Participants 2011

Vittoria Fiumi graduated in Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester. She worked for TWA (Tibetan Women Association) where she engaged in producing and co-directing the documentary film “Peaceful place”(Human Rights Festival 2006). Also, worked for the organization APA where she engaged in video documentation of projects in Zanzibar. In 2009 she finalised “All of a sudden it was dark”, a documentary film about a Serb human rights activist in Bosnia (IDFA Doc for Sale 2009). From 2007 until 2009 Vittoria worked for Fandango Srl, an independent film production company based in Rome as a co-manager of the New Media department. She works and lives in Rome.

I am working as an independent documentary filmmaker and editor. Together with Maria Rank we already worked on several films in eastern Europe as we do again in this project. As an editor I work mainly for the public broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk in Munich, further on for Servus TV in austria. I teach documentary filmmaking and editing at the University of applied sciences in Würzburg (since 2009) and in Munich (from march 2011)

Tonje is an award-winning director and producer who has worked with independent documentary since 1996.  Her work focuses on human rights, environmental protection and social justice.
Tonje is the founder of Ground Production, a documentary production company based in Norway and the United States.
Her films include PLAY AGAIN, a documentary on the consequences of a childhood removed from nature, and INDPENDENT INTERVENTION, a film about the media coverage of the war in Iraq.
Tonje is the Festival Director of Human Rights Human Wrongs, a documentary film festival in Oslo, Norway.

Since 2004 I have made several documentary films which have have been shown at film festivals. In these films I was responsible for the complete production, scripting, shooting and editing. In several seminars and workshops I learnt about shooting, editing, lighting, dramaturgy. Since 2007 I hold film workshops for handicapped youngsters. I studied mathematics and  I'm experienced in working with computer.

Filmmaker. Makes documentaries, audio visual tools for social communication, short films, video-art works, video accounts of cultural events, social reportage. Designs and runs image workshops.
Owner of the Settembre Film production company since 2005.

Serdar Ferit is a director and trained cameraman. He has excelled in visually attractive drama, documentaries, virals and music videos, winning several awards for his work and receiving personal praise from the likes of Kevin Spacey, Emma Thompson and Mike Figgis. Serdar also teaches filmmaking at the University of Greenwich and has been teaching film at HE level since 2007.

• 2003: graduated from the Institut des Arts de Diffusion (IAD) in Louvain-La-Neuve.
• 2004: first documentary in Niger: «  Tchissete, the mirror of the Tuareg » .
• 2005-2006: student at the University of the Arts in Berlin (section: experimental mediadesign)
• 2006-2007: director for an audiovisual company, “Murmure Media”, active in arousing critical faculty.
• February 2008: internship at the Greenpeace office of Montreal
• 2008: winner of a Canadian contest for traveling videasts, « Müvmedia 2008 ».
• 2009: master degree in environmental issues
• September 2010: his 2nd long feature, « A cycle of fences » was finished. Production: Canvas (VRT)

Lately, creation of a production company called “Grizzly Films”.

I’m a young independent Italian filmmaker with a strong interest in human stories. I started working as film critic for the online “Cinecorriere” and I have soon been involved in various projects mainly in the Camera Editing Departments. I have also directed sperimental short films and reportages.

Liv Michelsen, 10 years experience in tv/film production.
Director, Producer and Executive producer of documentary series and factual formats. Has developed and been involved in more than 30 titles, mostly for Danish national broadcasters DR and TV 2.
Had her own production company, TvPeople, in collaboration with the media house PeopleGroup, 2006-2010.
Previously Development Producer and Executive Producer at the leading independent documentary production company Koncern TV & Film Production for 5 years, and development producer for DR 2 years (public broadcaster).
Currently Development Producer in the factual area at the production company Metronome, Part of Shine Group.

I'm a freelance author and director for Arte's "Kurzschlussmagazin", Hermannfilm Produktion Berlin and others.
Recently I directed a short reportage about the malaysian shortfilmscene and the censorship in Malaysia.
I did two documentaries about german football fans:
- "Pech und Schwefel. Mehr als Fussball auf St. Pauli" (24 minutes),
- "Der zwölfte Mann sind wir. Fans des FC St. Pauli" (30 minutes)
I have worked with young adults in different filmworkshops and did a documentary about an polish-german circus exchange.

I am a trained visual anthropologist (MA) and human geographer (PhD) who directs eco-documentaries. With more than 10 years broadcast and international development experience, I focus on sustainable development, water, climate change and human rights. My work has been broadcast worldwide and taken me to remote areas like Syria, North Iraq, Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Algeria, Tunesia, Kenya, Uganda, Surinam and Darfur. I also produced two independent animated documentaries with funding from the UK filmcouncil Digital Shorts Scheme and the Wellcome Trust.

Vanhala studied cinematography and directing in Tampere, Finland. Her documentary film Nimeni on Alma was awarded at several festivals. Could You Love is her first documentary film after graduating and it was awarded as the best documentary film at the Kettupäivät short film festival 2010 in Helsinki. The film is screened in March in Bergamo film meeting in Italy, Go Short festival in Holland and Tampere film festival in Finland. Vanhala also does new media art and interactive installations.

I’m graduated in Letters, art and languages. Since, i work as a photograph, camera operator and director of photography. As i have a long professional experience in fiction, i’m focusing on documentary and new possibilities of narration on crossmedia. I had participated on numerous documentaries projects  and directed two Ici, tout le temps about a shanty town in south of France; "Fair trade and solidarity economy".

Filmmaker with a background in video art, music videos and the Copenhagen indie rock scene.
Holds a Master of Arts in Film Studies, runs the independent film company Social Elephant, and works as a Production Manager for the documentary film festival CPH:DOX.
In his work Frederik combines political indignation, a strong and uncompromising visual expression and a certain talent for rhythm, pace and tonality.

I started my studies in Education, New Media and Photography in Athens, and then followed a Masters in Art Therapy in Buenos Aires. Today in my early thirties I live and work in Athens.
Since 2008 I have founded the independent production house “Savefrag” specializing in documentary filmmaking and have produced and directed various commercials, music videos, short films and documentaries for the Greek Television.
Moreover, as a co-founder of the N.G.O AMAKA I teach video and photography into underprivileged groups living in Athens (refugees, immigrants, street children etc.)

After having obtained a Master in Anthropology in London and a diploma in documentary studies in Milan, I started working as script writer and research and development expert for different Italian production companies. Since 2005, my passion for development work lead me to work in the developing world (Kenya, Ethiopia, Senegal) both as project manager (mainly for the Italian Development Cooperation) and as film director. I realized several social documentaries commissioned by NGOs and production companies, the last one is a 52 minute film dealing with modernity and tradition in Ethiopia.

As you will see in my enclosed CV, my background is in journalism and social documentary. I believe film is one of the most powerful platforms for education and empowerment and an invaluable tool for social change.

Graduated in Psychology and postgraduate in Television Reportage. She worked as a producer for the public Catalan channel and as a screenwriter for Balearic TV. In documentary, she co-directed “MEJOR CON CANCIONES”,  about two nonconformist singers battle to find a space into the music world. “HEREVES” , her first long documentary, is about the present and the future of Saharawi women (TV and festivals broadcasted). She worked as a cinematographer on the TV series “MEMÒRIA I OBLIT D’UNA GUERRA” about the civil war at the Balearic Islands. “CINC BATALLES” is her last documentary.

Anthropologist, journalist and documentary filmmaker. She graduated from the faculties of  Journalism and Cultural Anthropology  at the University of Warsaw. She studied Documentary Filmmaking at the University of Copenhagen. There she co-directed the documentary short "The voice in my head". Currently she works on her 52 minutes documentary film "How to fight".

I am a 25 years old graduate producer of La Fémis-Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg (Atelier Ludwigsburg-Paris 2010). At the age of 20 years, I started my career as young documentary film maker (Nightshift on the Oder) and also wrote about the rise and fall of Romanian documentary filmmaking (nominated for the Hamburg Media Award 2008). Meanwhile I have had the honour to work as junior producer within very prestigious companies from the international film industry such as Tarantula Film, Samsa Film, EAVE, Mandragora International, Independenta Distribution.

The definite experience that drove me towards trying to express myself with visual moving pictures was seeing „Space Odyssey“ with 16-17 years in a shabby romanian cinema in a small town.
I first started making short movies, that can be seen more as small experiments then films in themselves and then quickly discovered my interest for documentaries. Slowly getting nearer the documentary style of cinematic language through a few short documentary films and then by beeing an assistant director and reporter on 2 longer documentary films both shot in Romania. Working as a crew member on these 2 films helped me immensly in understanding how to approach protagonists, how to select vital moments from the life happening around you to tell a story. I strongly believe that every film should tell a story especially a documentary. A story of a life, a moment , a situation or maybe even the story of an emotion or a process.
Armed with this knowledge and having found a subject which I felt was perfect, I went on to shoot my first 50 min documentary „The Time Machine“. This was an intense experience as I shot it in different periods over almost 2 years. and I got to know and observe the protagonist very closely.
At the moment I am developing 2 different documentary an fiction projects both of them dealing with border crossing and the way it affects the destinies of people.
It is no coincidence that I have a chosen this subject.It is linked with my personal experience as a foreigner „Ausla?nder“ living in Germany. After discovering my interest for this subject I started to see that the situation of beeing a foreigner occurs in everyday life aswell, you don't necessarily need to go to a different country to be a foreigner. One can be a foreigner/outsider in ones own homeland in different situations. This is what I would like to investigate with my next films.

From French and Spanish origin she completed two Masters in Political Science in France and Canada, specializing in social movements. She became passionate about filmmaking while working for ISCA, a documentary production company in Montreal. In 2006 she co-created Amaina - a company where they produced short and long documentaries, photo-reports, investigations and articles- as independent projects or for NGOs and communication medias. In 2009 she co-directed and produced “Rehje”, an award winning long documentary about the life of an indigenous woman in Mexico.