Industry Professionals

Agnès Tricot
Documentary Project Manager, Audiovisual Department CN

After law studies (Master’s degree in communication, and economic Law) and a short experience in UNESCO, Agnès TRICOT joined the CNC in 2001 and the Audiovisual department in 2007. Ensuring selective and automatic support to documentary producers. She gives advice and information on different types of support. Public funds are supporting production, development, writing or pilot programmes.

Programs have to belong to one of the following field : fiction, animation, documentary, live entertainment, or cultural magazines and intended for broadcast on a television channel or platform

The CNC is a French public administrative organisation, set up as a separate and financially independent entity. The centre comes under the authority of the ministry of culture. The main missions are :

Regulation
Support cinema, television video, multimedia and technical industries
Distribution
Promotion of film and television for distribution
Preservation and development of the film heritage

Alex Szalat
Docs up Fund
*online

Alex Szalat, is a Director of documentaries since 1979, covering a full range aspects dealing with International, history, life culture, geopolitics and society issues. In 1987, A. Szalat founded KS VISIONS, an independent producer’s company which has produced over a hundred documentaries films and TV series. He was a former commissioning editor and deputy head of the documentaries department of Arte France between 2005 and 2019. He is now running Docs up Fund, dedicated to feature length documentaries about Human rights.

Docs Up Fund: An initiative that offers mentoring and financial support to feature-length documentary films addressing contemporary human rights issues around the world, films that raise awareness and can have a positive impact.

Anca Păunescu
Film programmer

Anca Păunescu studied German philology and film. For the last seven years she has been intensively involved in documentary film selection, curating and creative advising in special programs at various European festivals. She is currently artistic co-curator at One World Romania, main documentary film selector at Neisse Film Festival, Germany. She advised and was part of the (pre)selection teams of festivals: DokuFest (Kosovo), FIPADOC (France), Karlovy Vary IFF (Czech Rep.). She was also a jury member at MakeDox, Kasseler Dokfest, Iceland Documentary FF, DOK Leipzig Co-Pro Market and others.

Bastien Gauclère
Industry Days, FIPADOC

Since 2021, I’m in charge of FIPADOC’s Industry Days, the international documentary film festival held annually in Biarritz. In 2025, we gathered +2.600 professionals and proposed +60 different sessions (pitching, masterclasses, keynotes, matchmaking, etc.) both in French and English.

Previously, I coordinated various workshops and the TV series scriptwriting department at La Fémis (French national cinema school). Between 2015 and 2017, I worked for the French Consulate in Jerusalem as audiovisual cooperation officer in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. I also worked for AGAT Films (independent production company) and the French CNC, and hold a master’s degree in political sciences.

Carine Chichkowsky
Producer, Survivance

Survivance is a production and distribution company founded in 2010 by Carine Chichkowsky and Guillaume Morel, focused on art-house films, especially documentaries and emerging filmmakers. Carine has led production since the start, with dual Master’s degrees in Business (Quebec University, Grenoble Business School) and Documentary Cinema (Paris 7). She has produced about 30 films, which have been screened at the Berlinale, Locarno, Toronto, Rotterdam, and key documentary festivals. Her films have been released in cinemas in France and internationally, and broadcast on major networks (Arte, HBO Europe, France Televisions, ZDF, VPRO, RTS, YLE, Al Jazeera, etc.). She has co-produced with over 15 countries across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. She has established long-term relationships with several directors, notably with Mila Turajlić, with whom she has co-produced every film since The Other Side of Everything. She is an alumni of EURODOC and EAVE and she regularly teaches documentary producing workshops at L’atelier documentaire of La Femis, Documentary Master of Université Paris 7 and Université Grenoble Alpes.

Chiara Zappalà
Creative Europe MEDIA Officer France
*online

Chiara Zappalà works in the field of European cooperation and the cultural and creative industries, with a particular interest in the cinema and audiovisual sectors. She is currently Creative Europe MEDIA Officer at Relais Culture Europe, the Creative Europe desk in France. Her experience includes supporting European cooperation and project development, and working at the intersection of cultural policy, audiovisual regulation, and innovation. She is committed to promoting European works and contributing to a more sustainable, inclusive, and gender-balanced audiovisual ecosystem.

Gabriela Daniels
Producer, Europe Media Nest

Gabriela Daniels is a Prague-based producer, production manager, and distribution expert with over a decade of experience managing production company Europe Media Nest s.r.o. which is dedicated to bringing Iranian culture to the international cinema world. She helps independent Iranian filmmakers to show authentic insight into modern-day Iran. Gabriela has collaborated with acclaimed directors such as Mohammad Rasoulof, Mahnaz Mohammadi or Pegah Ahangarani on award-winning projects including There Is No Evil (Golden Bear, Berlinale 2020) and I Am Trying to Remember (Busan Jury Award, MakeDox Special Mention 2022).

Ilija Tiricovski
Producer, North Macedonia

Ilija Tiricovski is film and TV producer with a background in mathematics and music. He is working on development and production of animation, fiction and documentary films. His recent filmography includes a documentary film “Garden” [2024] by Bojan Tanturovski (premiered at BelDocs), the short film “Solo Mode” [2021] by Oscar Nominated director Tamara Kotevska (premiered at Sarajevo Film Festival) as well as co-producing her feature documentary “The Walk” [2023] (premiered on DOC NYC). He is an alumni of MIDPOINT Institute, Torino Film Lab, Creative Producers and The Festival Academy by the British Council, winning awards for project development on European Short Pitch, Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event, Evia Film Project by Thessaloniki Film Festival and CineLink Drama at Sarajevo Film Festival.

Inka Achté
Artistic Director, DocPoint Helsinki Documentary Film Festival

Inka Achté is an award-winning filmmaker and a former sales agent (Taskovski Films and Autlook Filmsales) whose career in the field of documentary film spans 20 years. Alongside directing, Achté currently works as the Artistic Director of DocPoint Helsinki Documentary Film Festival, one of the largest documentary festivals in the Nordic region, and the only one in Finland dedicated to nonfiction cinema. She also works as a festival strategist and head of acquisitions at Raina, a festival service agency which focuses on all aspects of festival distribution of documentary films from all over the world. Achté has tutored film students at Aalto University in Helsinki, the Norwegian Film School Lillehammer, Raindance Film Institute in London and EICTV Cuba, and consulted professionals at various industry events, for example at IDFA Consultancies, Asian Documentary Clinic at Busan Film Festival, Sheffield DocFest, Cinedoc Tbilisi, Baltic Sea Docs, Astra Film Doc Tank and Tempo Documentary Film Festival.

Ivana Naceva
Producer, Pótem

Born in 1986, she holds an MA in Culture Studies from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Building on over a decade of experience in cultural management, she transitioned into the film industry working as a freelance producer and production manager for selected productions in Slovenia. In 2024, she founded the production company Pótem, with a primary focus on documentary films. She has participated in markets and educational initiatives including IDFA Project Space, IDFAcademy, East Doc, among others.

Ivana Shekutkoska
Producer

Ivana Shekutkoska has a background in economics and M.A. in Marketing, Advertising & PR from the University of Sheffield-City College. She started producing films in 2015, working on shorts, fiction, and documentaries. Ivana participated in MAIA, MIDPOINT, Erich Pommer Institute, Coco Connecting Cottbus, Docs Barcelona etc. In 2019 she founded and leads Minimal Collective, based in Skopje. Ivana is one of the two producers of the award‑winning DJ Ahmet, a debut feature film which premiered at Sundance 2025.

James Berclaz-Lewis
Head of Programming, Visions du Réel

Since 2023, James Berclaz-Lewis has served as Head of Programming at Visions du Réel, while also leading the Programming Office at the Vevey International Funny Film Festival. His career has included positions such as that of Chief Coordinator of the FIFDH in Geneva from 2016 to 2020, followed by a position on the programming team of the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival until 2023.

Beyond that, he has collaborated with the Geneva International Film Festival, the feminist multidisciplinary festival Les Créatives, and played a role in Switzerland’s “Lex Netflix” campaign, advocating for reform in national media policy.

Jovana Jovičić
Producer, Lucha

Jovana Jovičić is a producer from Belgrade, Serbia, working across fiction, documentary, and animation. She is the founder of the production company Lucha and holds a BA in Management and Production in Theatre, Radio, and Culture, as well as an MA in Film and Television Production from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, University of Arts in Belgrade. She also studied Musicology at the Faculty of Music Arts and is a pianist.

An alumna of EURODOC, Euro Connection, European Short Pitch, and the CEE Animation Workshop, she has also participated in numerous industry programs and platforms, including the Jihlava Market, Young Horizons, Transilvania Pitch Stop, and Sofia Meetings.

Her films and projects have received awards at international festivals and co-production markets. She works with both emerging filmmakers and established international talents, often developing cross-border co-productions with partners from France, Spain, Croatia, Slovenia, and North Macedonia.

She is a member of DOK Serbia and the Association of Producers of Serbia.

Jean-Jacques Peretti
Programming & training coordinator, Sunny Side of the Doc

Peretti studied films and literature in France and the US. He has worked many years in documentary production in companies such as Les Films d’Ici, before joining Sunny Side of the Doc in 2002. At Sunny Side, Peretti is in charge of the editorial line. He is also working as an expert with international festivals and markets.

Laëtitia Kulyk
Regional Audiovisual Attachée for Western Balkans of the French Embassy

Laëtitia Kulyk has been regional audiovisual attachée for the western Balkans since September 2023. She is based in Belgrade and her position covers the fields of cultural industries as well as media, journalism and disinformation. Prior to this position, she was the managing director of the French screenwriter’s union. From 2015 to 2019 she was attachée for audiovisual cooperation, chief of the cultural industries service and Director of the French-speaking film festival at the French Embassy in Greece, from 2011 to 2015 she coordinated the MEDIA program at Europa Cinemas, and from 2007 to 2011 she worked at the CNC at the cinema directorate.

Laëtitia Kulyk holds a PhD in Social sciences/Cultural policy from the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, and has published different articles about the concepts of diversity and nationality in the European film industry.

Mara Prohaska Marković
Festival Director, Beldocs

Mara Prohaska Marković is an art historian, curator, and producer based in Belgrade, Serbia. With over 20 years of experience in the public, civil, and private sectors, she has worked extensively in the fields of culture and the audio-visual industry. Her expertise includes producing and curating numerous cultural events, festivals, exhibitions, art residencies, and artworks both in Serbia and internationally. Since 2009, she has been a part of the organizational team of the Beldocs International Documentary Film Festival, where she has held the position of Festival Director since 2020. In this role, she also curates the XR Exhibition: Immersive Reality. She is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), the Association of Fine and Applied Art of Serbia, and the Documentary Association of Europe, and an alumna of the female leadership programme Audiovisual Women 2023 by the Erich Pommer Institute.

Maria Krauss
Producer, Plesnar & Krauss Films

MARIA KRAUSS (1981), documentary film producer, manager of the cultural projects; social activist. Co-founder of a boutique production company based in Warsaw Plesnar & Krauss FILMS. Produced and co-produced strong character driven documentaries screened and awarded at national and international festivals. She has wide experience in international co-productions and in industry events. Member of Polish Producers Alliance KIPA; Member of European Film Academy and Polish Film Academy.

Mark Edwards
Producer & Media Consultant

A 30-year industry veteran, producer and broadcaster Mark Edwards began his career in New York in the 1990s supervising the post-production of a 10-hour documentary series on the history of American cinema.

Based in Paris since 1995, he served for four years as Director of the USC Shoah Foundation (founded by Steven Spielberg) in France before working across Europe as an independent producer. In 2012, he joined ARTE France as Head of International Co-productions.

In 2021, he was appointed Director of Documentaries in Europe for Netflix. In his role as a broadcaster, he has served as a commissioning editor on more than a hundred documentary films and series. Since his departure from Netflix in February 2024, he has returned to working as an independent producer and media consultant. He has extensive experience teaching documentary production and writing and has been a member of several different film commissions.

Michal Sikora
Producer, Lonely Production

Michal Sikora runs Lonely Production, a Czech audiovisual production focused on diverse, human-driven stories with an international reach. Over the years, Michal has taken on an eclectic portfolio of fiction and documentary projects that have enjoyed international success and have been featured at prestigious festivals such as Busan, Shanghai, Karlovy Vary, Locarno, PÖFF, Warsaw, Cinequest, DOC NYC, or Raindance. Michal’s latest film CHILD OF DUST received the Golden Hobby-Horse Award and the Golden Horn Award at Krakow IFF 2025, which makes the film eligible for the Academy Awards® 2026 in the Best Documentary category. Michal has participated in several prestigious programs, inc. East Doc Forum, Ex Oriente Features, Doc.incubator, Emerging Producers 2025, and EURODOC25.

Monica Baptiste Gouffray
Coordinator Filmmaker Support, IDFA

Monica Baptiste Gouffray is a Colombian media researcher and producer based in Amsterdam. She currently coordinates the training and funding programs at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). Before moving to the Netherlands in 2019, Monica worked as a film producer and writer in Colombia. She later earned a Research Master’s degree in Media Studies from the University of Amsterdam.

Monika Lošťáková
Producer, nutprodukcia, Super Film

Monika Lostakova has been focusing on developing and producing documentaries, creating distribution strategies and preparing funding applications for nutprodukcia since 2015. Since 2017 she has worked also at production company Super Film where she produces mainly documentary projects and minority co-productions. In addition she is programme coordinator of International Film Festival Febiofest Bratislava, Four Elements and Visegrad Film Forum.

Morana Ikic Komljenovic
Representative of the Croatian Audiovisual Centre (HAVC)

Morana is a seasoned producer, storyteller, and expert with 25 years of professional experience in the audiovisual industry. Her career highlights include her directorial debut film “Naked Soul,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001, and the recent production of “The Golden Thread” by Nishtha Jain, awarded Best International Film at the Mumbai Film Festival in 2024. Morana formerly led Fade In, a distinguished documentary production company in Croatia, and gained extensive international experience as a co-producer and acquisition manager at Taskovski Films in London. In 2018, she founded Little Red Dot, focusing on international co-productions, project financing and development.

She collaborates with the Creative Europe Desk – MEDIA Office Croatia, Croatian audiovisual Centre, and Eurimages. She is a member of the EAVE expert network. and an active member of the Managing Board of the Filmmakers Association of Croatia, serving as president of the Production Branch. She is an Associate Professor in the field of Arts at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. She is committed to sustainability, inclusion and diversity, a member of the Sustainability Working Group at Eurimages, and the only filmmaker in Croatia certified by CQI-IRCA for ISO 1400-2015 lead auditor in sustainability.

Neda Milanova
Producer, Balkan Documentary Center representative

Neda Milanova has worked for years in the field of documentary cinema as a producer at AGITPROP and project manager of Balkan Documentary Center. She has been part of the team behind films such as “The Cars We Drove Into Capitalism” (DOK Leipzig 2022), “Touch Me Not” (Golden Bear, Berlinale 2018), Working Class Goes To Hell (TIFF, 2023). As a project manager of Balkan Documentary center, she is responsible for the overall coordination, network development and organization of the Center’s activities, incl. its three international programmes for professional documentary filmmakers – Discoveries, Docu Rough Cut Boutique and Balkan Watchers. Since 2020, she is part of the team of Sofia Documental festival as Head of Industry. She has experience in archival research for documentaries and is one of the founders of Kinoclub Super 8.

Pamela Cohn
Writer, Programmer, Producer, Story consultant

Originally from Los Angeles, California and based in Helsinki, Finland, Pamela Cohn works as a moving image curator, arts & culture journalist, mentor, and nonfiction project consultant. She is the author of Lucid Dreaming: Conversations with 29 Filmmakers (2020, OR Books New York & London) and co-produces, writes and hosts the Lucid Dreaming Podcast: Conversations on Cinema, Art & Moving Image with LONO Studio in London. She also does a podcast on mentoring for AVEK – The Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture in Helsinki. Pamela works as an interviewer for both live and recorded master classes and long-form conversations with artists and filmmakers. She serves on DokuFest’s selection committee and curates artist spotlight programs and has a regular conversation series for Documentary Association Europe in Berlin. Pamela is an independent member of FIPRESCI – the International Federation of Film Critics, and leads workshops for young film critics in Hungary and Serbia. She is the year-long curator-in-residence at HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme on Suomenlinna island in Helsinki.

Sashko Potter Micevski
Acting Director, North Macedonia Film Agency

Mr. Sashko Micevski (artistic name: Sashko Poter Micevski) is a film and TV editor and sound designer, born in 1990 in Štip. He began his education at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts (FDA) in Skopje, where he completed his studies in film and TV editing in 2012 under the mentorship of Prof. Dimitar Grbevski. He earned his master’s degree with the short documentary film (Extra)terrestrial Lee.

In 2015, he received a scholarship from the Ministry of Education and Science and pursued a two-year postgraduate program at the National Film and Television School (accredited by the Royal College of Art) in England, where he studied under experts such as Graham V. Hartstone (Blade Runner, Aliens) and Andy Kennedy (The Crown, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter). There, he worked on graduate films that were screened at international A-list festivals.

After graduating, he actively contributed to film projects in both Macedonia and the UK. In the UK, he collaborated on projects for BBC and worked on high-budget films at Pinewood Studios, including Sherlock Gnomes, Mowgli, and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. In Macedonia, he has worked on the post-production of Macedonian films that have represented the country at renowned festivals, as well as on popular TV series like Prespav and House Arrest (Kukjen pritvor).

In 2020, Micevski revitalized the sound studio of the National Institution Film Center “Vardar Film”, investing his own resources. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including one from the Royal Television Society and a Daytime Emmy nomination. Since 2020, he has served as a member of the Film Council of the Film Agency. Since June 2025 he is serving as the Acting Director of the North Macedonia Film Agency.

Sergio Gomes
Executive Director, Programming Coordinator and Head of Industry, Porto Post Doc

Porto/Post/Doc: Film & Media Festival is an international film festival held annually in Porto, Portugal, that bridges cinema and contemporary thinking. Since its inception in 2014, the festival has become a prominent platform for creative documentaries, hybrid forms, and new narratives, showcasing bold and boundary-pushing works from emerging and established filmmakers. Alongside its public screenings, Porto/Post/Doc hosts a dynamic industry programme and educational initiatives, fostering dialogue between creators, audiences, and institutions. With a strong commitment to cultural engagement and artistic innovation, the festival contributes to the development of a vibrant film culture in Portugal and beyond.

Thanos Stavropoulos
AGORA Manager, Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival

Thanos Stavropoulos completed his undergraduate degree in Fine Arts in 2001 and then a Master’s in Video Art and Filmmaking in 2003. With a profound interest in cinema, his path led him to the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival in Greece in 2007. Over the years, he has become a core member of the programming and coordination teams for the Thessaloniki International Film Festival (TIFF), the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival (TiDF) and the Evia Film Project.

Since 2022, Thanos took on the position of AGORA Manager within the Thessaloniki Film Festival Organization Industry section.

Veronika Fidrmuc Dvořáčková
East Silver Manager at Institute of Documentary Film

Veronika is responsible for managing one of the key activities of the Institute of Documentary Film (IDF) – the East Silver Market and the East Silver Caravan. In close collaboration with the East Silver coordinator, she focuses on creating new opportunities for festival promotion of documentary films from Central and Eastern Europe.

She holds a degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology and has gained experience working with several prominent film festivals, including Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF), Finale Plzen, One World, and the queer film festival Mezipatra. She has also been part of the Midpoint Institute.

Vitězslav Chovanec
Czech Film Center

Vitezslav currently works at the Czech Film Center, a division of the Czech AudiovisualFund, where he is responsible for promoting Czech documentaries and short films. He alsoruns Mad Reels, a new sales agency for feature documentaries. Additionally, Vitezslav servesas an advisor to the programming team of the One World Human Rights Film Festival in Prague and writes for the film magazine Cinepur.

The Czech Audiovisual Fund supports all stages of film production, as well as promotion, distribution and other film-related areas. The Fund also administers production incentives for audio-visual projects made in the Czech Republic.

The Czech Film Center as a division of the Fund promotes and markets Czech films and the local film industry worldwide. It collaborates with major international film festivals and co-production platforms and utilizes a global network of partners.