guests
october 2023
Julie Billy
Julie Billy produced around a dozen films at Haut et Court including Gagarine by Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh (Official Selection Cannes 2020) or A Chiara by Jonas Carpignano (Director’s Fortnight Award 2021). She produced a wide range of films from the genre film The Night Eats the World by Dominique Rocher (Tribeca) to a social feature documentary Latifa by Olivier Peyon and Cyril Brody (Rotterdam). Her international co-production credits include Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster, Nadav Lapid’s The Kindergarten Teacher and Jonas Carpignano’s A Ciambra. Julie co-founded Collectif 5050, which promotes gender equality and diversity in the industry. In 2020, Julie co-founded the production company June Films with Naomi Denamur. By combining their complementary expertise in the marketplace and in production, June develops, produces and co-produces innovative, socially committed and intimate films with an international scope. June brings together the family of filmmakers it has met over the years and fosters the emergence of new talent, while offering a modern production model. June’s lineup includes the next features by Hafsia Herzi, Clémence Poésy, Fanny Liatard & Jérémy Trouilh, Emma Benestan.
Alexandra Blue
Alexandra is an award-winning producer committed to bold, original and inventive storytelling. Alexandra’s short films have been Oscar-longlisted and received acclaim at festivals including BFI London, Clermont-Ferrand, Flickerfest and Palm Springs. Alexandra’s accolades include being selected as one of 12 producers for BFI Insight, Film London Lodestar of 2021, Emerging Producer of the Year (SASA), Best Emerging Filmmaker (Shorts Film Festival) and Short Film of the Decade at the Australian Academy Awards. Alexandra has been mentored by some of the top production companies, including a Screen Australia Talent Escalator placement with Element (‘The Lobster’, ‘Room’) and a six-month Producer placement with Warp (‘This is England’, ‘’71’). Alexandra also worked as a Development Executive at Heyday for Producer David Heyman (‘Harry Potter’, ‘Paddington’) until 2017, before collaborating with Eleven (‘Sex Education’) as a development producer with her own projects. Alexandra’s slate includes projects that have been developed with Film 4, BFI, Netflix and Screen Australia.
Claudia Bottino
After moving to France to study Modern Literature at the Sorbonne University, Claudia Bottino worked as a script consultant for several independent film companies. During 2013-14, she was on the writing team for the award-winning TV series ‘Ainsi soient-ils’/’Churchmen’ (ARTE France/Germany). ‘Duo’, her first short film as a director, was selected for screening at numerous international festivals, including Palm Springs International ShortFest, Odense International Film Festival, London Short Film Festival and Sundance, where it played as part of Short Film Connection in 2016. She co-wrote ‘Sirin’, a first feature film directed by Montenegrin director Senad Sahmanovic, that premiered at the Sarajevo Film Festival in 2023. After directing her second short film, ‘Seul’, she worked on the screenplay of ‘Tender Age’, by Julien Gaspar-Oliveri, broadcasted on ARTE and screened in numerous festivals, including Clermont-Ferrand and Angers Premiers Plans. The short was a finalist at the 2021 César Awards. Recently, she co-wrote ‘Loin de la route’, Hugo Vieira da Silva’s fourth feature film produced by Paulo Branco. She also co-wrote the Netflix teen drama ‘Caught by a Wave’, directed by Massimiliano Camaiti, and she is currently working on Julien Gaspar-Oliveri’s first feature film, ‘La Frappe’, whose script was a finalist at the Sopadin Best Screenplay Award 2022. Her third short film, ‘À Trois’, screened at Clermont Film Festival in 2023 and broadcasted on Canal+. Claudia is a former alumna of Torino Film Lab.
Delia Vasile
Delia Vasile is a communicator, psychologist and psychotherapist with a humanistic approach, based in Bucharest, Romania. She graduated from the Faculty of Letters and the Faculty of Psychology and since 2012 she has started her training in Transactional Analysis with Yorkshire Training Centre International. She has had learning experiences and professional training in Romania, Great Britain, Germany, France and the USA. She has a professional background in communication, public relations and entrepreneurship, which she uses in order to understand human and social experience from a wide range of perspectives. Since 2015, she has worked in private practice as a psychotherapist, with individuals and couples. Her therapeutic approach is a narrative one, being passionate about understanding life stories and the scripts people act out in their lives.
residents
october 2023
Shalini Adnani
Shalini Adnani is a Chilean-Indian writer and director based in London. Her latest short film WHITE ANT premiered at Sundance 2023. She is a Berlinale Talents and London Film School alumni.
Andra Chiriac Hera
Andra currently works as a film director in Bucharest, Romania. After obtaining her Master’s degree in International Law, she completely changed gears, graduating film studies at ESRA, in Paris. In 2017, her short film BORDERS premiered at the Gent Film Festival in Belgium, travelled worldwide and was nominated for the Gopo Awards in 2019. In 2021, she completed THE THINGS WE HIDE IN SILENCE, an unconventional therapeutic journey, following two characters who confront the way family patterns and the voices of others have shaped their identity. The documentary was also nominated for the Gopo Awards in 2022. She is also the founder of Meaningful Scripts, designed for people aiming to learn how to write a professional short film script and to enhance their creative potential through storytelling.
Gunhild Enger
Gunhild Enger graduated from Edinburgh College of Art (2005), and The School of Film Directing, in Gothenburg (2012). She was nominated for a BAFTA with her graduation film BARGAIN and has since then screened her films at festivals around the world. Her film PREMATURE (2012) won best short at several festivals. PLAY SCHENGEN (2020) and THE COMMITTEE (2016) both premiered at Locarno Film Festival, and Chicago International Film Festival. In 2020 she co-directed a Norwegian animation feature film for children, TWO BUDDIES AND A BUDGER 2 — THE GREAT BIG BEAST. Gunhild also worked on casting THE SQUARE (2017), directed by Ruben Østlund.
Maria Hatzakou
Maria Hatzakou is a film director, producer and musician based in Athens. She began her career as a producer for Haos Film, a pioneering filmmaker-run production studio based in Athens, founded by Greek director Athina Rachel Tsangari. Maria’s producer credits include ATTENBERG, ALPS, THE CAPSULE, CHEVALIER & DIGGER. She was part of EFP’s “Producers on the Move” forum (Cannes Film Festival). She is a Sundance Institute alumna. In 2021, she wrote and directed and produced (through her newly founded production company Merricat) her first short film AMYGDALA which has been enjoying a successful festival run. She just finished her second short, 7Hz, and is in development of her third short STARFLYER and her first feature film, STRINGA (co-written with fellow filmmaker Alexandra Matheou). Maria is also a drummer in Someone Who Isn’t Me, an all-female electronic music band in Greece.
Katarina Jazbec
Katarina Jazbec, a visual artist working in film and photography, was born in 1991, in Slovenia, and has been living in Rotterdam since 2015. She received her BA from the Faculty of Economics in Ljubljana and her MA in Photography from the AKV | St. Joost art academy in Breda (NL). In her film works, Katarina uses interdisciplinary and collaborative artistic strategies, exploring the vulnerability and agency of human and non-human critters in the current economic system. Her previous short film YOU CAN’T AUTOMATE ME premiered at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam in 2021. Katarina is currently a resident at the international residency programme at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.
Ryushi Lindsay
Ryushi Lindsay is a British-Japanese filmmaker based between the UK and Japan, working across artist’s moving image, documentary and fiction. His work has screened at festivals including Aesthetica and Short Shorts, as well as on MUBI. He is currently developing CREST, a contemporary western noir feature set in the Scottish Highlands, and SILK AND RUSHES, a cross-class romance set against the turbulent politics, all-out war, and the trauma of occupation, of 1930s, 40s and 50s Japan. He is also developing a feature documentary about pedigree Japanese dogs. As a filmmaker, he is particularly interested in form and aesthetics, and how to confront past and present fascism.
Alexandra Matheou
Alexandra Matheou is a writer and director. She holds a Law LLB and LLM from King’s College London, as well as an MA in Film Studies from University College London (UCL). Her short films have screened internationally and her latest, A SUMMER PLACE (2021), a Cyprus-France co-production with the support of the CNC, continues its festival run with selections and awards at major film festivals around the world. Alexandra is an alumna of Talents Sarajevo 2018 and a Fellow at Oxbelly Screenwriters and Directors Lab 2022. Her first feature film SHIBBOLETH is currently in development with the support of Onassis Culture and the Cyprus Film Fund. With SHIBBOLETH, Alexandra won the top award at Crossroads Co-Production Forum at Thessaloniki Film Festival as well as the Producer’s Network Award for Cannes Film Festival. The project has also been selected as part of the First Films First(FFF) script development programme (Goethe- Institut) and Mediterranean Film Institute Lab.
Raluca Manescu
Raluca Mănescu is a Romanian screenwriter and playwright. She has collaborated with Romanian film directors Nicolae Constantin Tănase, Luiza Pârvu, Ivana Mladenovici. She wrote the feature THE WORLD IS MINE, which received the Special Jury Mention at Karlovy Vary IFF, 2015, and the Debut Award at TIFF, Romania. She was a participant in Midpoint Central European Script Center in 2014 and in the Mediteranean Film Institute’s development workshops as assistant tutor in 2015. She is a storytelling mentor in the SYAA Programme of Anim’est, a study programme meant to encourage and support female animation auteurs.
David Vajda
David Vajda is a writer and director based in Vienna. He holds a BA in Philosophy from University College London and an MPhil in International Politics from Cambridge. He has published journalism and short stories in the Guardian, Edit, Reportagen and the FT Magazine. His first, nationally funded 51-minute film JESUS EGON CHRISTUS (co-directed with his brother Saša Vajda) premiered at the 71st Berlinale in 2021, followed by the IFFR Rotterdam and many other festivals. David is currently writing his debut feature supported by script funding from the Austrian Ministry for Art & Culture. He is also working on his first short story collection that will be published by Hanser Berlin in 2024.
Pedro Vaz Simões
Pedro Vaz Simões studied theatre at the University of Évora, and film at the Lisbon Film and Theatre School. He works in film and in the performing arts, mostly as a director, assistant director and writer. Pedro wrote and directed the short film ROAD TO HEAVEN, which premiered at IndieLisboa in 2020, and co-wrote FIRST AGE (dir. Alexander David), which premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2023. Currently based in Lisbon, Pedro lived in Edinburgh and London for several years where he worked with various film and performing arts organisations, mostly in film and industry programming, and communications.