Developing your Film Festival 2016

Alan Black is part of the senior management team at Hot Docs, the world’s second largest documentary film festival. He acts as Managing Director of the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema, the world’s largest documentary focused cinema as well as Director of Operations for the festival. In the former role, he oversees programming, marketing, operations, and general strategic planning. In the latter role, he oversees all elements of box office and ticketing, registration and delegate services, theatre operations, and volunteers. In addition, Alan is an award winning documentary filmmaker whose films have been screened at many international film festivals and have been broadcast all over the world. www.hotdocs.ca / @hotdocs

Åsa Garnert works on a consultant/freelance basis for a wide range of clients in the cultural sector and beyond - from major European film festivals to government agencies. Before setting up her own company in 2014 she worked for the Swedish Film Institute as Director of Communications & Public Relations for six years (2007-2013), being responsible for the Institute's overall communications strategy and its implementation, including areas such as media relations, social media, web, marketing, debates/events and public affairs. She has also worked as a journalist.

Bianca Taal is a programmer for International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) responsible for programme section Voices and overseeing the selection of feature length films from the Arab speaking countries, Greece, Turkey, Israel and Iran. Furthermore she is head of Talent Development for IFFR and regularly serves on the selection committees of IFFR’s fund Hubert Bals Fund and co-production market CineMart. After finishing her Film and Television Studies at the University of Utrecht, Bianca Taal started working with IFFR in 2001 as a staff member of the Hubert Bals Fund and the CineMart. From 2005 - 2007 Bianca was co-Head of the CineMart. Consecutively Bianca has been director of the Hubert Bals Fund from 2007 - 2009. From 2009 - November 2011, Bianca worked as Head of Programmes at the Binger Filmlab in Amsterdam and returned to IFFR in 2011 as part of the programming team. https://iffr.com/en / @IFFR

Cristian Hordila became active within the film industry in 2006, when he worked as a volunteer for Transilvania IFF. From 2008 he worked for the festival and in 2011 he became the Festival Manager. Since 2012, Cristian has also been the Managing Director of Romanian Film Promotion Association. Among the most important events he organises besides Transilvania IFF, are Alba Iulia Film & Music Festival and TIFF Mures. In 2013 he was elected to the Board of European Film Promotion and became involved in supporting and promoting European cinema internationally. He is also the manager of Casa TIFF, a cultural centre that aims to promote film education and the need for expression through art. Cristian has been working for two years already to launch the first regional film fund in Romania, Transilvania Film Fund. The project was developed in SOFA and mentored by Katriel Schory. www.tiff.ro/en / @TIFFromania

Since 2000 Dagmar Forelle has been Head of Sponsorship at the Berlin International Film Festival. Together with Festival Director Dieter Kosslick she opened the festival to corporate partners and made it more attractive to the business community. Since 2015 she has been Vice Chair of the Wim Wenders Foundation, Düsseldorf. Previously, she worked in feature film production for over twenty years, including as the personal assistant for Wim Wenders (1986-1993). She was also involved with the conception and execution of exhibition and charity auction "Artists for Children" (1994+1999) and collaborated with Japanese fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto in Paris and Tokyo (1994-1996). She was employed at “Partner für Berlin” responsible for special cultural projects, sponsorship, as well as film and media work (1996-1997). In 2009 she started teaching Cultural Sponsorship and Marketing at various universities. www.berlinale.de/en/ / @berlinale

During the day, Domenico La Porta is a film journalist based in Belgium working as an industry reporter and Chief Editor of the EU co-financed press platform Cineuropa.org. With more than 40,000 daily visitors, Cineuropa has been successfully promoting European film industry in the world since 2002. In the evening he co-hosts the movie talk show Cine Station on Belgium's national TV channel where he has been working as a film critic for the last decade. At night, he's the founder and CEO of KWEB, a stealth company dealing with trans media storytelling, cross-platform movie promotion, crowd strategies, media and AV production. With the support of the EU MEDIA programme he is currently developing an international mobile app that gamifies the movie experience in theatres. Since 2014, he has been in charge of Transmedia at WALLIMAGE, the Belgian economical fund known as a pioneer in dedicating part of its financing to cross media storytelling. www.cineuropa.org / www.kweb.be / @cineuropa

Michael Rosser is the Managing Editor at film industry trade bible Screen International. As well as overseeing the management of ScreenDaily.com, he edits the news in Screen’s film festival magazines in Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, Hong Kong and more. Michael began his career as a newspaper journalist before moving into trade magazines, where he wrote about the international television business for 10 years for titles including Broadcast. A lifelong love of film took Michael to Screen International in 2012, where he relaunched the title’s digital offering and now attends film festivals around the world, covering the global movie business. www.ScreenDaily.com / @screendaily

Vilnius International Film Festival (VIFF) celebrated 21 years anniversary in 2016 with over 113 000 admissions. Mindaugas is responsible for sponsorship and development of festival organisation. After joining VIFF in 2011, he increased festival sponsorship revenues over four times. For over 14 years he worked with various festivals and outdoor events in Lithuania including fashion festival Fashion infection which is leading fashion event in the Baltics. In 2010 Mindaugas was the winner of the British Council International Young Fashion Entrepreneur competition and visited management training course at London Fashion Week 2010. In 2012 he launched sponsorship conference in Lithuania Smart-Sponsorship.lt which aims to develop sponsorship market in Lithuania and across Baltics. www.kinopavasaris.lt / @vilniusfilmfest

Otto Kylmälä is a Finnish filmmaker, critic and festival director currently based in Vilnius, Lithuania. Otto is the Artistic Director of two Finnish film festivals, Loud Silents silent film festival and Oulu Music Video Festival. He is also freelancing as a programmer and consulting for different festivals, such as Midnight Sun Film Festival, Uppsala International Film Festival and Braunschweig International Film Festival. As a film critic he is a member of the international critics association FIPRESCI and he has served in short film and music video juries in Ireland, Finland and Norway. Recently he just received a grant to write his first book, dealing with the relationship between music and moving image. http://www.omvf.net/en/ / @OMV_FESTIVAL http://loudsilents.com/en/ / @LoudSilents

Sten-Kristian Saluveer is an Estonian, but Japan-based film and music producer, festival manager and technology entrepreneur whose work ranges from electronic music to film scoring, sound and multimedia design, feature films and tech consulting. Saluveer has worked at several managerial positions for Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival - the latest to join the FIAPF’s acclaimed Competitive Feature Film Festivals - the A class category. Meanwhile he consults various governmental and private organizations on European and Asian collaboration, technology and innovation and the impact of technology on the film and media sector. He also frequently writes on Asia, culture, and film. www.poff.ee / @TallinnBNFF