CIRCLE Fiction Orbit 2024
Mentors
Bianca Oana
Head of Studies
Dedicated to supporting boundary-pushing cinema and art making, Bianca Oana has been building an expertise in handling challenging filmmaking processes, at the unpredictable border between fiction and reality, cinema and exhibition spaces, and with complex international co-production structures: Golden Bear winner 2018, Touch Me Not by Adina Pintilie, Collective (Oscar nominee for Best Documentary and Best International Feature 2019) by Alexander Nanau, and Anhell69 by Theo Montoya (Settimana della Critica - Venice International Film Festival 2022, winner of the Golden Dove DOKLeipzig 2022). She is the creative producer of the Romanian Pavilion at the 59th Venice Art Biennale with Adina Pintilie's You Are Another Me - A Cathedral of the Body, curated by Cosmin Costinaș and Viktor Neumann, and is currently producing Pintilie's second feature, Death and the Maiden - a German-French-Austrian-Romanian-Czech co-production and Theo Montoya’s second feature False Positive (currently in Cinefondation). Bianca is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), an Emerging Producer (2016), and Producer on the Move (2021).
Dominique Welinski
Producer
In 2012, after distribution for 20 years, Dominique Welinski founded DW, a production and consulting company. Since then, she curates and produces the Factory program at Director’s Fortnight in Cannes. She’s a consultant for various workshops and labs. She did co-produce films from Sri Lanka, Iran, Israel, India, Brazil and Philippines.
Dana Bunescu
Editor, sound designer and director
Dana Bunescu is a Romanian editor and sound designer. She co-directed with Mona Nicoară the feature documentary The Distance Between Me and Me (2018). Dana is a winner of the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at the 2017 Berlinale for Călin Peter Netzer’s film Ana, mon amour. She has been working in the field since 2000. Known for editing The Death of Mr Lazarescu directed by Cristi Puiu (awarded the “Un certain Regard” prize in Cannes 2006), Cristian Mungiu’s films 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (Palme d’Or, Cannes, 2007), Andrei Ujica’s documentary The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceaușescu (for which she also did the sound design), screened at Cannes in 2010. She is also known for the sound design and editing of Child’s Pose by Călin Peter Netzer, winner of Golden Bear for Best Film at Berlinale 2013, as well as for the sound design of Aferim, I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians and Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn by Radu Jude. She edited and did the sound-design of numerous documentaries. Bunescu was nominated and won several Gopo Awards for Best Editing and Sound Design.
Jasmila Žbanić
Director, Screenwriter & Producer
Born in Sarajevo on December 19th, 1974, Jasmila Zbanic graduated from the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo, Department for Theater and Film Directing. Before filmmaking, she worked as a puppeteer in the Vermont-based “Bread and Puppet” theater and as a clown in a Lee Delong workshop.
In 1997, together with her friends, she founded the Artist’s Association “Deblokada,” through which she produced, wrote, and directed. Her feature film Grbavica, awarded the Golden Bear at Berlinale 2006 and Best Film at the American Film Institute (AFI), gained critical acclaim.
Quo Vadis, Aida? premiered at the Venice Film Festival and, besides multiple other awards, received the Independent Spirit Award for Best International Film, the European Film Award for Best Movie, Director, and Main Actress, as well as nominations for the USA Academy Awards (Oscar) in the category Best International Feature Film and two BAFTA Awards.
She directed one episode of the acclaimed HBO TV show The Last of Us. The Venice Film Festival presented her TV show I Know Your Soul in 2023.
Pia Marais
Writer and Director
Pia Marais is a writer and director from South Africa and Sweden. She has written and directed 3 feature films. Her feature debut The Unpolished won the Tiger Award at the Rotterdam Film Festival in 2007. At Ellen’s Age screened in Competition in Locarno in 2010, and in more than 30 festivals, including Toronto. Layla Fourie was set in her home country South Africa and premiered in Competition at the 2013 Berlinale, receiving a Special Jury Mention. In 2018, she made her first documentary Cari Compagni for Arte. Transamazonia is her fourth feature film.