Residents

Jacqueline Lentzou
Resident - Bratislava 2018
Born in Athens, Greece, June 1989. Grew up in Thessaloniki from 1996 onwards. Her work revolves around coming of age stories, family structures, intimacy, loss and love. Graduated with distinction from London Film School (2013), with film “Thirteen Blue”. Sarajevo (2014) and Berlinale (2015) Talents Alumna. In 2018 she won Best Short Film Award at Cannes’ Semaine de la Critique with the film she was editing at the residence, “Hector Malot – The Last Day Of The Year”. At the Pop Up she worked on her first feature “Selene66”, that was released with the title “Moon, 66 Questions” with the premiere at the Berlinale 2021, Encounters section.

Oliver Adam Kusio
Resident - Bratislava 2019
Oliver Adam Kusio is a German and Polish director, based in Berlin and Warsaw. He has collaborated with many film and theatre directors such as Rosa von Praunheim. In 2017 while he was studying at the Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF film school, he directed Ela-Sketches on a Departure. Selected by La Semaine de la Critique, the film gives a melancholic and radiant portrayal of a woman as she is about to leave to find a better life. At the Pop Up he worked on his first feature “Pax Europa”.

Koen Mortier
Resident - Cairo 2019
After completing his film studies at the Royal Institute of Theatre, Cinema and Sound in Brussels, Koen Mortier made several short films and music videos. In 1999 he established CZAR in Brussels with fellow director Joe Vanhoutteghem. Koen has directed two feature films: ‘Ex Drummer’ and ‘22nd of May’. Both were selected for international festivals and won several prizes. His third feature ‘Un Ange’ (based on a novel by Dimitri Verhulst) was selected for Toronto International Film Festival ans as released in Belgium and in France. At the Pop Up he worked on “Skunk”.

Meriem Mesraoua
Resident - Bratislava 2019
Of Algerian origin, Meriem Mesraoua was born in Qatar, raised in France and earned a BSc with Honours in Media Industries and Technologies from Northwestern University. Mesraoua explored various facets of the film industry and gained professional experience at Miramax, NYWIFT, film sets and festivals, amongst others. Her short films are ‘Coucou’ (2009) and ‘Our Time Is Running Out’ (2017). She is currently working on a new short titled ‘Tainted’. At the Pop Up she worked on her first feature “The Other Wife”.

Giovanni Troilo
Resident - Bratislava 2019
Troilo moves between the world of cinema, television, publishing, and advertising. He began filming and taking photographs at a young age. Troilo’s work has been published in Newsweek Japan, Der Spiegel, D magazine (La Repubblica newspaper), GQ Italy, CNN, Wired Italy, Wired UK, Wired Corea, Wired Germany, Ventiquattro, Wallpaper, GQ Spain, Io Donna, Flair, Sport&Street, Velvet and Urban. In 2011 he directed Fan Pio, his first feature length film, and published in Germany his first book, Apulien, awarded as best photographic book at the International Photography Awards in 2012. At the Pop Up he worked on “Le Paradis, C’est Ici”, together with co-writer & co-resident Gaia Baldini.

Marija Kavtaradze
Resident - Bratislava 2019
Marija Kavtaradzė studied film directing at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. Her short film “I’m Twenty Something” won best student film at the Lithuanian Film Academy Awards in 2015. Her debut feature « Summer Survivors » made a splash at the Toronto Film Festival. This road-movie across Lithuania moved audiences due to its unique tone to portray mental illness – light-hearted, humorous and ultimately radiant. At the Pop Up she worked on “Slow”.

Beatriz Seigner
Resident - Bratislava 2019
Beatriz’ 2nd feature film “Los Silencios” premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2018, and was distributed internationally by Pyramide. The film received enthusiastic critical and audience appraisal internationally, for example reaching more than 30 000 admissions in French theaters. “While They Sleep” is in development stage. It will be produced in Brazil by Seigner’s company Miriade Filmes, together with Erica de Freitas’ Encantamento Filmes. Thierry Lenouvel will continue collaborating with Seigner as French co-producer. At the Pop Up she worked on “While They Sleep”.

Kuba Czekaj
Resident - Bratislava 2019
Kuba graduated in directing from the University of Silesia’s Krzysztof Kieślowski Faculty of Radio and Television. His debut ffeature “Baby Bump” received a Special Mention in the Queer Lion competition at the 72nd International Film Festival in Venice (2015). His next full-length feature “The Erlprince” received its American premiere at the 2017 Slamdance Festival and its first European screening at the Berlin International Film Festival the same year. At the Pop Up he worked on “I Am Blue”.

Alan Holly
Resident - Bratislava 2019
Alan Holly is an artist and filmmaker from Dublin, Ireland. Alan has been working in the industry for the past ten years, as an animator, director, writer, editor and background artist. In 2010, he was one of the founders of the studio And Maps And Plans, where he has been working closely with a group of friends to produce artistically driven animated film projects, including several award winning films. His short film Coda was the short animation winner at SXSW and also shortlisted for the Oscar’s. At the Pop Up he worked on his debut feature “Piece”, together with producer Carla Vulpiani and co-writer Rory Byrne.

Carlota Pereda
Resident - Bratislava 2019
Carlota Pereda has spent her career working in TV fiction. She has been a screenwriter and script supervisor for series such as Periodistas and Motivos Personales, has directed series,”El secreto de Puente Viejo”, LEX and Lalola. Her first short, The Blondes, was selected in over 137 festivals worldwide and/or awarded in prestigious festivals such as Medina del Campo, La Semana del Corto, Certamen Internacional de Cortometrajes Ciudad de Soria or CortoEspaña. This project is the leap to feature film of Pereda’s short ‘Piggy’, which notably won the Goya Award for Best Short Film. At the Pop Up she worked on “Piggy” that is now completed and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2022, Midnight section.

Yona Rozenkier
Resident - Athens 2020
Yona Ronzenkier’s debut feature “The Dive” premiered in Locarno competition in 2018, whereas the Israeli director was present in Cannes Film Festival with two shorts: “The Sign”, co-directed with Eleonora Veninova and presented at the Directors’ Fortnight as part of the SEE Factory, and “Parparim” presented in the Cannes Film Festival Official Competition. His 2nd feature film “Decompression” is in pre-production. “Siberia” received development support from the Israeli Film Fund, with Kobi Mizrahi producing in Israel and Dominique Welinski in France. At the Pop Up he worked on “Siberia”.

Camille Degeye
Resident - Bratislava 2020
Born in 1990, Camille Degeye is graduate from the Paris 8 University master’s degree in cinematographic creation. She joined the craft laboratories L’Etna and l’Abominable in 2013 where she trained as an autodidact in the work of film cinema. Her first three films have been shown in international festivals such BISFF Busan, EIFF Edinburgh or JCC Tunis and won awards in France and Italy. Her last short film Journey through a body was selected at the 58th Critics’ Week, Locarno Film Festival or DocLisboa among others. She is currently developing her first feature film between Paris and Tunisia. At the Pop Up she worked on “Sphinx”, together with co-writer & co-resident Luc Chessel.

Kaleena Kiff
Resident - Bratislava 2020
Kaleena Kiff developed & produced the BAFTA Scotland award-winning feature The Legend of Barney Thomson. The black comedy stars Academy Award Winner Emma Thompson and BAFTA winners Robert Carlyle & Ray Winstone. Additionally, Kaleena produced the comedy feature No Men Beyond This Point (TIFF 2015), released by Sony Pictures Entertainment. Recently, Kaleena and her partners premiered documentary feature film Stuffed in competition at the SXSW Film Festival. Kaleena is an alum of the EAVE, Toronto Producers Lab, Rotterdam Lab, Berlinale Talent Project Market, and an ACE Producer. At the Pop Up she worked on “Until I Find You”.

Anita Doron
Resident - Bratislava 2020
Anita Doron’s latest script was The Breadwinner which was nominated for Best Animation Feature in the Oscars 2018, an Annie Award for best screenplay and a Canadian Screen Award for best adapted screenplay. Anita Doron was born in the former USSR but later fled to Canada where she attended Ryerson University studying filmmaking and scriptwriting. At the Pop Up she worked on ” Sweetwater”.

Cristina Grosan
Resident - France 2020
Cristina Grosan is a Hungarian- Romanian filmmaker and visual artist. Since graduating from university, she has directed 6 short films, among which award-winning short “Holiday at the Seaside” exploring a mother-daughter relationship. She is developing her second feature, “Ordinary Failures” together with Czech writer Klára Vlasáková. The film’s development is supported by a grant from the Czech Film Fund. At the Pop Up, Cristina worked together with the scriptwriter Klára Vlasáková on Ordinary Failures.

Issam Bouguerra
Resident - online 2020
Born in Kairouan in 1983, graduated in Advertising from the Design School of Tunis and in Cinema Production from Los Angeles City College. He began his career with JWT as a copywriter and graphic designer specializing in animation. He goes on to direct at Attounissia TV with a series of docudrama about crimes. In 2017, he wrote and directed Faracha his first short film. 10.628 that he worked on at the Pop Up is his first attempt to a feature film based on his personal experience as a prisoner in Mornaguia Prison.

Aline Fischer
Resident - Bratislava 2020

John Kolya Reichart
Resident - Faaborg 2020
John Kolya Reichart lives in Berlin as musician, author, director and proud father of two children. He studied in Bonn, Berlin and Baden-Württemberg.
Since his graduation from Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in 2012, he works as an author and director for advertising and feature films. In 2014 he co-founded the production company Polly Films in Berlin, and in 2016 theatrically released his award-winning first feature Antons Fest / party of eight. While developing the TV-Series ‘Chicago am Rhein’ with btf. At the Pop Up, he worked on his second feature MASCHA, together with the scriptwriter Carl Gerber and Producer Julia Wagner.

Esmir Filho
Resident - Athens 2021
Esmir Filho’s first feature film, Os Famosos E Os Duendes da Morte (The Famous and the Dead, 2009), was the winner of the Rio Film Festival and was selected in Locarno and Berlin.
Esmir is co-author of the internet hit Tapa Na Pantera, with more than 10 million hits on YouTube. His short film Alguma Coisa Assim won Best Screenplay at Cannes Critics’ Week in 2006, while his short Saliva also premiered in Cannes the year after.
In 2018, Esmir Filho released his second feature film Alguma Coisa Assim, a Brazilian-German co-production. His third feature, Verlust, is in post-production. Currently, Esmir is about to launch his first 6-episodes series Kissing Game as the showrunner on Netflix. At the Pop Up, Esmir was working on Undetectable.

Carlos Lechuga
Resident - online 2020-2021

Duarte Coimbra
Resident - Bratislava 2021

Jan Gebert
Resident - Bratislava 2021

Borbála Nagy
Resident - Bratislava 2021
Borbála was born in Hungary, the second child of two dancers. After having studied Movie Sciences and worked as a journalist in Budapest, in 2011 she moved to Germany. Starting out as a film festival organiser, it shortly became obvious to her that directing would be the best channel to share her stories. In 2012 she successfully applied to the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB). Since then her films have been shown at international festivals worldwide. Her latest work, Land of Glory has just won the prize of the best short film at the German Short Film Award. In 2017 Borbála was selected to the Talents Sarajevo, in 2020 to the Berlinale Talents. At the moment she is developing her first feature, Nothing to See Here in the framework of the Hungarian Inkubátor Program. This project was invited to the CineLink Co-Production Market (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and to the Budapest Debut Film Forum (Hungary), where it received the first prize for the best pitch. At the Pop Up, Borbála worked on Nothing to See Here.

Bartłomiej Żmuda
Resident - Bratislava 2021
Born in 1981 in Nysa, Poland. After graduating University of Wyszynski and a 2 year Film Course, Bartłomiej Żmuda moved to Great Britain where he started his journey through music videos making. He worked there for Dj Vadim, Buen Chico and Unsigned Artists bands. In 2007, he began studying Film Directing In The Polish National Film, Television and Theater School in Lodz, which he finished in 2014. In 2015 he finished one year Feature Film Programme DEVELOPMENT LAB (Studio Prób) in Wajda School.
For his short films Barbakan (2010) and Sandland (2014), Bartłomiej received several international awards, among them Grand Prix in Bukarest ISFF 2012, Audience Award – Rio de Janeiro 2011, Grand Prix in Teheran ISFF 2011, Grand Prix – Toruń SFF 2011, Best European Talent Award – Berlin International Short Film Festival “Interfilm”, 2011 At the Pop Up, Bartek was working on his fiction feature debut More.

Youssef Michraf
Resident - Bratislava 2021

Zhannat Alshanova
Resident - Vilnius 2021

Yasmine Chouikh
Resident - online 2021
Born in 1982 in Algiers, Yasmine Chouikh studied human arts and sciences and graduated in psychology and educational sciences. She worked as an actress in La Citadelle (1987) by Mohamed Chouikh, in a television film by Djamel Bendedouch in 1990, and then in Hamlet of Women (2004) by Mohamed Chouikh. She wrote in the cultural page of the daily newspaper l’Autentique and works as a journalist and presents a cinematographic television program on the national Algerian television since 2005. She has written and directed several shorts films, e. g. The Door and The Djinn.
She is the art director of the International Taghit Short Film Festival (Algeria) and has been in charge of short films at the International Arab Film Festival of Oran (Algeria).
Her first film, the romantic drama Until The End Of Time (2017) was selected as the Algerian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards. At the Pop Up, Yasmine was working on Only God.

Jenni Toivoniemi
Resident - Bratislava 2022

Ian Barling
Resident - Bratislava 2022

Lana Bregar
Resident - Faaborg 2022
She is currently writing her first feature screenplay as part of the Slovenian workshop Scenarnica and the international Munich Film Up!
Her graduation film Otava had its international premiere at the Sarajevo Film Festival and was in the semi-finalist selection for the Student Oscar.

Erec Brehmer
Resident - Asunción 2022
Born in 1987. Living in Munich, Germany. Studied directing at the University of Television and Film Munich (HFF). His graduation film La Palma was released in German cinemas in 2020 and is now available on Netflix Germany. He finished his first documentary Who we will have been in 2021 and participated in the 31st Drehbuchwerkstatt Munich 2019/2020, as well as the talent development programs ZFF Academy (Zurich Filmfestival 2020) and Berlinale Talents (Berlinale 2021). At thePop Up, Erec was working on Lightness and Weight.

Anastasiya Gruba
Resident - Ukraine 2022 (planned: Cairo 2022)
Anastasiya Gruba is a Ukrainian screenwriter and director, member of the NGO Contemporary Ukrainian Cinema. Graduated from Kyiv National Ivan Karpenko-Kary Theatre, Cinema and Television University. Participated in the European Short Pitch 2020 with the short film project Ice-Hole, in the Terrarium Residence 2020 with the feature film project Women Suicide Season and in the Script Workshop from Wiz-Art Festival 2020 with Ice-Hole. Co-writer of the feature film Chrysanthemum Day, dir. Simon Mozgovyi. At the Pop Up, Anastasia was working on Women Suicide Season,

Loïc Hobi
Resident - Berlin 2022
Loïc Hobi is a French-Swiss filmmaker born in 1997. He studied directing at Luc Besson’s film school École de la Cité in France, graduating in 2019 with L’Homme Jetée. He has recently released The Life Underground, a coming of age short. Focusing on his identity growing up in a digital world, he has made more experimental films like New Gods. Merging his narrative and experimental sides, Loïc has just finished shooting Alexx196 & the pink sand beach. He is now developing his first feature Crypto Lover which he was working on at the Pop Up Film Residency.

Cyrielle Raingou
Resdient - Bucharest 2022
Cyrielle Raingou is a Cameroonian filmmaker passionate about the concept and development of a certain African cultural identity, its promotion on an international scale and the economic interest it raises. She very often uses legends, metaphor, the symbolism of certain animals, to support human stories in their complexity, and the mystery of life. She holds master’s degrees in law and in film directing. At the Pop Up, Cyrielle was working on I`m Coming for you.

Pratik Thakare
Resident - Bratislava 2022
Pratik Thakare is a filmmaker based in Mumbai, India. Pratik went on to study Film Direction & Screenplay Writing at Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute, Kolkata. His short film Salana Jalsa premiered at Shanghai IFF and was part of film festivals such as Dharamshala IFF, Filmschoolfest Munich, Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA), New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF). Having written a screenplay for an upcoming sports drama series, Pratik is currently developing the script for his debut feature. At the Pop Up, Pratik was working on A Midnight Meal.