Meet Our Mentors
Blerta Basholli
Directors Summit
Blerta Basholli is a Kosovo-born* writer and director. During the war, she took refuge in North Macedonia and Germany. Her short films were selected and awarded at many international festivals. Her debut feature film, HIVE, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and won the Grand Jury Prize, the Directing Award, and the Audience Award in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition. DUA is her second feature, premiered at the Semaine de la Critique selection of Cannes Film Festival.
Goran Bogdan
Acting Studio
Goran Bogdan is one of the leading actors of his generation in the former Yugoslavia, known for his work in film, TV, and theatre. He gained recognition with roles in SONJA AND THE BULL, NUMBER 55, and FATHER, earning a European Film Academy nomination. Internationally, he appeared in FARGO and THE LAST PANTHERS. In 2024, he starred in THE MAN WHO COULD NOT REMAIN SILENT, winner of the Palme d’Or and Oscar nominee for Best Live Action Short.
Nicholas Davies
Pack & Pitch
Nicholas Davies was born in Canada in 1969 and completed studies in cinema, linguistics, and semiotics at the University of Toronto. Over the past thirty years, he has worked as a writer, editor, programmer, and programme manager for film and arts institutions including the Toronto International Film Festival, the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, the Doha Film Institute, the Sarajevo Film Festival, the National Film Board of Canada, the Marrakech International Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, and the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, among others. He is the managing editor of Kristine Khouri and Rasha Salti’s Past Disquiet: Artists, International Solidarity, and Museums in Exile and of the 2022 Triennial of Photography Hamburg’s critical reader Lucid Knowledge: On the Currency of the Photographic Image, and the editor of Sonja Mejcher-Atassi’s An Impossible Friendship — Group Portrait: Jerusalem before and after 1948. He currently resides in Hamilton, Canada, where he spends a lot of time knitting socks and sweaters, struggling to write his first novel, and improving his ability to speak Welsh.
Dina Duma
Directors Summit
Dina Duma graduated film and TV directing at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Skopje. Her feature film debut SISTERHOOD premiered at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2021 and won the Special jury Prize of the East of the West Competition. She was a participant of programmes Berlinale Talents and Cannes Residence, as well as Cinelink Industry Days while developing SKATEBOARDING IS NOT FOR GIRLS, her latest feature film. SKATEBOARDING IS NOT FOR GIRLS had its world premiere at this year's Tribeca Festival.
Konstantina Kotzamani
Directors Summit
Konstantina Kotzamani graduated from film school only after first earning a degree in Pharmacy. Her short films have premiered at leading international film festivals, including Cannes, Berlin, and Locarno, and have received numerous international awards.
For her films WASHINGTONIA (2014) and LIMBO (2016), she won the Greek Film Academy Award for Best Short Film and received nominations for the European Film Academy Award for Best Short Film.
As an Onassis Foundation fellow, Konstantina recently spent a year in Buenos Aires, where, in collaboration with UCINE (Universidad del Cine de Buenos Aires), she developed the screenplay for her first feature-length fiction film, TITANIC OCEAN.
Many festivals have presented retrospectives of her short films, and she has served as a jury member at several international short film festivals.
Her latest short film, LIMBO, was nominated in 2017 for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.
Visar Morina
Directors Summit
Visar Morina was born in 1979 in Kosovo. He studied at the Cologne Academy of Media Arts. His much- acclaimed debut BABAI received numerous awards, such as Best Director at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and Best Script at Filmfest München. EXIL, his second feature-length film, premiered in Panorama section of Berlinale and won Heart of Sarajevo for the Best film in 2020. SHAME AND MONEY, his third feature, had its premiere at Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize for dramatic features.
Matija Dragojević
Script Station
Born in 1991, Matija Dragojević is a Serbian writer based between Barcelona and Berlin. He is the creator and head writer of an upcoming series for HBO Max Germany produced by Dark Ways (Dark, 1899). Prior to that, he co-authored AWAKE ("KLJUN"), a supernatural thriller that won the Audience Award at CANNESERIES — the first Eastern European series selected for the festival's official competition.
Matija holds an MA in Serial Storytelling from the International Film School in Cologne and a BA in Psychology. On the industry side, he has worked with Sundance Labs, CineLink Sarajevo, Seriencamp, Berlinale Series Market and Seriesly Berlin. Matija also offers quality post-production services to his six year old son.
Srdan Golubović
Directors Summit
Srdan Golubović (Belgrade, 1972) is a film director. His first feature film Absolute Hundred (2001) screened at festivals such as Toronto, San Sebastian, Pusan and Rotterdam, winning a great number of awards. His second film The Trap (2007) had its international premiere at the Berlinale Forum and was selected in Toronto and Karlovy Vary. It went on to win 22 international awards and made it to the final shortlist for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. His third film Circles (2013) premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, winning the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award, and screened at the Berlinale Forum, winning the award of the Ecumenical Jury. His newest film Father (2020) premiered at the Berlinale Panorama, winning both the Audience award and the Ecumenical Jury award. He teaches Film directing at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade.
Juraj Lerotić
Directors Summit
Juraj Lerotić graduated in Film Directing from the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb, Croatia.
His first feature film, Safe Place (2022), which he wrote, directed, and acted in, premiered at the Locarno Film Festival (winning three awards) and was showcased at festivals worldwide, from Rotterdam IFF and Shanghai IFF to New York's MoMA. The film was also nominated in the European Discovery category of the European Film Awards as one of the five best debut features in 2023.
Juraj Lerotić is a script consultant and an alumnus of the Midpoint Script Consultancy Programme. He teaches the course Autobiography at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb.
Urša Menart
Directors Summit
Urša Menart is an acclaimed Slovenian director and screenwriter born in 1985 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. She graduated in Film and TV directing from the University of Ljubljana's Academy for Theatre, Radio, Film and Television (AGRFT) in 2010. Menart initially built her career as a documentarian and assistant director, creating sharply observant early works like There Once Was a Land of Hardworking People (2012) and What About Mojca? (2014). She also gained prominent industry recognition for her screenwriting and assistant director collaborations with Damjan Kozole on celebrated feature films like Nightlife (2016) and Half-Sister (2019).
In 2018, Menart achieved breakout international success with her solo fiction feature debut, My Last Year as a Loser (Ne bom več luzerka). The film swept the Slovenian Film Festival, winning the prestigious Vesna Awards for Best Feature Film and Best Screenplay. She followed this milestone with her highly anticipated sophomore feature film, Everything That Is Wrong With You (Vse, kar je narobe s tabo). Dealing with themes of youth loneliness and relationships across Europe, the coproduction project earned critical praise and post-production accolades at industry forums like First Cut+ and Co
Isaure Pisani-Ferry
Script Station
Isaure is a French writer, based in Berlin. She learned the job while working as staff writer on Kaboul Kitchen (Canal+, 2015). She then co-created Vampires (Netflix, 2020) and was the creator and lead writer of Becoming Karl Lagerfeld (Disney+, 2024). She works also as writer on movies and regularly gives workshops on screenwriting. She studied Literature and History, and is a Serial Eyes (DFFB) alumni 2018.
Neil Young
Talent Press
Neil Young (b. UK, 1971) lives in Vienna. He writes about, presents, curates, makes and acts in films. Since 2000 he has been a freelance film-critic with many articles/reviews in The Hollywood Reporter, Screen, Sight & Sound, Senses of Cinema, etc. He has served on dozens of juries at film-festivals around the world including Cannes (Semaine de la Critique 2013); he has been president of the Fipresci juries at both the Berlinale and Venice. His acting credits include Radu Jude's "DRACULA" (2025).
Gabriele Brunnenmeyer
Pack & Pitch
GABRIELE BRUNNENMEYER is a script editor, pitching coach and project consultant. Alongside consulting on script development, packaging and pitching for individual projects, she consults for various international workshops and events such as HerArts FilmLab, Midpoint Shorts, Midpoint Feature Launch, KVIFF Eastern Promises Industry Days, Cutting Edge Talent Camp, Baltic Pitching Forum, SFC / Rendez-Vouz-Industry Cannes, New Horizons Studio, Istanbul Film Station, Pack& Pitch / Sarajevo Talents a.o.
Katriel Schory
Producers Summit
Katriel Schory studied film at New York University and has been an active producer since 1973. He founded and managed BELFILMS (1974–1999), producing more than 150 feature films, documentaries, TV dramas, and international co-productions. From 1999 to 2021, he served as Executive Director of the Israel Film Fund, overseeing support for more than 300 feature films, including over 80 international co-productions.
Throughout his career, Schory has played a key role in the success of numerous internationally acclaimed films, including several Academy Award nominees and winners of top honors at the Venice and Berlin film festivals. He has received major distinctions including France's Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the Berlinale Kamera, the Telluride Special Medallion, the VARIETY Award, the FIAPF Award, and lifetime achievement awards from the Jerusalem Film Festival and the Israel Film Academy. He also served on the Board of the European Film Academy (2017–2023) and has been a jury member at leadin
Andrea Štaka
Directors Summit
Andrea Štaka graduated from the MFA film program at the Zurich University of the Arts. Her films HOTEL BELGRAD and YUGODIVAS have brought her great recognition at film festivals such as Locarno and Sundance and have won several awards. Both films were nominated for Best Film at the Swiss Film Awards and theatrically released. Her first feature film FRAULEIN won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival, the Heart of Sarajevo and the Swiss Film Award for Best Script.
In 2007 Andrea Štaka founded Okofilm Productions with Thomas Imbach. Her second feature film CURE – THE LIFE OF ANOTHER (2014) was awarded at the Max Ophüls Film Festival. MARE (2020), her third feature film premiered at the 70. Berlinale Film Festival and won many awards. In 2022 she directed a series for Swiss Public TV and Netflix. Andrea Štaka is a member of the European Film Academy.
Ana Urushadze
Directors Summit
Ana Urushadze is an award-winning Georgian screenwriter and director, born on September 11, 1990, in Tbilisi. The daughter of acclaimed filmmaker Zaza Urushadze, she graduated from the Shota Rustaveli Theatre and Film State University in 2013 after directing several acclaimed short films.
She gained international recognition with her 2017 feature debut, Scary Mother, a psychological drama that won the Heart of Sarajevo and Locarno's Best First Feature Award, and was selected as Georgia's submission for the 90th Academy Awards.
Her second feature, Supporting Role, premiered at the 2026 International Film Festival Rotterdam, competing for the Tiger Award and winning the Blue Angel Award for Best Central and Eastern European Film, further establishing her as a leading voice in contemporary cinema.
Redžinald Šimek
Editing Studio
Redžinald Šimek was born in Sarajevo, and attended the film editing and directing programme of the Academy of Performing Arts, Sarajevo. His professional experience includes positions ranging from sound engineer to video editor and post-production supervisor. Among his many credits as an editor are Danis Tanović’s SUCCESS and DEATH IN SARAJEVO; Aida Begić’s NEVER LEAVE ME and BRIDGES OF SARAJEVO; Andrea Štaka's MARE and Reem Saleh’s WHAT COMES AROUND.
Erol Zubčević
Camera Studio
Born in Sarajevo, he graduated at the Film Camera Department at HFF Munchen (Hauptstudium fur Kamera/Kino und Fernsehen Film Munchen) in class of Michael Ballhaus A.S.C.
Some of his most successful feature films are 'An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker' (Two Silver Bears at Berlinale 2013), ‘Death in Sarajevo’ (Silver Bear and Fipresci Award at Berlinale 2016) by Oskar winning director Danis Tanović; 'Children of Sarajevo' (Spetial Distinction of a Jury, Un Certain Regard, Cannes 2012) and 'Snow' (Grand Prix, Critics Week, Cannes 2008) directed by Aida Begić; 'Stranger' (Berlinale 2013) by Bobo Jelčić, ‘Good Wife’ (Sundance FF 2016) by Mirjana Karanović, ‘Mare’ (Berlinale 2020) by Andrea Štaka. He was two times selected at the CameraimageFilm Festivaland is awarded with Golden Arena for the Best Camerawork at Pula Film Festival 2013.
Erol Zubčević is teaching Film Photography at the Academy of Performing Arts Sarajevo and has worked as a cinematographer on numerous fiction films, documentaries, commercials, videos and promotional films.