Melanie andernach

is a German producer. With her company Made in Germany, she produces high-quality documentaries and feature films for German, European and international audiences. These films have been shown, awarded and internationally exploited at numerous festivals such as Cannes, Sundance, Berlinale, Locarno, Rotterdam, IDFA, Hot Docs etc. Her most recent successes include the feature documentary Sieben Winter in Teheran (German Film Award for Best Documentary and Best Editing, Bavarian Film Award, Berlinale Peace Prize). The feature film Lingui competed for the Palme d’Or in Cannes in 2021. With this film she won the Hamburg Production Award for International Cinema Co-Productions at FILMFEST HAMBURG 2023. Since October 2019, she has held a deputy professorship for creative production and dramaturgy at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne.

Lillah Halla

is a Brazilian director and screenwriter based in Berlin. She studied directing and screenwriting at EICTV in Cuba and experimental cinema at Concordia University, Montreal. Halla was a Locarno Academy Filmmaker, TIFF Lab Fellow, Berlinale Talent and a fellow of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin. Her short film Menarca (2020) premiered at the Semaine de la Critique in Cannes and was MUBI’s Film of the Day in 2021. Her feature film debut Levante (2023) also premiered at the Semaine de la Critique in Cannes, won the FIPRESCI award and over 25 other international awards. Halla is currently developing her second feature film, a German production.

Ayşe Polat

is a German-Kurdish director, producer and screenwriter who was born in Malatya and grew up in Hamburg. After several award-winning short films, she made her first feature film Auslandstournee in 1999. The feature film En Garde was awarded the Silver Leopard for Best Film at the Locarno Film Festival in 2004. Other feature films and a documentary followed. She has also directed TV films, including Tatort. Her feature film Im toten Winkel premiered in the Encounters competition at the Berlinale in 2023 and was awarded Best Film at the Istanbul Film Festival.

PAoLINA THEOPHIL

is an agent and partner in the agency la gente alongside Gaby Scheld. During her studies in cultural studies, she worked in various positions on film sets, at FILMFEST HAMBURG and the Berlinale. After completing her master’s degree and a traineeship at la gente, she is responsible for the agency’s newcomer portfolio, with a special focus on the diverse representation of German society. She represents authors, directors, editors and image designers.

Deborah Congia

has been working as a freelance casting director in Hamburg since 2014. She casts for TV and cinema films as well as for international productions. Her projects include various episodes for the ARD series Tatort, Die Quellen des Bösen (director: Stephan Rick), Die Flut – Tod am Deich (director: Andreas Prochaska), Jerks (director: Christian Ulmen) and Gipsy Queen (director: Hüseyin Tabak). From 2001 to 20213, Deborah Congia worked as a casting director for the Hamburg-based film production company Wüste Film. Born in Hamburg, she is a member of the German Film Academy and the Bundesverband Casting e.V. (BVC), where she also likes to actively campaign for media policy issues such as diversity in film and the demand for respectful working processes, especially in the casting process.

Lasse SCharpen

took his first steps into the world of film and television in Hollywood, where he assisted in the production of films such as The Ring and Hangover. In the years that followed, he worked as a production manager and assistant director for various ZDF formats, including Wetten, dass…? At the same time, he studied production at uns and founded his own company, with which he produced three feature films that premiered in the Berlinale program, among others. After graduating, he was responsible for Bantry Bay Movies and series projects as a producer. In April 2020, he moved to the ZDF Enterprises subsidiary Network Movie to set up the Berlin location under the Studio Zentral brand.

Andreas Körner

has been writing about music and film since 1984, first as a freelancer, then as a permanent employee, and finally as a freelance cultural journalist again since 1995. He gradually expanded his field of activity with radio broadcasts, moderations, concept development as well as jury and media education work, published an audio music book for children (»Endlich Daunchen«) as well as two of his own short films on DVD (depot., vor den bildern. Feininger). His discussion series KÖRNERS CORNER at Dresden’s Programmkino Ost has had over 100 editions since 2011, and he has also penned the accompanying text material for films by Andreas Dresen, Christian Schwochow, Matti Geschonneck, Erwin Wagenhofer, Nora Fingscheidt, RP Kahl and Emily Atef, among others.

Pia Lenz

is an award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker. She is a member of AG DOK and the German Film Academy. Hudekamp – Ein Heimatfilm (NDR/2012, with co-author Christian v. Brockhausen) was awarded the German Television Prize and the German Social Prize. Her cinema debut Alles gut screened at international film festivals in 2016. The film was nominated for the German Film Critics’ Award and won the Grimme Prize. Forever, a long-term observation of the last years of an elderly couple’s life, celebrated its world premiere at DOK.fest Munich and won the Documentary Film Production Award. The film was successfully screened in cinemas in 2023 and was nominated for the German Film Critics’ Award and the German Documentary Film Award.

DINA POKRAJAC

is a film critic and curator based in Zagreb. She studied journalism and political science and is a PhD candidate in cultural anthropology at the University of Zagreb with a thesis on strategies of memory work and archival practices in post-Yugoslav documentary films. She works for Restart, an organization that deals with the production, education, distribution and exhibition of documentary films, and is the manager of Dokukino KIC, a unique cinema in the region that shows hybrid and non-fictional films. She is the artistic director of the Subversive Festival, a member of the selection committee of ZagrebDox and has curated numerous interdisciplinary projects combining film and critical theories. She has published over 20 books in the fields of philosophy, political science and film theory. She is president of the Croatian Film Critics Association and editor-in-chief of Zona filma.

IRIS PRAEFKE

studied social sciences and film studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin and at the City University of New York. In Berlin, she manages three of Germany’s leading independent cinemas: Central, Toni and Moviemento.

Morgana de Mello

comes from the south of Brazil and currently lives in Hamburg. As part of her bachelor’s degree in film at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg (HFBK) under Prof. Adina Pintilie, she focuses on socio-political scenarios of violence and the resulting physical and psychological effects. Morgana de Mello has also studied at the Royal University of Art in Stockholm and exhibited her work at Goldsmiths University in London. Her first collaboration as a cinematographer was on the short film Arg_Gubbe.mov which was supported by the Swedish Film Institute. Morgana is currently working on her first short film, Brazil is my Abyss, and on creating an archive of the Latin American diaspora in South Stockholm for the Swedish Heritage Fund.

Patrick Gätje

born in Henstedt-Ulzburg, studies German language and literature as well as art history at the University of Hamburg. Since 2019, he has been working at his favorite cinema, the Savoy Filmtheater am Steindamm, where he works in service and manages the social media channel. Through his work in the cinema, his visits to the cinema and the number of films he has watched have increased. In 2021, he published his first book of poetry »Falls du das liest, ich hoffe, dir geht’s gut« and continues to write poetry.

MAttis JEssen

born in Husum, grew up in a small village in North Friesland. He completed his A-levels and then moved to Hamburg to train as a marketing communications specialist. After his apprenticeship, he worked for several years as a sales manager in an outdoor advertising company. During the lockdown and many hours in the home office, his fascination for the art form of film flared up again. This fascination led him to start studying and live his dream of being active in the film world. He is currently studying media technology at HAW-Hamburg, where he also works as a tutor. At the same time, he works as a videographer for his former instructor and is currently planning his first short films with his fellow students.

Sophia Schachtner

born in Munich, lives and works in Hamburg. After graduating from high school in 2014 and completing an internship at NEUESUPER Filmproduktion in Munich, she worked for three years mainly in the art department for various film and television productions. She completed her Bachelor’s degree at the HFBK Hamburg, the Film Academy Vienna and the LUCA School of Arts Brussels. In October 2024 she will start her master’s degree in »Narrative Film« with Prof. Angela Schanelec. In 2022 she was on the Student Jury of DOK.fest Munich and in 2023 on the Young Europeans Jury of FIPADOC Biarritz. Her short film Gudow Nord premiered in the German Competition at the 66th DOK Leipzig. Her cinematic works move between the documentary and the fictional.

DENNY MARQUES

is a reporter at NDR Landesfunkhaus Hamburg. Every week he reports on radio and television about films and books that everyone should know about. Before that, he wrote print reviews for various magazines, newspapers and online portals and produced his own radio programs. After a traineeship at NDR, he has been constantly on the move in the city’s cinemas for several years. He has known the film festival for a long time, first as a fan and most recently as a live reporter from the red carpet.

Gerhard Midding

studied journalism and English language and literature in Münster as well as theater studies, literature and art history in Berlin. He works as a freelance journalist for daily and weekly newspapers such as Die Welt, Freitag, Falter, as well as film magazines in Germany, Austria and Switzerland (epd Film, ray). He has created radio programs (for SFB, then rbb) and television documentaries (for WDR and 3sat) and has contributed to numerous film books (most recently: »Federico Fellini – Zeitlose Bilder«, published in 2024). He was a board member of the Association of German Film Critics and lives in Berlin.

Heinrich Oehmsen

was born in 1954. From 1993 to 2009 he was scene and culture editor at the Hamburger Abendblatt. Since then, he has continued to write for the newspaper as a freelance author. He also hosts radio shows on ByteFM and NDR Nachtclub, where he shares his passion for music and culture.

Wilfried Reichart

After studying French literature at the Sorbonne in Paris and training as a journalist, he initially worked as a features editor at the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger. He then moved to the WDR film department as a television editor and program director. He is the author of television features on Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Agnès Varda, Samuel Fuller, Luis Bunuel and others. Co-author of book publications on Godard, Nicholas Ray and the “Filmgenres” series published by Reclam Verlag. Reichart is also co-producer of feature films, documentaries and essay films (with Heinz Emigholz, Harald Bergmann, Hellmuth Costard, Sohrab Shadid Saless, Claude Lanzmann, among others), writes texts for the online portal Filmdienst and is a member of the advisory board of the Association of German Film Critics. He lives in Cologne and Berlin.

Carolin WeidNer

is a freelance journalist and curator who studied film studies, journalism and communication studies in Berlin. She approaches the topics of film and cinema from different perspectives: she writes classic film reviews, for example for taz, Perlentaucher, tip, Stadtrevue or Cargo, but also designs programs for film festivals. She has been part of the DOK Leipzig selection committee since 2017 and a committee member of the Berlinale Forum section since 2023. She teaches film journalism and designs historical film series, most recently on the German relationship comedy of the 1990s. She was a board member of the Association of German Film Critics and lives in Cologne.

Natalia Libet

is a film producer and co-founder of 2Brave Productions. She is a member of the European Producers’ Club and the European and Ukrainian Film Academies, as well as a graduate of EURODOC 2021 and a fellow of the Nipkow Program 2023. She currently heads Tatino Films’ First Cut+, a workshop for the marketing of feature films. Her productions include Kateryna Gornostai’s Stop-Zemlia, which screened at FILMFEST HAMBURG in 2022, and Forever-Forever by Anna Buryachkova, which also screened there in 2023 in the international competition of the Mododist Kyiv International Film Festival.

Dennis RUH

is a consultant in the film and media industry and an expert on film festivals. He founded Seriesly Berlin, a new festival for series culture. Until March 2024, he was Director of the European Film Market, a position he held since 2020. He studied cultural studies, audiovisual communication, social sciences and history and joined the Oldenburg International Film Festival in 2008, where he became co-director in 2011. From 2012 to 2020 he was Head of Department at German Films. He is also a guest lecturer, panelist and frequent member of festival juries.

Diagnosis: Dissent

The editorial office

the glass house

grey bees

Oxygene station

Stepne