guests
october 2022
Bianca Oana
Dedicated to discovering filmmakers with a particular artistic view, Berlin-based Romanian producer Bianca Oana has been building, over the past 10 years, a solid expertise in handling challenging, unconventional filmmaking processes, at the unpredictable border between fiction and reality, and with complex international co-production structures. Oana has been involved since 2009, in developing, producing and distributing multi-awarded art-house films including Collective by Alexander Nanau (double Oscar nominee in 2021 for Best Documentary and Best International Feature), Golden Bear winner Touch Me Not by Adina Pintilie, Toto and his Sisters by Alexander Nanau, and Turn off the Lights by Ivana Mladenović. As guest-expert and advisor, Oana held lectures at institutions and events such as Berlinale Talents, Berlin (2019), Consolidating European Cooperation Through Co-Production, Bucharest (2019 conference organised by MEDIA Creative Europe Romania), Days for a Creative Europe, Paris (2018 conference organised by the Council of Europe), International Conference on Women in Film Industry – Zagreb (2019), and others. She has served as a jury member for festivals and funding bodies such as IDFA Bertha Fund & IDFA Forum, Sundance Film Institute, Cinelink Sarajevo, Visions du Reel, InterFilm Berlin Script Pitch, and others. She is currently producing Adina Pintilie's second feature Death and the Maiden, and Theo Montoya's debut Anhell69. She is also the creative producer of the Romanian Pavilion of the 59th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia with Adina Pintilie's You Are Another Me - A Cathedral of the Body.
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 2022
Giacomo Abbruzzese
A graduate of Le Fresnoy, his short films were selected and awarded in many international festivals including Clermont-Ferrand, Oberhausen, Viennale, Palm Springs, Mar del Plata, Tampere, Indielisboa, Nouveau Cinéma Montreal, Winterthur, Angers, Torino, and Leeds. He was an artist in residence at Cannes Film Festival Cinéfondation, at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, and at Clermont-Ferrand ShortFilm Festival. In 2022 he was nominated at César with his documentary America and he ended the shooting of his first feature film Disco Boy, a co-production between France-Italy-Belgium-Poland, starring Franz Rogowski.
Octav Chelaru
Octav Chelaru (b. 1991) is a self-taught film director who started making amateur films at the age of 14, using his relatives and classmates as actors. A film school reject, he directed music videos and commercials, produced short films for other directors and was involved as an assistant director for various projects. He wrote and directed five short films out of which the last two, Black Clothes (2017) and The Parallel State (2020), both premiered in competition in Locarno. His debut feature film, the Romanian-German-Serbian co-production A Higher Law (2021) was in competition at the Transilvania IFF. The film was also selected in Thessaloniki IFF, Goa IFF and Ghent IFF.
Mika Gustafson
Mika Gustafson has a Bachelor's degree in film directing from Valand Film Academy in Goteborg, Sweden. Her debut documentary Silvana won the Swedish National Film Award. Mika also had an exhibition at The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Geneva. She finished shooting her feature fiction debut film Sisters, now in post-production and set to premiere in 2023.
Alexander Öhrstrand
Alexander Öhrstrand is a Bachelor from Alma Screenwriters and Göteborg Acting School. Apart from a prestigious acting career, he co-wrote the feature film Sisters with director Mika Gustafson. Currently, he is developing plays for theater and co-writing The Last Generation, again in collaboration with director Mika Gustafson.
Jacqueline Lentzou
Jacqueline is an artist whose cinematic language involves discovering poetry in -seemingly- mundane premises as well as embracing non-linear narration. Having directed six films until now, thematically her work touches upon non-traditional family systems and their consequences, duality, love, and most importantly, the lack of it. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Leica Cine Discovery Award by Semaine de La Critique for Hector Malot: The Last Day of the Year (2018), the Golden Hugo in Chicago IFF for The End of Suffering (A Proposal) (2020), as well as the Grand Prix in Reykjavik IFF and Sevilla Film Festival for Moon, 66 Questions (2021), her debut feature which premiered in Berlinale Encounters Competition. Retrospectives on her full body of work have taken place in Montreal, Vienna, Porto, and Ghent. Jacqueline is the New York Onassis foundation fellowship recipient for 2022. Finally, she was one of the three finalists for the prestigious Rolex Mentor&Protegé scheme 2022-2024.