Mentoring Projects

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.

Félix Blume (France, 1984) is a sound artist, field recorder and sound engineer. He lives in a rural area of southern France and has carried out multiple projects in Latin America. He uses sound as the main material in sound pieces, films, videos and sound installations. Interested in myths and their contemporary interpretations, he explores the narratives that voices transmit beyond words. He has presented his work at international festivals and museums such as Centre Pompidou, Berlinale, IFFR, CTM Berlin and Museo Reina Sofía, among others. He was awarded the Soundscape (2018) and Pierre Schaeffer (2015) prizes at Phonurgia Nova, and his film Luces del desierto won First Prize for International Short Films at L'Alternativa CCCB (2021). His works can be found in collections of CNAP (France), UNAM (Mexico) and others.

Nicolás Pereda (Mexico City, 1982) obtained a Master's Degree in Film Direction from York University (Canada). He has made films and videos for various interdisciplinary works, operas and dance pieces that have been presented in Mexico and Europe. His first feature film, ¿Dónde están sus historias?, was screened at festivals worldwide and won the French Critics' Discovery Award at the Rencontres Cinemas d'Amérique Latine in Toulouse. His films have been shown at some of the most prestigious festivals, including Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Locarno and Toronto. At 27, he received his first retrospective at Cine las Americas in Austin, Texas, in March 2010. He is a filmmaker who explores everyday life through fractured and elliptical narratives, using both fiction and documentary tools. For his film casting, he regularly collaborates with the theatre collective Lagartijas tiradas al sol and actress Teresa Sánchez. Since 2020, he has taught film at the University of Berkeley.

Deborah Stratman is an artist and filmmaker who creates works that investigate themes of power, control, and belief, exploring how places, ideas, and society are intertwined. She considers sound as the ultimate tool and time as something supernatural. Her recent projects have addressed freedom, surveillance, public discourse, sinkholes, levitation, orthopterans, birds of prey, kites, evolution, extinction, exodus, sisterhood, and faith. She has exhibited internationally at venues including MoMA (NY), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Hammer Museum (LA), Witte de With (Rotterdam), PS1 (NY), Tabakalera (San Sebastián), Austrian Film Museum (Vienna), Yerba Buena Center (SF), MCA (Chicago), Whitney Biennial (NY), and has created site-specific projects in collaboration with venues such as the Center for Land Use Interpretation, Temporary Services, Hallwalls, Mercer Union, and Ballroom Marfa. Stratman's films have been widely presented at festivals and conferences including Sundance, Viennale, Berlinale, CPH:DOX, Oberhausen, True/False, TIFF, Locarno, Rotterdam, the Flaherty, and Docs Kingdom. She has received Fulbright, Guggenheim, and USA Collins fellowships, an Alpert Award, the Sundance Art of Nonfiction Prize, and grants from Creative Capital, Graham Foundation, Harpo Foundation, and the Wexner Center for the Arts. She lives in Chicago where she is a professor at the University of Illinois.

After studying History and Arts in France and Germany, Christian Popp began his career as a producer in 2005. As a former programming editor at ARTE since 1997, he commissioned more than 30 documentaries, numerous thematic evenings, and live broadcast programs. As a producer for Interscience film, a Franco-German production company, he produced more than 20 documentaries and docudramas for the international market. He co-founded Berlin-based DOCDAYS Productions, where he produced several documentaries and transmedia projects until 2014. He worked as a consultant for EDN, IDFA Academy, Visions du Réel, La Femis, East Doc Platform, Doc Lab Poland, EAVE, and other European institutions and served as Industry Director of the FIPADOC International Documentary Festival 2020-2021.

Isona Admetlla (Barcelona) is a sociologist and cultural manager, residing in Berlin since 2001. She is the coordinator of the Berlinale-World Cinema Fund, consultant at TorinoFilmLab, and coordinator of Novos Cinemas' #LAB. Since 2017, she has been part of the selection committee and is a tutor at the Málaga Festival's MAFF. As a freelancer, she designs training programs that include workshops, conferences, and consultancies in areas such as funding and audience design, both in academic and film industry settings. Additionally, she participates as a jury member and project evaluator in Spain, Latin America, and globally. Trained at EAVE and TFL, she directs consultancies for film projects, training future audience designers and working with groups on their strengthening and connection with audiences in various international programs. Among her consultancies, notable projects include Brief History of a Family (2024, China), premiered at Sundance and Berlinale 2024, and All We Imagine as Light (Perlak, 2024, India), Grand Jury Prize at Cannes 2024.

Cíntia Gil (Portugal) studied at the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema and holds a degree in Philosophy from the Faculty of Letters at the University of Porto. She is a programmer for the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes and associate programmer of Doclisboa, a festival she directed from 2012 to 2019 and where she founded Arché - Creative Development Laboratory. She also launched the RAW residencies together with Márgenes/Work (from the Márgenes festival). From 2019 to 2021, she directed Sheffield DocFest (UK). In 2022, she created, with Jenny Miller and Christopher Allen, the hybrid film club Artistic Differences at UnionDocs (New York). She has served as a jury member at l'Alternativa, Berlinale, Mar del Plata Festival, Jerusalem, Turin, Taiwan International Documentary Festival, FIDMarseille, Seville European Film Festival, and Dokufest.