Full tutoring and mentoring

Learn by doing, with the right help from some of the best documentary tutors around the world.

Niels Pagh Andersen

Niels Pagh Andersen has cut more than 250 films of widely different categories. He lectures and teaches filmmaking around the world.

Niels won in 2005 the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award, given by The Danish Film Institute for outstanding efforts in documentary filmmaking. In 2013 he won the Guldbagge Award for Best Editing for the documentary “Palme” and in 2014 he won the Jussi Award for Best Editing for the film drama “Betoniyö”.

Martichka Bozhilova

Martichka Bozhilova worked as producer at Agitprop in Bulgaria since 1999, co-producing with leading TV broadcasters such as Channel 4, Sundance Channel, IRAI, CBC and TV2/ Denmark. Bozhilova earned a degree in law and art management and graduated in European documentary production from EURODOC in 2005.

In 2006, she received the International Trailblazer Award at MIPDOC in Cannes for creativity, innovation, originality and breakthrough in the documentary field. Credits: See You At The Eiffel Tower (2008), Omlet (2008), Corridor No. 8 (2008), The Mosquito Problem and Other Stories (2007), Georgi and the Butterflies (2004).

From 2009 to 2014 she won several awards, including Best Documentary Film, at the Golden Rhyton Bulgarian Documentary and Animation Film Festival for the documentaries “Corridor No. 8”, “The Boy Who Was a King”, “Tzvetanka” and “The Last Black Sea Pirates.”

Jacques Deschamps

One of the most important French documentary authors and professor at Femis Film School.

In 1985 he won the Antenne 2 Award for the short film “Juste avant le marriage,” at Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. His feature film “Méfie-toi de l’eau qui dort” won the FIPRESCI Prize and the Special Artistic Achievement at Thessaloniki Film Festival, and the ‘CinemAvvenire’ Award at Venice Film Festival.

Dominique Gros

Dominique Gros is a French writer, director and producer of over 60 documentary films. Her portraits series Working At Home won the Silver Toucan in Rio and the Special Prize in Tokyo.

John Appel

John Appel is guest lecturer at the Netherlands Film Academy and Amsterdam Filmschool. Coach for many young filmmakers; Mentor at many (inter)national workshops, a.o. Greenhouse Development Programme in the Middle East (since 2006), Binger Doclab in Amsterdam (2005 & 2010), Aristoteles Workshop in Romania (since 2010). Part time  commissioning editor for Human Broadcasting.

Since 1987, he directed more than 45 films for cinema and television. Worked as a cameraman on more than 40 documentaries. His production company VOF Appel&Honigmann is a cooperation with internationally acclaimed director Heddy Honigmann.

He leads masterclasses all over the world, from China to Mexico and is a jury member in major festivals like IDFA, Karlovy Vary, Visions du Reel.

His latest film The Voice of Holland (2018) is a portrait of The Netherlands by public speeches on weddings, funerals, ceremonies, political meetings etc.

In 2009 he won the IDFA Award for Best Dutch Documentary for his film The Playera personal film based on memories to his gambling father. This film also won the Filmfund Award for Artistic Succes 2010 and other international awards.

His film Wrong time, wrong place, opening film of IDFA 2012is a feature length documentary about coincidence and the fragility of life based upon the dramatic killings and bombings by Anders Breivik in Norway 2011. The film was screened in many major filmfestivals and internationally awarded.

His film The Last Victory (2003), about the Palio, the famous horse race in Siena (Italy), won many (inter)national awards and was nominated for Best European Documentary 2004.

In 1999 he won the IDFA Joris Ivens Award for Best Feature Length Documentary for his film Andre Hazes/She believes in me. This film about Holland’s most popular singer is the most successful documentary in Dutch cinema released in 60 years.

Jeanne Jordan

Jeanne Jordan is a director, producer, and educator. Troublesome Creek: a Midwestern (co-directed with Steven Ascher) was nominated for an Academy Award and won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at Sundance. She has taught filmmaking at Harvard and the Art Institute of Boston and held master classes around the world. Jordan and Ascher’s most recent feature documentary, So Much So Fast, premiered at Sundance, was released theatrically to critical acclaim, and has been broadcast on PBS Frontline, BBC Storyville, ZDF Germany, and many other networks around the world.

Steve Ascher

Steve Ascher is a director, producer, writer and educator. He wrote “The Filmmaker’s Handbook: a Comprehensive Guide for the Digital Age,” a bestselling text and a staple of universities and film schools The Independent calls “The Bible.”

In 1996, he won the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize for the documentary “Troublesome Creek: A Midwestern” at the Sundance Film Festival, for which he was also nominated for the Academy Awards.

In 2009, Steve was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Awards for the “Postcards from Buster” animated series. In 2013 he was nominated for the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, for the documentary “Raising Renee”, for which he also won the Syracuse International Film Festival award.

Simon Brook

Simon Brook produced, directed and production managed educational, fiction, documentary, industrial and TV films. His work includes 20 short films about children in the Caucasus, a documentary on the Amazon, a docudrama about the Karo tribe of Ethiopia and the documentary feature Brook by Brook, produced by the Dardenne brothers. His recent films are Cleopatra’s Lost City, Jungle Magic, and the prime-time docudrama The True Legend Of The Eiffel Tower. His latest film Generation 68 is a humorous and off-beat look at the 1968 uprisings, with interviews of Dennis Hopper, Milos Forman etc. His films have been selected at numerous festivals worldwide: Venice, Telluride, Brussels, Sao Paolo. He is a member of the British Academy Of Film And Television Arts and the Director’s Guild of Great Britain.

Jennifer Fox

Jennifer Fox is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning director, producer, camerawoman, and educator who has been involved in countless documentaries over the last 25 years. Her first film, “Beirut: The Last Home Movie” was broadcast in 20 countries and won 7 international awards, including Best Documentary Film and Best Cinematography at Cinema Du Reel in 1988.

The ten hour TV series “An American Love Story” received a Gracie Award for Best Television Series and was named one of the Top Ten Television Series of 1999 by The New York Times. Her six-part film “Flying: Confessions of A Free Woman” premiered at the IDFA in 2006 and at Sundance in 2007.

In 2013 she was nominated for the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, for the episode “My Reincarnation” from the “P.O.V.” documentary TV series.

Her feature film “The Tale” was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival in 2018.

Jeroen Berkvens

Dutch documentary filmmaker, as well as a tutor in documentary directing. He also is a commissioning editor at a public broadcaster in the Netherlands.

Jeroen graduated in 1993 at the Academy of Arts in Breda, in the south of the Netherlands, with LET ME HAVE IT ALL; a documentary search for soul pioneer Sly Stone. The film won the ARTE AWARD for best European student film.

His later films on music include JIMMY ROSENBERG – THE FATHER, THE SON & THE TALENT (winner of the GRAND PRIX in Krakow, the GRAND PRIX at Montréal’s Festival du Films sur d’Art, a BIG SKY AWARD in Montana and GOLDEN CALF in the Netherlands). Also among his acclaimed music documentaries are A SKIN TOO FEW – THE DAYS OF NICK DRAKE which was described ‘a cinematic tone poem as much as a biography’ by the NY TIMES during its US theatrical release. And in the film PARADISO Amsterdam’s pop temple is seen from the perspective of several performing artists. It received the GRAND PRIZE at the Jecheon Music & Film Festival in Korea.

From 2000 to 2010 he was teaching cinematographic design at his alma mater in Breda.

Since 2010 Jeroen is appointed to the NETHERLANDS FILM ACADEMY in Amsterdam teaching documentary directing.

He also is a guest tutor at various educations like the post- graduate Sandberg Institute, Master Media & Culture University of Amsterdam, IDFA Summer School, Master Media & Ethics University of Humanistic Studies, and several international workshops (IDFA documentary workshop, Aristoteles-Rumania, Documentarist- Turkey, Screen Training-Ireland, Back Lot-Surinam). He was a jury member for International film festivals (IDFA, Krakow), and is working as a script- and directing-coach.

At HUMAN, a public broadcasting company in the Netherlands, Jeroen is commissioning editor for several series with documentary topics explored from a philosophical perspective.

Rafi Pitts

Rafi Pitts is one of the latest Iranian directors to join the new wave of prize-winners on the international festival circuit.

His first documentary feature, “Season Five,” was the first Franco-Iranian co-production after the Islamic Revolution. His second feature documentary “Sanam” won the Grand Prize at the Paris Film Festival in 2001, and in 2006 his film “It’s Winter” was nominated for the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival. Rafi received yet another Golden Bear nomination for his 2010 film The Hunter.

His latest feature film “Soy Nero” was also nominated for the Golden Bear at the 2016 Berlin International Film Festival, and won the Best Film award at Bucharest International Film Festival.

Thierry Garrel

Thierry Garrel was head of Arte France’s Documentary Department and Animation and Video Art Programming, for 21 years. He launched highly successful series such as: Palettes, Contacts, Cinema de Notre Temps, Histoire Parallele, La Lucarne and the series of feature length documentaries called Grand Format. He was also Head of Documentaries and Archives at the Institut National de l’Audiovisuel (INA). He notably produced the series: Cinecourt, Le Choc des Cultures, Rue des Archives, Juste une Image (winner of the Grand Prize for Television) and L’Inapercu.

I was part of some workshops and almost each one of them was stupid and useless. It was only worth meeting other participants and visiting new places. So AW was the rst good experience not just because of the people and environment, but because I really learnt something new about lmmaking.
I was really amazed by Dominique’s and Ra ’s approach to us and our lms, so I can say only the best about them. And for Niels too. He was very nice and kind and besides that, during the screening of our lm he told us many good, useful and I might say crucial things about movie, camera work, editing, a.s.o.

Ana Jelic, RS

Graduate Filmmaker

Nino Kirtadze

Academy-award-winning director Nino Kirtadze born in Tbilisi, Georgia. She made her cinematic debut in France and quickly established herself as one of the leading documentary filmmakers in Europe. Her films deal with controversial subjects, placing the accent on the human drama underlying her stories and creating deep insightful human portraits.

Nino Kirtadze’s films have won international acclaim and numerous prestigious prizes at festivals worldwide, including Best Director Prize at Sundance for « Durakovo-village of fools », the European Film Academy award for “Pipeline next door”, Germany’s top documentary award, the Adolf Grimme Gold, for “Chechen Lullaby” and the Cinema du Réel award  for “Tell my friends that I’m dead”. Her films have been presented at Cannes, Toronto, Sundance, IDFA, RIDM, Vision du réel.

Her last documentary film, “Don’t breathe”, a dark comedy, examines the fragility of human nature, highlighting our common fears, doubts and resilience as we fumble our way through the theatre of the absurd that we call life.

Since 1997, Nino Kirtadze has lived in France, where she has worked with Peter Brook, Ben Gazzara, Vittorio Gassman, Jean-Pierre Ameris and Claude Goretta. She works with different national and international organisations as a consultant, jury, lecturer and tutor.

André Labarthe

André Labarthe was one of France’s most iconoclastic and unusual filmmakers, he had (roughly) 600 films credited. He was best known for directing the “Cinéma de notre temps” and “Cinéastes de notre temps” collections. Labarthe died in March 2018.

Laurent Bécue-Renard

French director and producer. He graduated from Sciences Po (Paris graduate school of political science) and is an alumni of ESSEC Business School. He was a Fulbright Fellow at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Human Rights.

In 1995 and 1996, while living in Sarajevo during the siege, he served as editor-in-chief of the magazine Sarajevo Online and published a series of short stories called The Sarajevo Chronicles.

After the conflict, he began exploring war’s enduring impact on three widows at a rural therapy center in Bosnia. The documentary he wrote, directed, and produced about them, War-Wearied (De guerre lasses), screened at more than fifty festivals and received the Berlin International Film Festival’s Peace Film Award (2001), among others.

Shifting focus to young men returning from battles in faraway lands, Bécue-Renard continues to explore war’s psychological aftermath with Of Men and War, the second volume of his Genealogy of Wrath trilogy.

Of Men and War opened at the Festival de Cannes (Official selection 2014), was nominated for Best European Documentary at the European Film Academy Awards 2014 and received the VPRO Award for Best Feature-length Documentary at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam IDFA 2014 as well as the San Francisco IFF Golden Gate Special Jury recognition Award 2015 among others.

Marten Rabarts

Marten Rabarts is a producer, screenwriter, and script editor. He was the Artistic Director of the Binger Filmlab and is now head of EYE International.

Lotte Mik Mayer

Danish filmmaker, Lotte Mik-Meyer holds an MA in International Development Studies and Media Studies from Roskilde University Center and the University of Copenhagen, with studies at the University of Durham and Jussieux Paris VII.

For the past 15 years she has worked as a documentary director and as a teacher in documentary and television in Denmark, Europe, Vietnam, the Middle East and the United States. Previously, she has been the director of the Program Quality Project on DR TV.

Lotte has many years’ experience filming alone in conflict areas like Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Madagascar.

Her film ‘The Arab Initiative’ was about the difficult art of diplomacy during the ‘drawing crisis’, shown at a number of Middle Eastern film festivals, and shortlisted for the Danish DOX Award, in the International Competition, Docudays, at the Beirut International Film Festival and in addition On TV 2.

Filmography:

Return of a President – After the coup in Madagascar (2017) * Arab Initiative (2008) * What We See (2006) * Drawing (2006) * Tolerance and Participation (2006) * A Meeting and a Kiss (2005)

Marijke Rawie

Marijke Rawie is an independent documentary consultant who specialises in international Documentary Training & Consultancy, and works for various international and national production companies and documentary initiatives. From 1990 till 2006 Marijke Rawie was Head of Art & Documentary at AVRO TV, the first public broadcaster in the Netherlands. In 1991 she founded the documentary slot AVRO Close Up which became one of the leading international co-producers and co-financiers of documentaries in Europe.

Tania Rakhmanova

Franco-Russian filmmaker. She began working as a print journalist in the USSR, and moved into documentary with work on the award-winning Discovery/BBC series THE SECOND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION (Brian Lapping Ass).   She has worked on several awards winning documentaries in the UK and France, including the EMMY winning CUBAN CRISIS. Since 1997 she has produced and directed more than 20 documentary series and films, her films received many international awards including EMMY nominations, Golden eagle, Fipa, Pessac. Her latest films were: “Lords of the Spin”, a two hour series on the history of political spin in the world, a 52’ program “How Putin Came to Power”, in 2008, “Iraqi Exodus” an hour documentary for the PBS Wide Angle and in 2010 “Oligarchs, Arts and Dollars” and EUROPA Prise nominated “Rroms, the First European Nation”. She has been a member of jury of several international festivals, including Banff, Fipa et etc.  For more than ten years she has been teaching in University of France Television.

Jean Rozat

arte  General Director

André de Margerie

arte  Director of International Affairs

Jean-François Pellier

arte  International Affairs

Alex Szalat

Alex Szalat is a director of short films, documentaries and TV series since 1977. In 1987, Szalat founded KS VISIONS, an independent producer’s society and has produced over a hundred documentaries and TV series for Canal +, Arte, FR3, FR2 amongst others. Since 2005, Szalat was commissioning editor for the Geopolitical Europe and Society department of ARTE France, and from 2008, he heads the Current affair, Social issues and geopolitical department. Since September 2011, he is Deputy Director of the Society and Culture department of ARTE France.

Elizabeth Hulten

arte  Commissioning Editor – Unité de Programmes documentaires

Emelie De Jong

arte  Directrice Adjointe à la Culture