Meet the CIRCLE 2023 participants
Anda Ionescu (Romania)
Producer
With a Master's degree in communication from Romania and Denmark, Anda Ionescu has been working in film production and cultural management for the past 7 years. She is currently a Managing Partner and Producer at Tangaj Production, where she produced Andra Tarara's debut documentary Us against us and Bogdan Theodor Olteanu's feature film Mia misses her revenge. Anda is also active on the European film market, participating in industry networks like EAVE, Emerging Producers, and Berlinale Talents, and collaborating on projects such as Holy Father with HBO Europe and Otto the Barbarian as a delegate producer.
Anna Khazaradze (Georgia)
Producer and director
Anna Khazaradze is a Georgian producer and director with a bachelor's degree in Film and Television from the London College of Communication (UAL). She co-founded 1991 Productions, where she produced and co-directed Glory to the Queen (2020), a documentary that won the best documentary prize in Georgia and was screened at 25 festivals worldwide. Anna's recent works include the feature documentary Smiling Georgia, which premiered at the 2023 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, and she is currently developing several projects, including the historical drama mini-series Nino and Iliko and the feature fiction Tear Gas.
Chona Mangalindan (The Philippines)
Director
Chona was a Monbukagakusho Scholar and finished her studies in Japanese language and Photography in Tokyo. Her first short film "In Santa Ana" won Best Film at the Sorok Short Film Festival and was nominated for Best International Short Film at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival. She has been a selected participant at the IDFAcademy, FIFDH's Impact Days, Docs by the Sea, Dok Leipzig's Short n’Sweet, AIDC's the FACTory, and the Scottish Documentary Institute’s Connecting Stories.
Christina Phoebe (Greece)
Filmmaker, visual artist and writer
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Christina Phoebe is a filmmaker, visual artist, and writer based in Athens, Greece, whose debut feature Amygdaliá (2019) premiered at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and won Best First Film at the Mostra Internazionale del Cinema di Genova. An NYU graduate and alumna of various prestigious programs, she co-founded SURPLUS CINEMA, a platform focused on feminisms and filmmaking in Greece. Her work has been exhibited at venues like the Venice Biennale of Architecture and the Athens Biennale, and supported by organizations such as NEON and the Greek Film Center.
Faezeh Nikoozad (Iran)
Filmmaker and video artist
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Faezeh Nikoozad is an Iranian filmmaker and video artist based in Hamburg, Germany. She gained a BA in Production and Costume Design in Tehran and later a BA and MA in Filmmaking at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg (HFBK). Her work, which ranges from documentaries to experimental films and mixed media, cover a relatively wide spectrum of themes, including home, childhood memories and displacement. Faezeh's short films have been presented and honoured with awards at numerous interna- tional film festivals, such as the 2018 VIDEOFORMES Award in Ville de Clermont-Ferrand, France. Her graduation film MISSED EMBRACE was awarded the 2019 HFBK Berenberg Film Prize.
Fanny-Laure Bovet (Switzerland)
Visual artist and documentarian
Fanny-Laure Bovet is a visual artist and documentarian from Switzerland.
She graduated from The Ecole Cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL), where she studied photography and explored themes of transhumanism, family traumas, and Ageism discrimination. Her images regularly deal with the strangeness of life and a particular desire of exploring the unseen. With the ambition to empower women and tell stories about underrepresented communities, she is in the development of her debut documentary feature, “No Woman’s Road” produced by Kumoshika Productions in Geneva.
Julia Maryanska (Poland, USA)
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Julia Maryanska is a Polish-American filmmaker and producer based in the San Francisco Bay Area focused on creating media and events at the intersection of justice, eros and culture building. She has worked on award winning films such as “My Reincarnation”, and “Regarding Susan Sontag,” and is the associate director and producer of the feature doc, “The Village of Lovers” which is currently touring in Film Festivals. She has directed and edited short films and music videos that have won awards at festivals, been featured Uplift.TV, Gaia TV and more. She is the co-founder of the media collaborative, Re/Culture Media, which produces stories and immersive theatrical events in service to a regenerative culture. She is also multi-lingual, a photographer, violinist, a master NLP practitioner and a mother to a young girl.
Lisa Smith (UK)
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Lisa Smith is a producer who’s most recent works include an animated documentary series exploring stories of Roma and Sinti resistance during WW2 with Roma Trial e.V . She is Co-Curator of the International Festival of Romani Film AKE DIKHEA?. and Chair of (The Advisory Council for the Education of Romany and Other Travellers) She is founder of Patrin Films Ltd a collective promoting visibility of Romani perspectives through the production of documentary and fiction films.
Maša Nešković (Serbia)
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Maša Nešković graduated film directing from Belgrade’s Faculty of Dramatic Arts and has a PhD in Polymedia Art. She directed 4 short fiction films, 8 short and mid-length documentaries and a feature film “ASYMMETRY” (that were screened and won awards at several international film festivals), and 3 prime-time TV series. Maša's an EAVE and Sarajevo Talent Campus alumni. She’s currently developing her first feature-length documentary “KAFKA IN BELGRADE”, as well as her second fiction feature “IN FOG FOLLOW DOTS”. Maša teaches directing as an associate professor at FEFA Faculty in Belgrade.
Tereza Bernátková
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Tereza studied filmmaking at FAMU, Prague. She specializes in films based on archival material, whether it is official institutional archives or personal footage. Her films were two times part of the Czech Joy competition at Ji.hlava IDFF. On her last two films (History of the Czech Communist Party - 2021, Socialism in Motion - 2019) she collaborated with Czech TV. In her films, Tereza approaches archives as a lively source of alternative, off-modern histories that challenge dominant narratives.
