GUEST LECTURERS:
Joshua Oppenheimer – British-American film director
Born in 1974, USA, Oscar-nominated film director Joshua Oppenheimer is recipient of a MacArthur “Genius Grant” (2015-2019). His debut feature film, The Act of Killing (2012, 159 min and 117 min), was named Film of the Year in the 2013 by the Guardian and the Sight and Sound Film Poll, and won 72 international awards, including the European Film Award 2013, BAFTA 2014, Asia Pacific Screen Award 2013, Berlinale Audience Award 2013, and Guardian Film Award 2014 for Best Film. It was nominated for the 2014 Academy Award® for Best Documentary, and has been released theatrically in 31 countries. His second film, The Look of Silence (2014, 99 min), premiered In Competition at the 71st Venice Film Festival, where it won five awards including the Grand Jury Prize, the international critics award (FIPRESCI Prize) and the European film critics award (FEDEORA Prize). Since then, The Look of Silence has received the Danish Academy Award for Best Documentary and the prestigious Danish Arts Council Award. It screened at the Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Busan International Film Festival (Best World Documentary), the Copenhagen Documentary Festival (Grand Prize), Festival d’Angers (Audience Award for Best Film), and the Berlin Film Festival (Peace Film Prize). Oppenheimer is a partner at Final Cut for Real in Denmark, and Artistic Director of the Centre for Documentary and Experimental Film at the University of Westminster in London.
Martichka Bozhilova
Martichka Bozhilova has been producer of AGITPROP since 1999. Her films include the multi-awarded Georgi and the Butterflies (Silver Wolf Award, IDFA 2004); The Mosquito Problem and other stories (World Premiere: Cannes 2007; Grierson Award, London Film Festival 2007; Grand Prize, Sunny Side of the Doc 2008); Corridor #8 (World Premiere: Berlinale 2008 – FORUM, Ecumenical Jury Award; HOTDOCS 2008 – HBO Documentary Film Emerging Artist Award) as well as See You at the Eiffel Tower which premiered at IDFA 2008 – Reflecting Images Panorama. She is one of the producers of the first Bulgarian omnibus film 15. The short fiction film Omelette produced within 15 won an Honorable Mention at Sundance 2009. She is also the producer of the first original Bulgarian productions for HBO, Concrete Pharaohs and Paradise Hotel. Her latest films are Rules of Single Life (Audience Award for Best Documentary at Sofia FF 2011); Dad Made Dirty Movies (World premiere: Visions du Reel 2011) and The Boy Who Was a King (World premiere: Toronto IFF 2011, The Times BFI London FF 2011, IDFA 2011). AGITPROP’s films have been broadcast and received cinema releases worldwide.
In 2006 Martichka Bozhilova received the International Trailblazer Award, launched by Robert Redford and the Sundance Channel at MIPDOC in Cannes for creativity, innovation, originality and breakthrough in the field of documentary cinema. She is a lecturer at various European workshops and events in the field of documentary cinema. She is director of the Balkan Documentary Center (BDC) for supporting documentary filmmakers from the Balkans www.bdcwebsite.com and ambassador of the European Documentary Network (EDN) for Bulgaria.
Arash T.Riahi
Born 1972 in Iran, lives since 1982 in Vienna. Writer, director & producer. Studied Film and the Arts, has been working for the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation ORF, since 1995 on a freelance basis. Founded the film production company Golden Girls Filmproduktion in 1997. Has written, directed and produced several award-winning documentaries, shorts, experimental films, music videos and commercials. The cinema documentary The Souvenirs of Mr. X in cooperation with ARTE and ORF was his first cinema documentary. Multi award winning “Exile Family Movie” (ARTE/ORF) was the second one. His first feature film “For a Moment, Freedom” produced by Wegafilm and Les Films du Losange, has won 31 international awards and was the Austrian candidate for the Academy Awards 2010. The film had a cinematic release in Austria, Germany, Belgium, France, Canada, South Korea, Czech Republic, Norway, Luxembourg, Netherlands, etc. Since 2010 work as a script advisor for Sources 2. Teaching nonfictional storytelling and financing since 2011.
César Charlone
César Charlone is a cinematographer, film director and screenwriter, born in 1958 in Uruguay and based in Brasil. He collaborated with a director Fernando Meirelles on three films (City of God, The Constant Gardener and Blindness). He was nominated for the Academy Award (Best Cinematography) for his work on City of God. In 2007 he directed his first feature film, The Pope’s Toilet, which was selected by Uruguay as its official submission for the 80th Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Jørgen Leth
JFilmdirector & producer, poet, TV-commentator, musician.
Jørgen Leth was born on the 14th of June 1939 in Aarhus, Denmark. He studied literature and anthropology in Aarhus and Copenhagen and has worked as a journalist and jazz, theater and film critic for leading Danish newspapers since 1959. Leth was creative consultant at the Danish Film Institute between 1971-73 and 1975-77 and chairman of the board of The Danish Film Institute from 1977 to 1982. Leth has been a professor at the Danish National Film School in Copenhagen, at the State Studiocenter in Oslo and has lectured at UCLA, Berkeley, Harvard, NYU and other American universities.
Jørgen Leth has made more than 40 films since the beginning of his career, marking himself as one of Denmark’s most achieving auteurs. Leth was one of the founding members of the Avant Garde film-group Abcinema in the sixties.
Internationally recognized as one of the pioneers of experimental documentary filmmaking, Leth’s incredible and uncompromising work with specific form and lyrical content follows his films within both the documentary and fiction genre.
His filmography includes the masterpieces “The Perfect Human” (1967), “A Sunday in Hell”(1977) and one of his more recent films “The Five Obstructions” co-directed with Danish auteur Lars Von Trier. Many of his films have been distributed worldwide, and Leth’s filmic artwork is studied across the globe.
Being a writer, Leth has published over 20 books. His poems are represented in English, French and Italian. Aside from Leth’s own memoirs, two biographies about him have been published. Two films about Jørgen Leth have been released, Thomas Gislason’s award-winning documentary “Heart and Soul” in 1995 and in 2008 Amir Labaki’s “27 scenes about Jørgen Leth”.
For the past years, Leth has been touring Denmark doing live performances reading poetry. Two albums have been released (2004 and 2007) with Leth’s poems accompanied by music by some of Denmark’s leading musicians. Leth has also been a commentator for Danish TV since 1989, widely famous for his work on Tour de France.
Jørgen Leth has a daughter and three sons, and he has been a part time resident in Haiti since 1991, also being the Honorary Consul of Denmark in Haiti from 1999-2005.
Leth has been granted a number of prestigious awards, including: The Oberhausen Hauptpreis 1971; The Thomas Mann Awrad 1972; The Danish Acadamy’s Special Proze 1983; The Paul Hammerich Award 1992; The Drachmann Waard for literary oeuvre 1995; Prix de France 1997 for cultural reporting from France; The State Art Foundation’s special Award 1999; The Danish Film Acadamy’s Robert 1996 and 2000; Æres-Bodil 2009. Recipient of a life-long grant from the Danish State for his achievements in filmmaking.