLA (Los Angeles). In 2014, Michaela moved to Berlin to be part of a Serial-Eyes program. An intensive 8-month postgraduate course on TV writing and show running based in Berlin. Michaela found her network during the studies and is currently living in Berlin. Michaela was part of the EPI European TV Drama Series Lab in the year 2013.

Apart from her own work as a freelance writer and creative producer (five TV series already aired, several feature film and TV series projects in different stages of development or production) Michaela is also working as a pitching trainer (Sarajevo Film Festival, Serial Eyes – DFFB, Series Mania – Writers Campus, Midpoint workshops, Odessa International Film festival, Antalya Film Forum, Tallinn Black Nights, etc.). Since 2021 Michaela is the Head of Studies of Canneseries Institute.

Claudia Bottino began her career on the writing team for the award–winning TV series Churchmen(ARTE).Duo, her first short film as a director was selected at numerousinternational festivals, including PalmSprings International ShortFest, Odense InternationalFilm Festival, London Short Film Festival and Sundance,where it played as part of Short FilmConnection in 2016. She co–wrote,Sirin, a first feature film directed byMontenegrindirector Senad Sahmanovic (Sarajevo Film Festival 2023). After directing her secondshortfilm,Seul, she worked on the screenplay ofTender Age, by Julien Gaspar–Oliveri,broadcasted on ARTE andscreened in numerous festivals, including Clermont–Ferrand andAngers Premiers Plans. The short was a finalistat the 2021 César Awards. Recently, she co–wroteLoin de la route, Hugo Vieira da Silva’s fourth feature filmproduced by Paulo Branco,currently in post–production. She also co–wrote the Netflix teen dramaCaught by awave,directed by Massimiliano Camaiti, and she is currently working on Hugo Vieira da Silva’s fifthfeature filmand Julien Gaspar–Oliveri’s first feature film,La Frappe, whose script was afinalist at the Sopadin bestscreenplay award 2023. Her third short film,The Three of Us,broadcasted on CANAL+, premiered at ClermontFilm Fest and was part of the OfficialSelection for the César 2024. Claudia is a former alumna of Torino FilmLab

Elena López Riera is visual artist and filmmaker from Spain, holding a PHD in Audiovisual Communication. In 2008 she moved to Switzerland, where she teaches cinema and comparative literature at Geneva University and the HEAD (haute école d’art et design). She also has worked as a programmer for film festivals such as Entrevues Belfort (France), Sevilla European Film Festival (Spain) and Visions du réel (Switzerland).  

Her films have been screened at prestigious international film festivals such as: Toronto, San Sebastián, Zagreb, Cinéma du réel, Leuven, Mecal, Curtocircuito, Filmadrid, Hiroshima, Rio de Janeiro, Cali, Rekjiavik, Lincoln Center in New York, Le cinema club. 

Elena López Riera is also co-founder of lacasinegra, an artists’ collective dedicated to research and experimentation with new audiovisual devices, with whom she co-directed the feature film Pas à Genève. 

She participated in at the Berlinale Talent Campus, as well as the Ikusmira Berriak residency program of the San Sebastián Film Festival, the Arché lab of Doc Lisboa festival, Spanish Academy of cinema residency, and at the prestigious Cinéfondation residence of the Cannes film festival where she was awarded by the CNC grant 2019 in Cannes film festival pitch session. 

As an invited artist she’s participated in the first international film seminar of the Tabakalera Art Center, at the Museum of universitary art in México (México DF) and ArtBo (Bogotá, Colombia). In 2019 she has her first solo exhibition at Domium Art Center in Salamanca (Spain).  

El agua premiered at Cannes Film Festival, Director’s Fortnight in 2022 is her first feature film. The film is coproduced by Switzerland (Alina Film), Spain (Suica Films) and France (Le film du Worso). 

Graduated from Bratislava‘s VŠMU editing department, where she currently teaches in addition to editing films. After trying out different types and scales of productions, from newscast, reality TV and fiction series to feature animation Sasha found her calling in documentaries, their dramaturgy.

Michelangelo Frammartino is an Italian filmmaker born in 1968 in Milan to Calabrian parents. He initially studied architecture at the Politecnico di Milano, where he explored the relationship between visual imagery, space, and materials. He later attended the Civica Scuola del Cinema in Milan, focusing on video art and installations influenced by Studio Azzurro. Frammartino’s works often bridge cinema and visual arts, with notable projects like Casa delle belle addormentate (inspired by Yasunari Kawabata’s novel) and Alberi, a cinematic installation showcased at MoMA PS1 in New York. His feature films include Il Dono (2003), a low-budget project shot in Calabria, and Le quattro volte (2010), a meditative exploration of existence that won the Europa Cinemas Label at Cannes and sold to over 40 countries. His most recent film, Il Buco (2021), premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize

Alice is a comedy producer and script consultant. Her editorial input led to a series winning a Rose d’Or Award and she is currently developing her own comedy series with UK production company Little Island Productions. Alice has script edited and worked as a script consultant in East Africa, North America and across Europe.

Nayeem Mahbub is an international script consultant originally from Dhaka and currently based between Stockholm and Tallinn. He has consulted and mentored for EAVE Producers Workshop, LIM Boosting Ideas, Hamburg Series Lab and European Short Pitch amongst others, as well as on a project basis. Before switching to consulting, he worked as a film and video editor. He is an alumni of the multinational documentary DocNomads masters programme. He started his career writing and directing 2D animation in his native Bangladesh, followed by a short stint as a BBC World Service producer.

One of the three main tutors for the TFL SeriesLab. Co-founder and consultant of Atelier Scenariuszowe. As a consultant works for workshops by Tatino Films, Netflix, TFL.

Since 2016, he teaches screenwriting at Scuola Holden in Italy. In 2014-2021, an assistant professor at the Polish Film School in Łódź.

Daria Kashcheeva born in 1986 is an independent filmmaker based in Prague. Her Bachelor’s animation short Daughter (2019) has received over 100 awards at festivals worldwide and was nominated for the 92nd Oscar Academy Award. Her master degree film Electra (2023) premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and got the Best Short film award at the Toronto International Film Festival. Through the integration of hybrid forms, she aims to challenge and expand the constraints of conventional film genres. Currently, Daria is developing her debut full-length project, They/Them, in which she continues to explore hybrid forms and genres.