Conference 2020: Cinema plural

Senem Aytaç

After graduating in Psychology, she completed her MA in Film and Television. She has worked at İstanbul Bilgi University Film-TV Department as a teaching assistant between 2001-2005 and continued lecturing in various institutions afterwards. She has been on the editorial board of ALTYAZI Monthly Cinema Magazine since 2004 and worked as an editor between 2006-2017. She is now working as the Project Coordinator of Altyazı Cinema Association which she is one of the founders and vice president of. She writes on film, organizes and teaches film seminars.

Oliver Bassemir

Oliver Bassemir, born 1990. He studied German language and philosophy and since 2015 experimental film at HfBK Hamburg. In 2017 he founded the Cineastische Keimzelle, an on-going experiment on subversive cinema. He is member of the board of Analogfilmwerke Hamburg. In his work, he focuses on the question how audiovisual arts can still be socially relevant and politically explosive in the 21st century – and why they have to be. His style of work is being shaped by long stays abroad as well as by philosophical questions.

Stefan Butzmühlen

Stefan Butzmühlen is a film and videoartist and co-founder of the German film distribution company GRANDFILM. As a director and author he shot several videos among them the awarded short “Nach Klara”. His first feature film “Sleepless Knights” premiered at the 63th Berlinale and was shown at numerous international film festivals. His second feature “Radiant Sea” was theatrically released in Germany. Furthermore he is working as director of theater and radio plays.

Annekatrin Hendel

Producer/director. Born in East Berlin, after studying design and working as a freelance set designer for theatre and film, she founded the film production company IT WORKS! Medien GmbH and successfully produced 25 feature and documentary films. Since 2011 she has also been directing her own films (“Schönheit & Vergänglichkeit”, “Familie Brasch”, “Fünf Sterne”, “Fassbinder”, “Anderson”, “Vaterlandsverräter”, “Flake”). Her films have won several awards and have all been shown at renowned festivals such as: Berlinale, IDFA, Münchner Filmfest. Annekatrin Hendel has two children and is a member of the board of the German Film Academy.

Marianna Kaplatzi

Marianna Kaplatzi (born in Athens, Greece) has an academic background in Cultural Studies, Film Theory & History and Translation. Since 2006, she has been working with film institutions, film festivals, cultural organisations and cinematheques in Greece & beyond (UK, Germany, Cyprus) as a film curator, researcher, in communication/PR, among other positions. She joined the Athens-based “Balkan Can Kino” film collective in 2018. Her recent research interests focus on independent/grassroots cinema projects and alternative film curation, exhibition and distribution.

Jessica Kiang

Jessica Kiang is an International Critic for Variety, covering festivals across Europe, Asia and North America. She also writes regularly for Sight & Sound, BBC Culture and The Playlist, where she spent five years as Features Editor. She has served on festival juries from Iceland to Romania to Egypt and most recently was a judge of the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival Platform competition. She lives in Berlin – or at least, that’s where she keeps her stuff.

Doris Kittler

Filmmaker and film festival curator. Out of her passion to focus on apparent trivialities and to fathom connections, she dedicated herself to photography after studying stage and costume design. During a two-year stay in Siberia, she discovered the film camera for herself and since then she has been producing documentary films (script, direction, camera, editing, production). Her interest is focused on civil courage and best practice examples outside the mainstream. Since 2018 she has been artistically/politically involved with film colleagues in the initiative #KlappeAuf against hate speech and eroding solidarity.

Anuj Malhotra

Anuj Malhotra is a critic, curator, and a cultural activist based out of New Delhi, India. He founded the film collective Lightcube. He also helped conceive the theoretical model for The Dhenuki Cinema Project, which mobilizes populations in Indias rural and semi-urban areas through the medium of film. He publishes Umbra, the country’s only newspaper devoted to the study of the topographies of alternative film in India, alongwith handling the curatorial duties for The Garga Archives, a digital museum about the life and work of B.D. Garga, one of the foremost authorities on the history of film in the world.

Aleksandra Milovanović

Aleksandra Milovanović, Ph.D., is an associate professor at Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. She is the author of the book “Towards the New Media, Transmedial Narratives Between the Film and Television“ (2019) and theoretical works: “Serbia: Reco(r)ding Cinematic Turn“ (2020), Navigating Through Layers of Digital Platforms: Immersive Balkan Experience (2019) etc. She has extensive experience editing high-profile documentary films: “The other side of everything“ (Turajlić 2017), “Cinema Komunisto“ (Turajlić 2011), “Vukovar, Final Cut“ (Baljak 2006). She is a member of NECS and DokSerbia.

Franz Müller

Filmmaker (writer/producer/director)
Co-Editor of Revolver Film Magazine
Films: “Science Fiction”, “Die Liebe der Kinder”, “Leichtmatrosen”, “Worst Case Scenario”, “Milliarden Jahre vor dem Weltuntergang”, “Happy Hour”.
In development: “The Diaries of Adam and Eve”, “Das Glück der Tüchtigen”, “Frauen im Sommer”, “Curling Stones”, “Traveling Light”.
Lives in Cologne and Berlin

Jan Overhausen

Jan Overhausen was born in Freiburg and graduated from the Technical University of Munich. He is the current winner of the SWR3 Comedy Sponsorship Award 2019 and, for some reason, also a graduate biochemist. After his studies, he first moved to Sky before he started with stand-up comedy in 2016. In 2019 he has turned his hobby into his profession. He was part of the regular live shows of the Quatsch Club in Berlin and its TV show and in 2020 he will celebrate his premiere at a regular nightwash show. His sketches can be seen on the platforms of MySpass.de. In 2019 he was in the big annual final of the Quatsch Comedy Club talent show and the Nightwash Talent Award.

Branka Pavlović

Branka Pavlović is a filmmaker, editor, educator and video artist. She studied Film and TV Editing at the Faculty for Film, TV, Theatre and Radio in Belgrade and MA Art in Context at the University of Arts in Berlin. She worked as film and TV editor for RTV B92 Belgrade as well as trainer and mentor on international film and video workshops including Documentary Film camp Free Zone Jr. (2007-2012). Pavlović is currently working as art educator in Berlin and Belgrade, freelance editor, camerawoman, collaborator with Turkish-German performance artist Nezaket Ekici and program co-director of the Free Zone Human Rights FF from Belgrade. She also works at the Centre für digitale Systeme at the Freie Universität Berlin on several projects.

Suraj Prasad

Suraj Prasad is the co-founder and technology head at Lightcube, as well as the publisher of Umbra, a quarterly journal of independent cinema in India. A recipient of ARThink SouthAsia Fellowship 2018 and a member of NETPAC, he has been on a number of NETPAC Awards Juries. Through Lightcube, he has helped organise nearly three hundred and fifty film screenings across India, many in rural areas. A Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics and Instrumentation, Suraj moved into the world of films after spending about four years in the Radio Industry hosting radio shows and producing radio programs. He is active in the New Delhi theatre circle as well and has recently found interest in immersive theatre and experimental cinema.

Carmen Schmöl

Carmen Schmöl is a Berlin-based academic, writer and film curator. She holds a degree in Philosophy, Literature and Economics from Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. Having been influenced by the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari since the beginning of her studies, her recent research interests include the ‚hors-champ‘ in contemporary experimental cinema and the varieties of late capitalism. Schmöl is currently finishing her master’s degree in German Literature at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, where she has been giving research-based seminars since 2019, centering capitalist realism and accelerationism, as well as their entanglement with contemporary cinematographic imageries.

Girish Shambu

Girish Shambu teaches sustainability at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. He is also a film blogger, scholar, and critic who edits Film Quarterly’s online column, “Quorum”. He is the author of “The New Cinephilia” (2014), a book about Internet film culture, and two recent essays that were widely circulated on social media, “Time’s Up for the Male Canon,” and the manifesto “For a New Cinephilia”— both in Film Quarterly.

Judith Siegmund

Judith Siegmund is Professor of Contemporary Aesthetics at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart. Together with others, she is building up the Campus Gegenwart there. She comes from the fields of philosophy and visual arts and was assistant professor for Theory of Design/Aesthetic Theory and Gender Theory at the UdK Berlin from 2011 to 2018, where she helped to install the research project “Autonomy and Functionalization”. She published “Empathy and Embodiment in Material. Überlegungen zur dokumentarischen Filmarbeit” in: Malte Hagener/Íngrid Vendrell Ferran (Ed.): Empathy in Film, Transcript 2017.

Evi Stamou

Evi Stamou is a filmmaker, video artist and curator currently based in Athens. Her works have been projected in international film festivals, video art festivals and contemporary art exhibitions in Greece and abroad. As a curator she has collaborated with most major Greek institutions and cultural initiatives devoted to the showcasing of experimental cinema, and since 2018 she is part of free cinema Balkan Can Kino’s regular programming team.

Auto Agitation

Oliver Bassemir

Oliver Bassemir, born 1990. He studied German language and philosophy and since 2015 experimental film at HfBK Hamburg. In 2017 he founded the Cineastische Keimzelle, an on-going experiment on subversive cinema. He is member of the board of Analogfilmwerke Hamburg. In his work, he focuses on the question how audiovisual arts can still be socially relevant and politically explosive in the 21st century – and why they have to be. His style of work is being shaped by long stays abroad as well as by philosophical questions.

Dorota Lech

Dorota Lech is a Polish-born, Toronto and Los Angeles-based film programmer and independent curator. Since 2013 she has worked for the Toronto International Film Festival, where she is the Programme Lead of Discovery, a showcase of new talent, voices, and cinema from around the world, as well as the International Programmer for Central and Eastern European cinema. She also produces the Hot Docs Forum, works as a programmer at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival and previously held positions at The National Film Board of Canada and the World Congress of Science & Factual Producers. She holds a double M.A. in Political Science and Gender Studies from McGill University and is a contributor to Vanity Fair.

Ivana Mladenović

Ivana Mladenović is a director of fiction short films and documentaries that were presented in festivals worldwide. Her fiction feature debut “Soldiers. Story from Ferentari” premiered at Toronto IFF in 2017 and was in competition at San Sebastian IFF (Special Mention Sebastiano Award). The film was awarded Prix Decouverte at Namur FFF, Cineuropa Prize at Trieste IFF, Special Mention New Talent Grand Pix at CPH PIX, Best Debut at Transylvania IFF. The film was also selected for Tromsø IFF, Istanbul IFF, Hamburg IFF etc. Ivana Mladenović received The Heart of  Sarajevo for Best Documentary for “Turn Off the Lights”, which premiered at Tribeca IFF 2012.

Girish Shambu

Girish Shambu teaches sustainability at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. He is also a film blogger, scholar, and critic who edits Film Quarterly’s online column, “Quorum”. He is the author of “The New Cinephilia” (2014), a book about Internet film culture, and two recent essays that were widely circulated on social media, “Time’s Up for the Male Canon,” and the manifesto “For a New Cinephilia”— both in Film Quarterly.

Trouble Feature

Andrey Arnold

Born in Moscow (1987); film critic for Austrian daily Die Presse; also writes about film for other outlets; sometime curator of film programs, mostly as part of think-do group “Diskollektiv”.

Silvia Maglioni / Graeme Thomson

Silvia Maglioni and Graeme Thomson are filmmakers and artists whose work explores the porous borders between fiction and documentary. Their feature films, including “In Search of UIQ” and “Facs of Life”, have been screened at numerous international festivals such as FID-Marseille, IFFR, Thessaloniki IFF, Bafici and Jihlava. Their research-based practice in the form of installations, publications, soundworks, performances and “vernacular technologies” has been presented in museums and art spaces around the world including Centre Pompidou, MACBA, HKW, REDCAT, Khoj New Delhi and Brisbane MOMA.

Martin Thomson

Martin Thomson, * 1985 in Dormagen, made his degree in Theatre, Film and Media Studies at the University of Vienna. He is a film critic with publications in Schnitt, Falter, Die Presse. A film curator for “Diskollektiv”, an association for innovative movie events, with whom he’s been presenting the “Trouble Features” for years on festivals like Crossing Europe or Diagonale. And a film scientist with a focus on media related philosophical questions about the relationship between images and death or the special meaning of cinematic glare effects.

Unreal Elegance

Dennis Lim

Dennis Lim is the director of programming at Film at Lincoln Center, where he serves on the selection committees for the New York Film Festival and New Directors/New Films and oversees the organization’s three year-round screens. He was previously the editorial director of the Museum of Moving Image and the film editor of the Village Voice. The author of a critical biography on David Lynch (“The Man From Another Place”, 2015), he has contributed to The New York Times, Artforum, Film Comment, and Cinema Scope, and taught film studies at Harvard and arts criticism at NYU.

Sebastián Lojo

Sebastián Lojo is a director and cinematographer born in Guatemala City, Guatemala. Since graduating with distinction from the London Film School and getting a nomination for the Panalux Award (Best Cinematography), Sebastián has been shooting feature and short films in countries including Malaysia, Lebanon, Canada, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, Guatemala and Turkey. “Los Fantasmas” is his debut feature film as a director, it’s the first Guatemalan film to ever compete at International Film Festival Rotterdam in the bright future section.

Hélène Louvart

Hélène Louvart is a French cinematographer. She was nominated for the Film Independent Spirit Awards (2018) for “Beach Rats” by Eliza Hittman and for the 2010 Gaudí Awards for “Petit Indi” by Marc Recha. She worked with German director Wim Wenders on the 3D documentary film “Pina” (2011), which was selected as the German entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards. Louvart received The WIFTS Foundation Cinematographer Award in 2012, the best 3D documentary award at Camerimage in 2013 for “Pina” and the Marburger Kamerapreis in 2018. She also worked with French director Agnès Varda (“The Beaches of Agnès”) and Italian director Alice Rohrwacher (“The Wonders”).

Critics’ Debate

Senem Aytaç

After graduating in Psychology, she completed her MA in Film and Television. She has worked at İstanbul Bilgi University Film-TV Department as a teaching assistant between 2001-2005 and continued lecturing in various institutions afterwards. She has been on the editorial board of ALTYAZI Monthly Cinema Magazine since 2004 and worked as an editor between 2006-2017. She is now working as the Project Coordinator of Altyazı Cinema Association which she is one of the founders and vice president of. She writes on film, organizes and teaches film seminars.

Abba T. Makama

Abba T. Makama is a filmmaker from Nigeria. He debut film “Green White Green” had its 2016 world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival, since then it has screened at over 20 international film festivals including Stockholm international Film Festival, Berlin Critics’ Week, Carthage Film Festival. The film was distributed on Netflix worldwide and Canal Plus. His sophomore “The Lost Okoroshi” also premiered at TIFF 2019 and subsequently screened at BFI London.

Wilfred Okiche

Wilfred Okiche is one of the most influential critics working in the Nigerian culture space. He considers himself fortunate enough to benefit from his love for cinema. He has participated in critic programs in Berlin, Rotterdam, Locarno and Durban. He has covered film festivals in Sundance, Stockholm and Lagos and his work has appeared in various local print and online media. Okiche has also worked in the selection committee for the Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) and has served in the juries of international film festivals. He is a member of FIPRESCI and tweets from @drwill20

Collapsing Distance

Karim Aïnouz

Karim Aïnouz is an award-winning filmmaker, screenwriter and visual artist. He debuted as a feature director with “Madame Satã” (Cannes Un Certain Regard, 2002) and has directed over 15 movies, amongst others “Nardjes A.” (Berlin Panorama, 2020) “Central Airport THF” (Berlin Amnesty Prize 2018), “Futuro Beach” (Berlin Competition 2014), “The Silver Cliff” (Cannes Director’s Fortnight 2011), and “Love for Sale” (Venice Horizons 2006). His feature “Invisible Life” received the Main Award in Cannes Un Certain Regard in 2019 and more than 50 prizes worldwide. Aïnouz is also a screenwriting mentor at the Brazilian Institute Porto Iracema das Artes and a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science.

Valentina Pedicini

Valentina Pedicini graduated in Film Direction at the Zelig International School of documentary. Her documentary “Dal Profondo” was awarded the Solinas Prize, won the Roma Film Festival, got a Special Mention for the Nastri D’Argento and was nominated for the David di Donatello. In 2016 she made the short film “Era Ieri” (Venice International Critics Week). Her debut in fiction “Where Shadows Fall”, produced by Fandango, was shown at the 2017 Venice Film Festival (Giornate degli Autori). The documentary “Faith”, produced by Donatella Palermo with Rai Cinema, is her new work (2019, International Competition Idfa Film Festival).

S.C.R.I.B.E.

Born in Nantes in 1988, S.C.R.I.B.E. is a poet and screenwriter. He met with Larry Clark in 2010. Soon after, the director and photographer asked him to compose a script about the Parisian youth and to include in the plot a teenage prostitution experience. S.C.R.I.B.E went on to write “The Smell of Us” (2014) and lead the youth casting. His poetry was featured in exhibits in Paris and Barcelona or performed in the play “Intimités” by François Stemmer. Nowadays, S.C.R.I.B.E. prepares his first short film and collaborates with French director Jessica Palud on her second featured-film.

Helena Wittmann

Helena Wittmann was born 1982 in Neuss, Germany. Originally studying Spanish and Media Studies in Erlangen and Hamburg, she went on to attend the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg (HFBK), where she graduated in 2014. Her works, including her first feature film DRIFT (2017) and the short films 21,3°C (2014) and WILDNIS (2013), were shown internationally at film festivals and exhibitions. Helena Wittmann works and lives in Hamburg, Germany.

Critics’ Debate

Xanaé Bove

Xanaé Bove is a journalist, writing films reviews and interviewing edgy directors for Culturopoing website and investigating about freaks, fun and facts for Gonzaï magazine. She has also directed 10 short films or videos, at the edge of fiction and experimental, screened in many festivals. Her long feature documentary “Ex-TAZ Citizen Ca$h”, released in France in 2016, was the first one to speak of French trailblazers from the cross-over era of the early 90s. She is now working on her second documentary, still involving counter-culture.

Jung Hyuk-ki

Jung Hyuk-ki majored Film directing at the Korea National University of Arts. His first short film, “Legend of Anuk”, was in Competition at Seoul Independent Film Festival. His second short film, “Dempseyroll: Confessions”, was invited at Seoul Independent Film Festival and at Mise-en-scène Short Film Festival. “Dempseyroll: Confessions” inspired Jung Hyuk-ki’s first feature film “My Punch-Drunk Boxer”. 

Leonor Teles

Leonor Teles graduated at the Lisbon Theatre and Film School (2013) and completed her Master in Audiovisual and Multimedia at the Lisbon School of Social Communication (2015). In 2016 she won the Golden Bear at Berlinale Shorts with “Batrachian’s Ballad” and in 2018 her first documentary feature film “Terra Franca” was awarded the Prix International de la SCAM at Cinéma du Réel, the Prix de La Ville d’Amiens at Festival d’Amiens and the Mejor Opera Prima International at Mar del Plata. “Dogs Barking at Birds” is Leonor Teles’ latest short. She is currently developing her first fiction feature film.

Neil Young

Neil Young (b. 1971) is a writer/programmer/filmmaker from Sunderland UK, resident in Vienna. His journalistic outlets include The Hollywood Reporter and Sight & Sound. He attends 25+ film-festivals annually and has served on 40+ juries since 2001 including Cannes’ Semaine de la Critique and others at Venice, Berlin, etc. He works for several festivals in programming/consultation capacities including Viennale, EFF Palić (Serbia), Vienna Shorts and Kortfilmfestivalen (Norway). Last year his film “Rihaction” (103m) world-premiered in Graz and he made his screen acting debut in Joanna Hogg’s “The Souvenir”.

Slow Cinema Fast

Paula Gaitán

Paula Gaitán (Paris, 1952) is a Colombian-Brazilian filmmaker, born in France and currently residing in São Paulo, Brazil. Her first experience with cinema was as art director of the Cinema Novo classic “A Idade da Terra” (“The Age of the Earth”), from 1978. She directed her first feature, “Uaká”, ten years later. Since then, she has directed dozens of feature films, videos, television series and installations, including “Days in Sintra” (2008), “The Volcano Exiles” (2013), and her latest feature, “Subtle Interferences” (2016) on the relationship between image and sound – a film about the work of musician Arto Lindsay.

Camilo Restrepo

Camilo Restrepo (1975, Medellín, Colombia) lives and works in Paris, France. His films have been selected in festivals such as Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, Toronto IFF or New York IFF. He won the Pardino d’Argento at the Locarno IFF twice. “Los Conductos” is his first feature film, in competition Encounters at Berlinale  2020.
Filmography: 2017 “La Bouche” – Director’s Fortnight – Best Film Gijon; 2016 “Cilaos” – Locarno Film Festival – Silver Pardino; 2015 “La impresión de una guerra” – Locarno Film Festival – Silver Pardino; 2014 “Como crece la sombra cuando el sol declina”; 2011 “Tropic Pocket”

Lucía Salas

Lucía Salas is an Argentinian film critic, programmer and filmmaker. She studied Image and Sound Design at the University of Buenos Aires and Aesthetics and Politics at CalArts. She has worked at Mar del Plata International Film Festival, BAFICI, Transcinema, International Film Festival Rotterdam and Documenta Madrid, among others. Most of her writing can be found in the magazine La vida util, where she is also one of the editors. She has co-directed the non-fiction feature “Implantación” (2016) and several short films together with LaSiberia Cine.

Salka Tiziana

Salka Tiziana, born 1992, grew up in a Spanish-German family in Barcelona. She began studying History of Art and Social & Cultural Anthropology in Berlin and later studied film in Hamburg and Buenos Aires. “For the Time Being” is her feature debut.