Speakers Online 2023
Ton van Zantvoort
Director
The work of Ton van Zantvoort (Heesch, 1979) has been screened at leading film festivals. His film Sheep Hero premiered at IDFA. The film was selected by more than 150 festivals and won 30 prizes and 35 nominations for best director, best camera and best editing.
Spencer Wilkinson
Director
Spencer directed and produced “Alice Street (2020),” a documentary depicting the struggle to preserve Oakland’s ethnic arts and culture communities amid rapid gentrification. The film won ‘Best Documentary’ award at Oakland International Film Festival and ‘Social Impact Award’ at Thin Line. Among 35 film festival selections, highlights include Urbanworld, Mill Valley, Newport Beach, Seoul International Architecture and Milwaukee film festivals. In 2018, Spencer directed the feature-length “ONE VOICE: The Story of the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir” which premiered at Mill Valley Film Festival and was a 2019 East Bay Express “Best Movie of the East Bay.” The film was featured in the 2020 “Truly CA” season on PBS.
Jan Louter
Director
Jan Louter (1954) is the creator/director of independent documentaries - for television and cinema - which are both visual and conceptual as well as imaginative and challenging. He has portrayed many writers and artists, but is equally interested in social issues. He realized about 35 documentaries in total. They all were broadcasted in the Netherlands by Dutch public television and some of them also abroad. Most were screened at national and international film festivals in Europe, U.S.A., China and Australia. His work has been recognized by earning some prestigious awards for best documentary among twice A Special Jury Mention at the AFI in Los Angeles. His last two featured documentaries were: Grey Matter, about two neurosurgeons and some of their patients who were suffering from brain tumors. The other documentary is about the Dutch choreographer Ed Wubbe, who is the artistic director of the modern dance company Scapino Ballet. His most successful documentary up to now is The Last Days of Shishmaref.
Tassos Langis
Director
Tassos Langis studied cinema at Long Island University, New York, and the Stavrakos Film School, Athens. In 2008 he participated in the Berlinale Talent Campus in Berlin. His research focuses on the symbiotic forms of narration through different media.
Nastia Korkia
Director
Leif Kaldor
Director
In addition to his television awards Leif is a Juno award winning music producer and a Gemini award winning multimedia producer. He is currently directing a feature documentary on the Paris Opera Bastille, and an archeology documentary, The End of the World – the Maya for Explora, Smithsonian Channel Canada, PBS NOVA, ARTE France and SBS Australia.
Clara Kraft Isono
Director
Clara Kraft Isono is a filmmaker based in London. She studied at the London Film School, where she was awarded the prestigious Skill Set Bursary. As a student she won a UK National Student Film Award. Her film Achele was nominated Best UK Short at the Raindance Film Festival. This is her first feature film.
Francesco Conversano & Nene Grignaffini
Directors
Francesco Conversano and Nene Grignaffini are authors, directors and producers of documentary films since 1980. Their work is characterized by careful research which over the years has allowed them experiment with different languages and narrative forms and choose documentaries as a means for telling stories about our time. In the last ten years, Francesco Conversano and Nene Grignaffini have directed documentary films about the worldwide migration, the megalopolis of the new millennium, the countless microcosms of Small Town America between imagination and reality, the epoch-making changes taking place in China and India, the Italian landscape and people, the link between places and writing. Their stories explored the value and signs of Forms in Art, Architecture and Design.
Yiannis Gaitanidis
Director
Yiannis Gaitanidis lives in Athens, Greece. His work and creative output shares between short films, documentaries, tv commercials, and street photography. His four short films and some of his TV documentaries have participated and been awarded in several international film festivals. Αt the moment he works in the development of a script for a feature film.
Gavin Froome
Director
Gavin is a CD/Art Director, focused on product campaigns, photo & video direction, brand strategy, and conceptual thinking. He has previously worked for DDB, Blast Radius, Starbucks, Nike Golf, Jordan Brand and lululemon.
Luiz Ferraz
Director
Luiz Ferraz is a Director and Producer specializing in non-fiction projects. His most recent works are the direction of the series "To Win or To Win" for MBCGroup/Shahid (8x50'), the largest Arab media group, "Tecnologias da Esperança (48') for the GNT, "Cine Terror" (13x26' ) for Prime Box Brasil and Episode 4 and 2nd unit of the series “Tudo ou Nada: Brazilian Football Team” (5×52') for Amazon Prime Video. He co-directed the documentary “O Incendio no Museu Nacional” (48') among other projects for NatGeo, the documentary “Miller & Fried" (70') co-production with Globo Filmes and "Paisagem Concreta" for Arte1. In addition, he has produced and/or directed projects for Discovery+, Curta!, Globo, Globosat, Natgeo, among others.
Isabel Bernadette Brammer
Director
Isabel Bernadette Brammer holds an MA in Film Editing from the National Film and Television School in the UK and has over 18 years of experience working in the film and television industry in her home country of Denmark. Since 2011, her passion has been editing feature films and being involved in the creation of many large documentary hybrid series. 'Grethe Meyer - The Queen of Danish Design' is Isabel's director's debut feature documentary.
Mike Bernard
Director
Filmmaker and Art Director Mike Bernard is based in Vancouver, BC. with a background in all forms of communication and design. Mike has written and directed documentaries such as ‘Coast Modern’, and ’Crossing Over’ as well as music videos, shorts, and commercials.
Laura Artigas
Director
Laura Artigas is a screenwriter, journalist and film director. She graduated in screenwriting at “Escribir Cine”, course by the filmmakers Juan José Campanella and Aída Bortnik, in Argentina. She wrote and directed the documentaries “Vilanova Artigas: The Architect and the Light“ (2015) and “The Firm Sticht”, both awarded and screened at national and international festivals. She worked in production companies such as Boutique Filmes, Conspiração, Vice, Mixer, Spray, Vetor, Cuatro Cabezas in projects for platforms such as HBOMax, NatGeo, Discovery, E!, Band and OFF. Among her latest jobs are the development of format, direction and script for the four seasons of "Desengaveta" (GNT/Globoplay, the script and content development for the series "Burn Out Society" and "Breaking the Tabu" (GNT/ Globoplay).
Fred Schmidt-Arenales
Director