Meet the CIRCLE 2020 Participants

Aet Laigu (Estonia)

Aet Laigu is the founder of an independent Estonian production company Meteoriit and a filmmaker (alter ego, Al Wallcat). She holds a business degree and M.A. in Film and TV Studies from The University of Warwick (UK). She is an alumnae of NIPKOW, EAVE, Inside Pictures and Producer on the Move, and a voting member of The European Film Academy.

Aet has previously co-written three feature films, including Kadri Kõusaar’s Ema/Mother (2016), which was Estonia’s entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award. Modern Mermaid is her feature documentary debut.

Alba Zari (Italy)

Alba Zari is based in London, was born in 1987 in Bangkok, Thailand. In 2019 she received the FOAM Award, recognized to the 20 outstanding young artists in the world by the Museum of Photography in Amsterdam. Her work THE Y, already winner of the Graziadei’s Award, is exhibited in prestigious galleries and art centres.

Graduated at DAMS in Bologna, Italy in Cinema critics. Specialises in Visual Design at NABA in Milan, Italy, and in Documentary Photography at the International Center of Photography in New York, USA. Other recent works involve topics about identity from a personal and intimate point (The Y, looking for Massad, biological father), visual research of IsIs propaganda (Places), analysis of the visual representation of Mental Health in Italy after Dr. Basaglia Law, Food Disorders common in American society, and on the unique flora of the Mesr Desert in Iran.

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Barbara Cunha (Brazil)

Barbara Cunha holds a post-graduation degree in Studies of Image and Contemporary Culture. She began her career in cinema around 2000 and in 2007 founded her own production company 99 Produções with the aim of producing audiovisual works that have technical and artistic quality for the national and international markets. She studied film direction with Béla Tarr’s.

She directed the short film They Won't Steal My Voice (2018), three documentary series Saudade (2017), Butterflies and Mermaids (2019) and Food is Art (2019) and the feature doc Prison Flowers (2019).

Her next feature documentary, God is Woman, is part of Documentary Campus / Ibermedia.

Efthymia Zymvragaki (Greece)

Holds a Master´s degree in Artistic Productions and Research of the Faculty of Fine Arts UB. Photographer trained in the Institut d’Estudis Fotogràfics de Catalunya. Degree in Psychology by the University of Crete, Greece.

Co-DOP of the documentary You Will Be a Man by Isabel de Ocampo. DOP for the feature film Rocco Has Your Name. She directed the short documentary Refrán. She has been the DOP of several short films. She is actually working on the research and treatment of two documentary projects, both related to the use of violence: A Sad and Vulgar Loner and The Chef's Choice, about a boarding culinary school educating aggressive teenagers

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Fan Wu (Taiwan)

Born in Taiwan, Fan graduated with a BA in Sociology at National Taiwan University. Her short documentary, Koike Kouji, was commissioned with ViewPoint award by Public Television of Taiwan. She was granted national and European Union scholarship to join DocNomads Erasmus Mundus program in Documentary Filmmaking.

Her film A Roof in Common was screened across Asia and Europe. She was the international coordinator of CNEX Chinese Documentary Forum(CCDF) 2018.

She’s currently producing Venice’s feature film, Last Days at Sea, and directing her first feature, XiXi, awarded the National Documentary Fund. In 2019 she co-founded Svemirko Film with Venice Atienza.

Lin Alluna (Denmark)

Graduated from the National Film School of Denmark in 2017 and express herself through character-driven documentaries, filmed all over the world. Dissolving the limits of reality, her artistic focus evolves around strong, female protagonists fighting for a cause they believe in. She believes in being true to the reality protagonists experience and thereby giving our audience a chance to experience it for themselves too.

Therefore she works in a collaborative, hybrid field. She is the director’s representative adviser at FAF (Danish filmmakers guild), part of the Nordisk Panorama advisory group, co-founder of Oplysningsgruppen (higher education of filmmakers), and teaches at The National Film School of Denmark and the talent development filmprogram Station Next.

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Lina Vdovii (Romania)

Lina is an award-winning independent reporter from Moldova, based in Romania, with experience in investigative and narrative journalism and new media. Her articles have been published in outlets such as The Guardian, EUobserver, Courrier International, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Christian Science Monitor, Balkan Insight, Al Jazeera and others.

She is also the screenwriter of ACASA, My Home documentary, winner for best cinematography at Sundance 2020.

Maja Prelog (Slovenia)

Maja is Ljubljana based film directress. Her student short film Wild East received Vesna award at 16th Festival of Slovenian Film. Since 2012 she is a member of an art group RÁ., finding her means of expression in cinema and other forms of artistic practices. She is co-author of music videos for a world-renowned art music group Laibach.

She wrote, directed and produced her short experimental film 2045 which received award for the best of FeKK SLO at the Ljubljana short film festival FeKK 2016.

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Maka Gogaladze (Georgia)

With a degree in medicine, Maka Gogaladze tried photography in 2008. Since 2010, she has been working as a photographer for media and other organizations in Georgia. In 2014-2016, Gogaladze received a master’s degree in Multimedia Journalism and Media Management from the Caucasus School of Journalism and Media Management at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs, where she became deeply interested in documentaries.

Gogaladze is currently a photography tutor at the GIPA Media Lab. She also produces short documentaries for the South Caucasian media platform Chai Khana.

Patricia Drati (Slovakia/Denmark)

Director Patricia Drati is the creative producer behind the recently released youth documentary Don’t Give a Fox which was released theatrically in Germany and was formatted into a widely-seen series on Danish Broadcasting Corporation.

She is also the executive producer of the current theatrical success Photographer of War produced by Good Company Pictures. Becoming Ema is her debut as a director.

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Sara Stijovic (Montenegro)

Sara Stijović is a senior in college studying Film and TV directing at FDA Cetinje. Now, she is specializing in Documentary film. Her student films had been internationally selected and awarded. She is holding an Al Jazeera Ambassador certificate from an Investigation documentary training lead by Oscar nominees during Al Jazeera Balkan film festival, 2018. By the middle of 2019, she has taken part in several international campuses.

Now, she is in pre-production phase of a feature documentary film with the work title Gina, her first feature film, supported by the Film Center of Montenegro.