Meet 2018 Experts
Paula Vaccaro - Producer (UK)
A full time film producer, Paula has worked in radio, TV, printed media, digital platforms and films for over two decades. Previous to her career in filmmaking, she was a full time journalist. She founded Pinball London in 2009 as a production company committed to international long feature films with an auteur zeal. Within Pinball London, she leads Pinball Audiences, a team providing impact producing services, training, and film distribution consultancy in the US, Europe and Latin America. Under the banner Pinball Arts, the company also creates ancillary content that links films to a wider world at the intersection of art, engineering and technology. Paula has trained emerging producers for over a decade and has helped facilitate many workshops. Since 2003 she has worked in productions combining the US, Latin America and Europe with world known filmmakers. Since 2015 she has provided training for Regional Producers in South America in partnership with British Council and the regional film agencies on Impact Producing for docs and fiction films. She is a professor at Kingston University in London.
Hanna Polak - Filmmaker (Poland)
Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, PGA producer, Hanna Polak in 2003, Hanna was awarded Best Producer of Documentary Movies at the International Film Festival in Krakow for Railway Station Ballad. In 2004 Hanna completed The Children of Leningradsky, which was nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best Short Documentary subject. As a producer, director, and/or cinematographer, Hanna has worked on various films, including Al - Tribute to Albert Maysles; Battle of Warsaw 1920 in 3D, Stone Silence, shot in Afghanistan; Warsaw-Look from the East; Officer's Wife; Orange Sun; White Power; Faces of Homelessness, and others. Stone Silence won her an award from the Kiev Film Festival for "Artistic Mastery of Photographing" for her cinematography work. She directed and produced Love and Rubbish, for the Why Poverty? series in 2012, winner of A Corto di Donne Women's Short Film Festival. Polak's works have been screened in hundreds film festivals, including Sundance, IDFA, True/False, and FIPA, and they have appeared on major television networks worldwide. In 2014 Hanna has completed Something Better to Come, which received the PGA award nomination, IDFA Special Jury Award and won over 30 awards and nominations.Hanna was awarded the Best Director award at Imagineindia Film Festival and she received Best Cinematography award from Gdansk DocFilm Festival and the Canon Non Fiction Frame Special Mention from Docs Against Gravity film festival.Hanna has lectured on film producing and documentary filmmaking at many universities worldwide. Hanna was a jury member at IDFA and other film festivals. She was a tutor for the EsoDoc and the Academy of Documentary Arts and she was an expert for the Mazovia Warsaw Film Commission and the Polish Ministry of Culture, evaluating documentary projects for the Polish Film Institute. Hanna is a member of the Producers Guild of America.
Sara Bozanic - Digital content producer (Slovenia)
Sara Božanić is a CEO of the Institute for Transmedia Design in Slovenia. She is a ‘hybrid’ – a designer, strategist, educator, and thinker. As a consultant, she has worked on various international projects funded by European Commission. Among all she appreciates the most the UrbanIxD, Coordination Action project, for the European Commission under the Future and Emerging Technologies programme. In 2016, Sara produced the transmedia world for the film Ukrainian Sheriffs, awarded with the IDFA Winner Special Jury Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary. In 2015 she has been chosen among 40 EU consultants who work on audience development via digital means to take part in policy debates under the project The Voice of Culture ‒ a Structured Dialogue between the European Commission and the cultural sector. In 2011, she received a Young Creative Entrepreneur Media Award by the British Council for her achievements in the development of the interactive media design sector in Slovenia.
Jasmin Basic - Festival curator (Switzerland)
Film historian and programmer, Master of Arts in Cinema and English. Collaborations with several festivals, in Switzerland and abroad. She has curated a large number of retrospectives and has developed programmes and events focused on international TV series. She was an appointed expert for the Swiss Federal Office of Culture for TV drama and series and a board member of the Geneva Film Commission. Co-founder and board member of Pro Short, the Swiss association for short films. In 2017, she joined the production companies La Bête in Paris and Alva Film in Geneva as associate producer.
Aleksandar Govedarica - Sales agent and producer (Canada)
Aleksandar Govedarica was born 1987 in Sarajevo, graduate of University of East Sarajevo as well as Vancouver Film School. He started working as a film programmer at Kriterion Sarajevo, the only art house cinema in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Aleksandar was part of the organizing committee of the Serbian Film Festival in Vancouver. With three years of previous experience in sales and distribution, Aleksandar runs the Toronto based world sales and production company Syndicado. He produced two documentary films and has experience in all aspects of filmmaking including directing. Aleksandar is tutoring at workshops like Dok Incubator, Baltic Sea Docs and Duna Dock.
Dragana Jovovic - Producer (Serbia)
Dragana Jovovic works as a producer. She holds an MA in Cultural management and cultural policy. From 2008 she has been working as a producer on numerous art performances, theatre plays, exhibitions, debates, lectures and films during her work in the Walking Theory platform from Belgrade. She also collaborated with Bitef Theater, Bitef Festival, Sarajevo Film Festival, Pancevo Film Festival and REZ – Festival of contemporary experimental film in Belgrade.
She is the producer of the documentary films Yugoslavia, How Ideology Moved Our Collective Body (dir. Marta Popivoda, 2013) and Depth Two (dir. Ognjen Glavonic, 2016), both premiered at the Berlinale Forum.
Guest Expert - Bernadett Tuza-Ritter - director (Hungary)
Bernadett Tuza-Ritter is a Hungarian independent film director and editor specializing in creative documentaries and fiction. She worked as a director in the project called ‘Cinetrain – Russian Winter’ which won the audience award at Vision du Reel documentary festival. Member of HSE and Hungarian Film Academy. Her first feature length documentary A Woman Captured premiered at IDFA 2017 Main Competition. After its world premiere it was selected by Sundance Film Festival 2018 – World Cinema Documentary Competition, and thus it was the first Hungarian feature length film ever to compete at Sundance.
Guest Expert - Miljenka Čogelja - producer (Croatia)
Miljenka Čogelja studied Law at the University of Zagreb. From 2005 to 2009 worked as a journalist of the political weekly Nacional. Since 2009, she works at Hulahop, first as a an executive producer and later as producer. Professional improvement: 2012. EAVE -European Producers workshop; 2011. EX ORIENTE; 2011.EURODOC Transregional; 2010.-STORYDOC.