ONSITE
10-19 NOV 2023
ONLINE
15-28 JAN 2024

11th Mentoring Projects

Cinema Pendent

Onsite
Online

The directors, screenwriters and producers of five documentary or hybrid feature-film projects at the writing stage will be selected to take part in a year-long programme of support comprising group sessions with industry professionals who will be involved in the artistic process right up until the production stage. Over the course of twelve months, participants will work on their projects, giving and receiving feedback to and from their peers and hired experts. Envisaged activities include assistance with writing a screenplay, presenting a dossier, designing funding strategies, drawing up contracts and agreements, selecting forms of distribution and targeting audiences. The series of monthly meetings will get under way in person at l’Alternativa and will then continue online as both individual and group sessions.

  • Tuesday 14 November, 8 to 9.30 pm
  • Aula 2 CCCB
  • Thursday 16 November, 4 to 7 pm
  • Sala Raval CCCB
  • The rest of the year online
  • Entry by appointment
  • If you are interested in any projects and would like to schedule a meeting for 16 November, email us: cinemapendent@gmail.com
Find out more

Coordinating Tutor

Gabriela Iacob
Gabriela Iacob

Gabriela Iacob is a screenwriter and script doctor at her storytelling studio Storyliners. She studied film directing at university in Bucharest. She was head of development at Media Pro Pictures studio, where she set up a content department to handle intellectual property and talent tutoring. She has worked with emerging screenwriters throughout most of her career. She is currently head of content development at Pro TV, sits on the selection committee at Cinema Pendent and is overseeing the new Mentoring Projects programme at Alternativa Pro.

Tutors

Jacquelyn Mills
Jacquelyn Mills

Jacquelyn Mills (Nova Scotia) is a Montréal-based filmmaker whose immersive and sensorial work, often exploring a healing connection to the natural world. Her award-winning documentary In the Waves (2017) premiered at Visions du Réel. Her most recent work, Geographies of Solitude (2022), won three awards at its premiere at the Berlinale Forum, before going on to garner dozens more, including Best Canadian Feature Film at Hot Docs, Outstanding Artistry in Filmmaking from the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, and Best International Feature Film at l’Alternativa. She is a Sundance Doc Fund recipient and was nominated for an IDA Documentary Award and a Canadian Screen Award. She has also worked as editor, sound designer and cinematographer on a number of internationally acclaimed films.

Kiro Russo
Kiro Russo

Kiro Russo (Bolivia, 1984) studied directing at the Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires and works as a director, screenwriter and editor, blends documentary elements with fictional narrative and drawing inspiration from French director Robert Bresson. He made three short films, Enterprisse (2010), Juku (2012) and Nueva vida (2015), before his debut feature, Viejo calavera (2016), which was selected for more than 80 festivals and won 23 awards, including a Special Mention from the jury at the Locarno Film Festival. Russo's second feature film, El gran movimiento (2021), was shot in the town where he was born, La Paz, and premiered at the 78th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Special Orizzonti Jury Prize, before travelling to over twenty festivals, including San Sebastián, NYFF and IFFR, and picking up ten awards. 

Cíntia Gil
Cíntia Gil

Cíntia Gil (Portugal) studied at the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema in Lisbon and holds a BA in Philosophy from the Universidade do Porto. She programmes for the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes Film Festival and is an associate programmer for Doclisboa, a festival she directed from 2012 to 2019 and where she founded the Arché Creative Development Lab. She also launched the RAW residencies in conjunction with Márgenes/Work (from Márgenes festival). From 2019 to 2021, she directed the Sheffield DocFest in the UK. In 2022 she cofounded the hybrid cineclub Artistic Differences at UnionDocs in NYC with Jenny Miller and Christopher Allen. She has served on juries at numerous international film festivals, including l’Alternativa, Berlinale, Mar del Plata, Jerusalem Film Festival, Torino Film Festival, Taiwan IDF, FIDMarseille, Seville European Film Festival and Dokufest, among many others.

Felipe Lage Coro
Felipe Lage Coro

Felipe Lage Coro has been at the helm of Zeitun Films since 2009, overseeing the production of films such as Todos vós sodes capitáns (Oliver Laxe, 2010), Arraianos (Eloy Enciso, 2012), O quinto evanxeo de Gaspar Hauser (Alberto Gracia, 2013), Costa da morte (Lois Patiño, 2013), Pozoamargo (Enrique Rivero, 2015, Mimosas (Oliver Laxe, 2016), the short Tshweesh (Feyrouz Serhal, 2017), La estrella errante (Alberto Gracia, 2018), Lúa vermella (Lois Patiño, 2020), Miguel’s War (Eliane Raheb, 2021) and the shorts Rompente (Eloy Domínguez Serén, 2022) and Sen ti (Feyrouz Serhal, 2023), all of which have won plaudits at leading festivals worldwide, including Cannes, Berlin, Locarno, Toronto, Rotterdam, Seville and Busan. He graduated as a producer from European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs in 2013 and has taught production classes at ECAM since 2015 and for the MA in Produción Xornalística e Audiovisual (MPXA) since 2018. He is currently the president of AGAPI (Asociación Galega de Produtoras Independentes), as well as project consultant for the European agency MEDIA Creative Europe. He represented Spain for Producers on the Move at Cannes 2022.

Silvia Lobo
Silvia Lobo

Silvia Lobo (Zamora, 1981) is an executive producer, film distributor and audience design consultant for feature film projects. Together with Félix Abel de la Cruz, she recently set up the distribution company Stendhal Films, which specialises in independent films. She has worked at Morena Films on films like Campeones and Todos lo saben and on documentaries with Carlos Saura and José Luis López-Linares, among others. Over the past few years, she has distributed more than 25 films, including Spanish films like El despertar de las Hormigas, Trinta lumes, Hamada, Liberté, Lúa vermella, Blanco en blanco, La Mami, A media voz and La vida era eso, as well as international films like Sauvage, Ninjababy, Sweat and Lola. She has worked with sales agents such as Luxbox, Les Films du Losagne, Films Boutique, Mk2, Pyramide, Heretic and Urban Sales, among others. She also lectures for several Spanish master's programmes on production and distribution, programmes for the MAFIZ-WIP section of the Malaga Film Festival and is an executive producer for the RIZOMA festival.

Jo Serfaty
Jo Serfaty

Jo Serfaty (Rio de Janeiro, 1983) is a Brazilian film director and screenwriter who trained at PUC-Rio and in New York, where she studied directing. She has written and directed four short films. Her debut feature, Um filme de verão, sparked by her experience of teaching film classes to young students, was selected for various international film festivals in Montevideo, Lisbon, Gothenburg, Mar del Plata and Madrid. In 2020, it won Best International Feature at l'Alternativa.

Ramiro Ledo
Ramiro Ledo

Ramiro Ledo is the founder and director of the film distribution company Atalante. Previously, he was a founding partner and president of the NUMAX cooperative from 2014 to 2021. As a distributor, he has released films in Spain by directors such as Pedro Costa, Catarina Vasconcelos, Jonás Trueba, Mathieu Amalric and Arthur Harari. Among his upcoming releases are A Traveler’s Needs, by Hong Sangsoo (Silber Bear Grand Jury Prize at the Berlinale); All We Imagine as Light, by Payal Kapadia (Grand Prix at Cannes) and Blue Sun Palace, by Constance Tsang (French Touch Jury Prize at the Cannes Critics' Week). He has been a guest lecturer at the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola (San Sebastián) and in the Next Wave programme at the DFFB (Berlin), a project adviser (Novos Cinemas, l’Alternativa, MRG/WORK, Mecas, Abycine) and a jury member at several international festivals (Locarno, Sevilla, Pravo Ljudski, OUFF, Porto/Post/Doc, IndieLisboa, Play-Doc, Cinélatino). Since 2019, he has also been the managing director and programmer of DUPLEX Cinema, as well as a member of the Board of Directors of Próxima and president of the Promio network of independent cinemas. In 2020 Europa Cinemas awarded him the Entrepreneur of the Year Award in Europe for his work in the film industry.