Meet the CIRCLE 2022 Experts
Brigid O'Shea
Documentary Association of Europe (DAE)
Brigid O’Shea is an Australian native who has worked for European film festivals and documentary organisations since 2008. Holding a Bachelor of Fine Arts obtained in Melbourne and Berlin, she started as an intern at the Berlinale Talent Campus. She worked for various Berlinale departments as a freelancer until 2014, including the EFMand also Co-Production Market, until taking a more focused approach on creative documentary. This came from coordinating the DOK Industry Programme from 2009-2015, which allowed her to also freelance for the Institute of Documentary Film in Prague, for Documentary Campus Masterschool, and Berlin-based production companies. She was appointed Head of DOK Industry Programme in January 2015. She regulary tutors on topics like European co-financing, cultural management and festival strategies in places like North America and East Europe. In February 2020 she co-launched the Documentary Association of Europe.
Diana El Jeiroudi
Director and scriptwriter
Diana's films encapsulate sociopolitical tensions and contradictions and extend well over time. She is best known for her Dolls - A Woman from Damascus (2007) and Morning Fears, Night Chants (2012). As producer, her filmography includes the award-winning Silvered Water -Syria Autoportrait by O. Mohamad & W. S. Bedirxan (Cannes 2014), and The Mulberry House by Oscar-nominated Sara Ishaq (IDFA 2013). Her efforts in supporting and advancing the documentary community and culture, notably through establishing DOX BOX as Syria’s first documentary film festival, and then as the Berlin-based documentary film support organization, has earned her various awards, including the EDN Award, The Katrin Cartlidge Award, and The Heart of Sarajevo. She is a member of the American Academy of Motion Pictures, the Deutsche Filmakademie, and the Asia-Pasific Screen Academy. She served on several committees and juries, most notably Cannes Film Festival Golden Eye Documentary Award, Sundance Documentary Program, IDFA, AFAC, and APSA Awards. Diana supported many careers and tutored talents through the professional training initiatives and workshops of DOX BOX, EuroDoc, Ex-oriente, IDFA, and Story Doc. Her most recent film Republic of Silence (2021) premiered in the official selection at Venice Film Festival.
Paula Vaccaro
Producer and scriptwriter
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Paula Alvarez Vaccaro is an award winning producer, scriptwriter, journalist, and educator with more than twenty-five years of experience working in film, TV, online, radio, and printed media in three continents. Before founding PINBALL LONDON, in 2009, she had worked in films, series and shorts for international companies and broadcasters such as BBC, MTV, and ARTE. Under Paula’s leadership, Pinball London has won over thirty international awards across narrative and documentary features, series, animation, and shorts. Working with directors from over 15 countries — from well-known ones such as Emir Kusturica, Sally Potter, and Guillermo Arriaga, to newcomers like Ana Rocha, Aaron Brookner and Edoardo de Angelis—, their films have launched at most A list festivals around the world and have been distributed in over 40 territories while their series have been developed with international partners in several languages. She is currently a Vice-President of the European Producers Club, and the workgroup leader for their gender charter. She was an Emmy Juror between 2009 and 2014, an Official Jury at San Sebastian Film Festival in 2017; a Jury at Focal Awards for Archive Excellency 2010-2018, and a BIFA juror since 2018. She is also a Sundance Alumna, a member of the European Film Academy; a member and mentor of EWA, the European Women Audiovisual Network, and a full member of the Writers Guild of Great Britain. She received the prestigious Chevening Scholarship Award and holds a Masters in Media Arts from Royal Holloway, University of London.
Phil Jandaly
Senior editor
Phil has been an editor for the last 20 years, starting in fiction before firmly landing in a documentary. Part of the award-winning international productions like 'Town of Glory', 'People We Come Across', and ‘Prison Sisters’, he also works as a rough cut consultant and has been part of films like 'The Earth is Blue as an Orange,' 'This Rain
will Never Stop,' 'Life of Ivana,' and more. Working out of Sweden, his projects have originated in places as far afield as Finland, Kenya, France, Russia, and beyond. He has travelled the world as a tutor, helping filmmakers to develop their projects, and giving master classes on pitch pilot trailers, the craft of storytelling through scripting and editing, and the genius of sticky notes. Phil blogs about documentary and technology, and hopes to one day run a marathon.
Joanna Solecka
Alphapanda
Film Marketing, Social Media & Audience Design strategist with extensive experience of working for film producers and cultural institutions. Lecturer, mentor and speaker at the international training workshops for fiction and documentary filmmakers such as CIRCLE – Women Doc Accelerator, Impakt, Torino Film Lab, Moving Docs, DOC.Incubator. Member of the Advisory Board of DAE - Documentary Association of Europe. Between 2004 - 2015 Joanna worked as Head of PR, Festivals and Sales at Wajda Studio & School, Warsaw, Poland. Since 2015 Joanna has joined Alphapanda, a European film marketing agency based in Berlin, Geneva and Warsaw, founded in 2011. Alphapanda specializes in the development of marketing strategies and the implementation of social media campaigns for the film industry. Alphapanda’s clients list includes the European Film Awards, Warner Bros, Under the Milky Way as well as many European sales agents, distributors, VOD platforms and production companies.
As a mother of three daughters, Joanna especially enjoys working on young audience and women empowering stories. Among recent titles Joanna handled campaigns for are films like: THE SCARS OF ALI BOUALA (Tribeca ’21), STOP-ZEMLIA (Berlinale ’21), NINJABABY (Berlinale & SXSW ’21), THE WALL OF SHADOWS (Hot Docs ’20), BEWARE OF CHILDREN (Venice ’19), ANOTHER DAY OF LIFE (Cannes ’18).
Rada Šešić
Festival programmer
Rada Šešić is a festival programmer, film lecturer, critic and film director. She was born in former Yugoslavia and currently lives in The Netherlands. She is associated with the two biggest film festivals in The
Netherlands: International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam and the International Film Festival of Rotterdam. At the IFDA, she is involved in the selection, commissioning of projects and the allocation of the IDFA
funds. At the IFFR, she works as a programme advisor on South Asian cinema and participates in the selection committee of the festivals’ Hubert Bals Fund. For more than a decade, Sesic has been heading the Documentary competition at the Sarajevo film festival. She has been a curator of Indian contemporary cinema for several major European film festivals like the IDFA, IFFR, Dok Leipzig, Zagreb Dox, International Belgrade Festival of Docs, Animation and Shorts and the Animafest in Zagreb. She is also the artistic director of a new festival Eastern Neighbours held in The Hague which focuses on non-EU European cinema. She directed four award-winning shorts and documentaries in the Netherlands and several in Sarajevo where she lived earlier.
Siniša Juričić
Producer
Born in 1965 in Zagreb, graduated in production from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb in 2009. Founded Nukleus Film in 2002. His focus is on the production of films by talented filmmakers from Southeast Europe. The films produced have been awarded and funded in and outside the country, winning awards in Cannes and Berlin. In 2012, he was awarded the annual Albert Kapovic Award by the Croatian Producers Association for his contribution to the international promotion of Croatian film. He is a member of the European Film Academy and the production networks of EAVE, ACE and Inside Pictures.
Anna Lisa Putorti
Graduated with honors in Law at University of Roma Tre in 1999, on 2007 pursued a Master in Business Administration (MBA) at SDA Bocconi (Milan) and UCLA Anderson (Los Angeles) with focus in cinema financing & strategy.
Currently Partner of the International Law Firm “Rulli Putortì & Partners” based in Rome, specialized in copyright and audiovisual law, dealing in particular with international co-productions and co-participations for both cinema and television, profit-sharing associations (so called tax credit), study and establishment of business networks, distribution, licensing agreements and clearing operations.
Advising both foreign and national clients including Associations as ASA (Association of Italian Agents) on Intellectual Property Rights management, including copyright, patent and trademarks, stage rights licensing, talent representation and compliance with regulations of Italian private and public authorities such as the Italian national Authors’ Collecting Society, the Authority for Guarantees in Communication, the Authority for Competition and Trade, and the Advertising Self-Regulatory Institute. Highly specialized in drafting and negotiating any kind of Italian and international contracts on the basis of the specific transaction required by the Clients, including legal assistance for the clearance related to audiovisual projects and coproduction agreements subject to the National laws as well as to the European and International Treaties.
Founder of the pro-bono legal aid initiative for the Association “Mujeres nel Cinema” based in Rome (for the promotion and support of gender equality within the Entertainment business).
Aleksandar Govedarica
Aleksandar Govedarica was born 1987 in Sarajevo, graduate of University of East Sarajevo as well as Vancouver Film School. He started working as a film programmer at Kriterion Sarajevo, the only art house cinema in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Aleksandar was part of the organizing committee of the Serbian Film Festival in Vancouver. With three years of previous experience in sales and distribution, Aleksandar runs the Toronto based world sales and production company Syndicado. He produced two documentary films and has experience in all aspects of filmmaking including directing. Aleksandar is tutoring at workshops like Dok Incubator, Baltic Sea Docs and Duna Dock.
