BDC Discoveries Workshop
Mentors 2024
Dimitra Kouzi is an award-winning filmmaker, creative producer, journalist, and audience developer. Since 2013, she has led audience campaigns for European documentaries (La Chana, Nowhere to Hide, Siberian Love, Communion, Reconciliation, Radiograph of a Family, The Balcony Movie). She is an audience producer and tutor at BDC Discoveries, Doku Rough Cut Boutique, and Sarajevo’s Docu Rough Cut Boutique pitching workshop, working to support filmmakers in developing their projects and reaching audiences effectively.
Festival programmer, lecturer, critic, and director, born in former Yugoslavia, now based in Utrecht, Netherlands. Collaborates with IDFA Amsterdam for 15 years. Heads the Documentary Competition at Sarajevo FF (13 years) and co-leads Docu Rough Cut Boutique. Works with the Doha fund and Trieste festival’s Last Stop Trieste platform (10 years). Lecturer at the Netherlands Film Academy and mentor at workshops like Visions du Réel, Doc Lab Poland, Baltic Sea Forum, Ex Oriente, Dragon Forum, and more across Europe and Asia.
Ieva Ūbele, a documentary producer, founded Baltic Balkan Productions in 2019, focusing on personal stories and social issues. Her notable films include homo@lv (2010), the first Latvian documentary at Berlinale, and Inga Can Hear (2018), premiered at Hot Docs 2019. Former Head of Industry at Beldocs IDFF (2020–2023), she holds an MA in Social Anthropology and an Executive MBA. An alumna of EAVE, EURODOC, and Emerging Producers, she is a member of the Documentary Association of Europe and EWA.
Anna has worked with documentaries since 2013, following a career in banking as a project leader. In 2018, she founded Lightdox, a Swiss-based sales and distribution agency supporting impactful documentaries. Previously, she was a Sales and Acquisition Executive specializing in film marketing, branding, and impact distribution. Lightdox’s portfolio includes Paris Calligrammes (Berlinale Camera Award 2020), The Witches of the Orient (IFFR 2021), Intercepted (Berlinale 2024), and Bye, Bye Tiberius (Venice 2023).
Boris makes impossible crowd pleasing films and plays blitz-chess for money, that he then spends on breakfast. Four films, 300+ festivals, all-inclusive funding, global lecturing track record.
www.dribblingpictures.com
Simone Baumann has worked in film production for over 25 years, producing numerous documentaries and feature films. From 1997 to 2010, she was the managing director of LE VISION. Until 2019, she headed the documentary department at Saxonia Entertainment. An expert on Russia and Eastern Europe’s audiovisual markets, she has also been the Eastern Europe representative for German Films since 2005. In April 2019, she became the Managing Director of German Films, overseeing the promotion of German cinema worldwide.