Verzió DocLab is an international documentary post-production development workshop for directors, producers and editors, organized during Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Budapest at the Central European University of Budapest.

"Verzio DocLab is a very unique workshop in Europe, hand designed for documentary projects. Good mood guaranteed, test it, you will love it!"

Verzió DocLab is focusing on story development and editing with the goal to create an international supportive platform for documentary filmmakers and creative professionals.

The 9th edition of Verzió DocLab is a 5-day intensive editing workshop for directors and editors, organised during the 21st Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Budapest on November 5-9, 2024.

The workshop seeks to define, develop and strengthen the key narrative elements of the film projects, during the 5-day intensive programme you will be working in groups, have one-on-one meetings, and receive individual tutoring. The participation is free of charge and comes with a full festival accreditation!

Verzió DocLab is powered by our DOC AROUND EUROPE and as part of that collaboration we are looking for projects with directors or producers from or based in the following countries: Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, Serbia, Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Switzerland, South Tyrol, Spain, France, Hungary. In solidarity with filmmakers from Ukraine and Georgia, the 9th Verzió DocLab also welcomes applications from these countries. Verzió DocLab is looking for projects by first- or second-time feature directors!

With the guidance of international mentors you will work on your documentary project’s story and edit a selected scene that you will present at the end of the workshop in front of an audience of festival programmers, sales agents and producers.

"Verzio DocLab was an absolute gem of an experience. I really feel my project advanced significantly and I was able to expand my networking opportunities!"

Selected Projects in 2024

Bee In My Mouth

Germany, Hungary

"A Bee In My Mouth" is captured through the lens of a father’s camera as he and his wife navigate the loss of their child while expecting another. Conversations with the husband’s sister’s family, who have experienced similar grief, trigger reflections on the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They engage in various therapies that reveal their emotions and help them process their loss. The anticipation of their new child brings both fear and hope, symbolizing a new beginning without replacing their lost child. The birth of their healthy baby signifies renewal, showing how grief and joy coexist. The story emphasizes their love for both children, highlighting the delicate balance between loss and new life.

Creative Team

Loránd Balázs Imre Director, Producer
Loránd Balázs Imre Director, Producer

Hungarian-born film director, producer, and cameraperson based in Berlin. MA in Journalism (2008, Péter Pázmány Catholic University). Co-founded film production company SpeakEasy Project where he took part in the development and production of several award-winning feature documentary films. After relocating to Berlin, he co-founded and organized the Huniwood Hungarian Film Festival Berlin (2016, 2017) and the Berlin Documentary Film Club (since 2016). In 2022, he graduated from the camera class of 2019 at filmArche, Berlin. He co-founded filmDOUGH (2022), his new moving image production brand.

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Hide Me In The Light

Ukraine

Eva is interviewing her friends in the transplant department at Kyiv Children's Hospital. They dart through the hospital corridors, proudly showing their swollen veins to newcomers, where the rhythmic flow of blood can be heard. There's the scrappy orphan Andriy, the open-minded youngster Klevan, the respectable Liosha, and their leader Danya. Every morning they are woken up and dutifully undergo hemodialysis. Transplant surgeons wield a kind of magic in this realm. Their presence in the unit signifies the gift of a new life to someone.

The transplant coordinator notifies about a found donor. Among the four young patients potentially suitable for the donor's kidneys, the final selection remains unknown until conclusive tests are completed. Very soon Andriy discovers that he is not compatible. He remains alone in his ward on Christmas anticipating the arrival of new companions to the unit.

Creative Team

Markiian Miroshnychenko Director
Markiian Miroshnychenko Director

Markiian Miroshnychenko is a Ukrainian film director. Born to an acting family, Markiian graduated from Kyiv National University of Theatre, Cinema and Television. In 2017, he created his first short film called Legend of the Hospitallers, dedicated to the heroes of the war against Russia. His next work was a short film Oasis, and finally his first fiction feature film True Santa. After the Russian invasion started, he focused on Unknown no.1, his full-length documentary debut. Markiian is a laureate of Mostra Internacional De Filmes De Escolas De Cinema (Portugal, 2016), Festival del Cinema di Cefalù (2022).

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Nata Onysh Editor
Nata Onysh Editor

Nata Onysh is a Ukrainian audiovisual artist and editor based in Finland. After graduating with a BA in linguistics and literature, Nata would develop short films at documentary workshops and art residencies in Ukraine, Finland, and the USA. In 2022, her debut short documentary film Say Cześć, co-directed with Veronika Shuster, was selected for the Filmmaking Lab IndieLab supported by the US Embassy. It was screened at the American Independence FF, Kyiv IFF Molodist, Lviv ISFF Wiz-Art, Bouquet Kyiv Stage Art Festival, and received a Best Documentary Short Film Award at the Black Bear FF in Milford (PA, USA).

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Oleksandr Krasenkov Producer
Oleksandr Krasenkov Producer

Oleksandr Krasenkov is a Ukrainian film producer from Kyiv‐based Life Map Films. He started his career as a line producer in the movie industry working on the sets of the foreign production companies and studios like Europa Corp and NHK. From 2010 to 2019, Oleksandr worked as an executive producer for Ukrainian TV channels. Since 2019, he has been a freelance producer for Nordend Film (Germany) and Throne (Japan). In 2021, Oleksandr was a founding member of Life Map Films focused on producing documentaries.

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Illuminated Geology

Spain

A premonitory dream alerts Carme of Pilar’s death, the old woman whom she takes care of for a few hours a day in Els Cirerers—The Cherry Trees—a retirement home located in between fields in the northeastern tip of Spain. Carme has been a geriatric nurse for more than four decades and lives on the peninsula of Cap de Creus, surrounded by rocks that are more than 400 million years old.
Today, closer to the abyss that her retirement implies, Carme is reluctant to abandon a vocation that is already part of her vital impulse. She has lost her paid job, but she decides to continue as a volunteer caregiver for Els Cirerers inhabitants.
From winter until the following autumn, she returns to the residence continuously. During this period, the transit of seasons is visible through the large stained glass windows that illuminate the rooms where a community of old men and women live, wait, receive visits, and coexist.

Creative Team

Pere Puigbert Director, Cinematographer, Editor
Pere Puigbert Director, Cinematographer, Editor

Interested in the sphere of poetic cinema, the majority of his work aims to explore natural landscapes and scrutinize the space humans inhabit. Since its beginnings, he has focused on showing very local and close worlds to embody universal realities. In 2021, he debuted as a feature film director with The Wind That Moves Us, in which he also took on cinematography, editing, and sound work. This film received, among others, the best Spanish documentary award at SEMINCI in Valladolid and the Latitude award at DocsBarcelona. His filmography also includes works such as Fluvius; a film about flows, currents, and rivers that was part of an interactive audiovisual installation exhibited in galleries during 2021.

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Pol Roig Second Camera Unit
Pol Roig Second Camera Unit

Master in Creative Documentary at Pompeu Fabra University. He has worked with Victor Kossakovsky as second camera unit in Gunda (2020, Berlinale première) and as assistant editor in Demonstration (2013, IDFA première). He has been artistic director and programming coordinator of DocsBarcelona film festival. He currently works as a cameraman in Illuminated Geology, the latest film of Pere Puigbert.

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David Gimbernat Producer
David Gimbernat Producer

DDM Visual is a production company created in 2003 in the city of Girona (SPAIN) by David Gimbernat. With more than twenty years of experience working in the film sector, he has produced 10 feature films and 5 documentaries for television, always seeking imaginative and quality approaches. The rigor of its production line and the strength and consistence of its artistic and commercial proposals have consolidated the company as the leading film production company in the region of Girona.

Its productions have participated in some of the most prestigious festivals and international competitions. Among the most outstanding we find the feature film The Stoning of Saint Stephen (La Lapidation de Saint Étienne, 2012) directed by Pere Vila Barceló, which premiered at the Karlovy Vary International Festival and won the FIPRESCI award at the Seminci Film Festival in Valladolid; and also The Lost ("El perdut", 2016), directed by Christophe Farnarier, which won the awards for best film, best director and best leading actor in the Zonazine section of Malaga Film Festival. One of DDM Visual latest production, the feature-length documentary "El vent que ens mou" (2021) directed by Pere Puigbert won the award for best documentary at the Seminci Festival in Valladolid and at DocsBarcelona.

The new production plan aims to structure new alliances with independent producers and television networks to offer a set of high- quality productions that allow a notable impact on the audiovisual market.

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Moving Sisters

Greece

The Khani family left Afghanistan in search for a better future, only to be trapped in Greece on its way to the West. Nazieh, Shazieh and Hanieh are the last of the five daughters to remain with their father in the refugee camp of Eleonas. They are teenagers and have already spent three years away from their mother who managed to reach Germany much sooner. They go to school, speak Greek and have made friends. Meanwhile, their father tries to find a way to continue their journey and reunite with the rest of the family. But the borders are closed and their request for reunification is repeatedly denied.

Nazieh can’t live in a state of constant waiting for her life to begin the way she has imagined it. She is determined to stand on her own feet and continue living with passion against the uncertainty of the situation she has found herself in. All three sisters will need an immense amount of strength to reach the end of the long and difficult path to reunification – a path between East and West that they themselves open and which eventually leads to adulthood. They must hang on and keep their hopes and dreams alive.

Creative Team

Christos Stefanou Director
Christos Stefanou Director

Christos Stefanou is a filmmaker, photographer, educator and PhD candidate in intercultural education. “Moving Sisters” is his first feature documentary. His previous short film “In Between” was screened at festivals* in Greece, London, Berlin and published in the Journal of Anthropological Films. As a teacher he has made many short films with his students, which have won awards at various film festivals for young people and children. As a photographer he was selected to participate in the photography workshop "City Streets" with Magnum photographer Nikos Economopoulos and subsequently participated in the related international collective exhibition. He has completed the creative documentary seminar "Interior Landscapes" with director Christos Karakepelis. London Greek Film Festival, Berlin Refugee Film Festival, Olympia International Film Festival, DocFest Chalkida Documentary Festival.

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Eugenia Papageorgiou Editor
Eugenia Papageorgiou Editor

Eugenia Papageorgiou was born in 1985. After her studies in Physics, she started working in editing. Since 2011 she has been working as an editor. She has been involved in script writing and has worked as an assistant director, as well as in production organization.

She has edited more than 10 documentary and fiction films, which have been screened at numerous festivals around the world, some of which have received numerous awards. She has also edited more than 50 television documentaries. In recent years she has devoted herself to editing creative documentaries.

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Michalis Kastanidis Producer
Michalis Kastanidis Producer

Michalis Kastanidis is a producer and filmmaker with a MA in Visual Anthropology and co-founder of Fabula Productions, an independent production company, based in Athens Greece. He has produced, filmed and co-directed the awarded documentary Feeling of a Home. Over the last years has been giving classes of Filmmaking in public schools. Michalis is the producer of the Feature Film “Kalikatzarous” in co-production with Greek Film Center and with the support of MEDIA-Creative Europe.

Currently, he is producing a feature documentary film in co-production with Eleusis 2023 European Capital of Culture.

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My Dear Vira

Ukraine

Young Ukrainian visual artist Maryna, now living in between Ukraine and Bulgaria, aims to reunite with her girlhood friend Vira, now a US army captain. Their emigration stories differ: Vira chose the American way of life and citizenship 13 years ago, while Maryna was forced to flee due to the war, becoming a nomad. They explore whether having a home defines one's identity in a globalized world, with Maryna questioning if returning to Ukraine is essential to being true to herself and Vira reconciling her Ukrainian heritage with her U.S. citizenship and military service.

Creative Team

Maryna Brodovska Director
Maryna Brodovska Director

Ukrainian visual artist and filmmaker. Received a master's degree in cultural studies in 2019 in Kyiv. In 2021 she graduated from the course "Creating a script for a feature film for television" at Michigan State University (online), completed workshop on creative writing by Joan Tewkesbury. She is an alumni of MidPoint Institute since 2022. Maryna works as a writer for television and films. She takes part in international exhibitions as an artist and has self-published 2 books.

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Olga Chernykh Co-director, Producer
Olga Chernykh Co-director, Producer

Born in Donetsk, Ukraine, Olga graduated with an MA from the Cinematography department of the Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Karyi University. She worked five years as a line producer in production company "Toy Cinema" and as a freelance producer. As a director she has taken part in workshops and residency programs such as IDFA Academy, IDFA Project Space, the “Aristoteles Workshop” in Romania, “Eurasiadoc” in Kyiv, B2B Docs. Her first feature-length documentary – “A Picture to Remember” was an opening film of IDFA 2023.

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The freeSZFE film (working title)

Hungary

The longest-running student occupation of a university since the fall of the Soviet Union at a film school where students, alums, artists, and educators organized an uprising against government legislation that restricted educational autonomy, freedom of speech, and artistic expression. ‘INSIDE THE BLOCKADE’ is a creative and formal response from the students, using footage captured from inside the school during the 71-day-long occupation contrasted with news reporting from the state media.

The film follows the birth of a young democratic artist community in the moment they became politically conscious in an increasingly authoritarian state.

Creative Team

Asia Dér Director (present at the workshop as member of the freeSZFE Film Collective)
Asia Dér Director (present at the workshop as member of the freeSZFE Film Collective)

Asia graduated as a documentary director at the DocNomads MA program at SZFE, LUCA School of Art, LUSOFONA . Her first feature (co-directed with Sári Haragonics) 'Her Mothers' was shown at more than 30 international film festivals and won several awards, among them in the 2021 Best Film Award at Moscow International Documentary Film Festival DOKer and at Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz. The film was made in co-production with HBO and was supported by Sundance Institute post-production fund. Her second feature-length documentary, 'I Won't Die', had its world premiere at the Warsaw Film Festival in 2023. She is an alumni of ZagrebDox Pro, CIRCLE Women Doc Accelerator and participated with her film at East Doc Platform, Cannes Docs, and the Docu Rough Cut Boutique. She pursued her doctoral degree in 2024. She is a lecturer and mentor at Freeszfe and Docnomads MA program and a board member of the Hungarian Documentary Association (MADOKE).

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Dávid Kántor Editor
Dávid Kántor Editor

Dávid Kántor is a Hungarian film editor, based in Budapest. In the last 10 years he gained experience editing and assistant editing feature films, documentaries, shorts, commercials, and music videos. He edited his first feature film, Árni in 2023. He has a great interest in documentary filmmaking, currently working on a series.

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FreeSZFE Film Collective: Anna Faur, Máté Fuchs, Fanni Hatházi, Dóra Bartal, Máté Szórád, Christina Zachariades

Our Mentors

Flóra Erdélyi Editor, HUNGARY
Flóra Erdélyi Editor, HUNGARY

Flóra Erdélyi is a freelance film editor based in Budapest, Hungary. She has been working on several short and feature fiction - The Flower of the Apple Tree by Dóra Szűcs, Now is Now 2019 by Péter Szajki, Patthelyzet by Dóra Szűcs, animations - North by Bente Lohne, and feature length documentaries - Hi Sári! by Sári Haragonics, Hatchery by Máté Fuchs, Howling Like We Do by Asia Dér, The Missing Tale by Klára Trencsényi.

She received her Motion Picture Editor BA degree at the University of Theatre and Film Arts, Budapest in 2011. Apart from that she also studied at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design and at ELTE Institute of Art In Film theory and film history.

Her most recent project is Hi Sári by Sári Haragonics. She is also known for the HBO film, Her Mothers by Sári Haragonics and Asia Dér for which she won Best Editing at the Moscow International Documentary Film Festival in 2021. She is a member of MADOKE - the Hungarian Documentary Association, and HSE - Hungarian Society of Film and Video Editors.

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Anna Kis Director and Editor, HUNGARY
Anna Kis Director and Editor, HUNGARY

Anna Kis started her filmmaking career in 2002. After a decade of teaching, translation, and journalism, and a PhD course in Renaissance and Baroque English Literature at ELTE, she graduated at the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest, as a director and film editor. She was the student of Péter Gothár and Ildikó Enyedi. Ever since she has been active as an editor and story editor of shorts (eg.: First Love by Ildikó Enyedi), documentaries and concert shows for TV. She has directed shorts and observational documentaries which have won several Best Documentary awards in Hungarian festivals (Home Paradise, Not About Family). Recently she has been active as the story editor of Fairy Garden by Gergő Somogyvári, shooting her own feature-length documentary Practices in Harmony (working title), co-directing and editing 80 Angry Journalists by András Földes and editing a personal documentary by Diana Groó.

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Jesper Jack Producer, Factual Storytelling expert and strategist, DENMARK
Jesper Jack Producer, Factual Storytelling expert and strategist, DENMARK

Jesper Jack is an award-winning producer and the co- founder of House of Real, a prominent collective of non- fiction filmmakers in Scandinavia. He also served as the internationaleditoratOp-DocsatTheNewYorkTimesfrom 2021 to 2023. Jesper is an alumnus of prestigious programs such as EAVE, Screen Leaders, and Doc Campus. He is a regular guest professor at NYU Tisch, and a lecturer at the National Film School of Denmark. Between 2009 and 2011, he held the position of documentary film consultant at the Danish Film Institute. During his tenure, he commissioned over 30 films, including the Academy Award-nominated The Act of Killing and the Tribeca Film Festival Best Documentary winner, Democrats. Moreover, Jesper is currently pursuing training as a psychotherapist, driven by a vision to enhance mental health in the documentary field.

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Mentors Throughout the Years

Michael Seeber Director, Scriptwriter, Dramaturg, Producer (Austria)

Since 1990, Michael has produced over 45 documentaries, TV doc series and feature films, among them internationally successful and highly-awarded films, such as Luna Papa (Bakhtiar Khoudojnazarov), Bella Martha (Sandra Nettelbeck), The Venice Syndrome (Andreas Pichler), Everyday Rebellion (The Riahi Brothers) and A Good American (Friedrich Moser, Executive Producer Oliver Stone). He wrote the scripts for several documentaries (i.e. Food Design, Hot Spot, BEER!, ÒRAIN – Beethoven), and directed TV documentaries. From 2009–2020 Michael worked as a tutor and adviser for the European MEDIA training program for script development SOURCES 2. Since 2018 he has concentrated almost exclusively on his work as a director and writer for his own documentaries. His awards include the Theodor Koerner Award for Literature (1987) and the Austrian Film Award for Best Documentary (2013).

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Tue Steen Müller Documentary Consultant and Critic (Denmark)

Tue Steen Müller has worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. He is the co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU, and EDN (European Documentary Network). From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). Since 2006, he has been a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays UA, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF, as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DocsBarcelona, Message2Man in St. Petersburg, and DOKLeipzig. He teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano, Italy, and writes reviews at www.filmkommentaren.dk. He received several awards for his contribution to the European documentary culture.

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Réka Lemhényi Film Editor (Hungary)

Réka is a Budapest-based editor with over two-decade-long experience in film and television. Some of her most important projects include work with famous directors, among them with Oscar winner István Szabó or Jerzy Skolimowski. She has received numerous recognitions for her work such as, among others, the Best Editors Awards of Hungary, Best Critics Award or PO-land Academy Award. She obtained her Master's degree at University of Theatre and Film Arts Hungary, and she also has a degree in Theater Science at the Pannon University Hungary. She has been doing education and mentoring work since 2015 at the University of Theater and Film Arts Budapest, Free SZFE Budapest, Sapientia Film University Cluj and Budapest Metropolitan Film University. She was a juror of international juries and a member of the selector committee for international documentary workshops.

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Brigitta Bacskai Film Editor (Hungary)

Brigitta got her Film and Motion Pictures Editing degree at the University of Theatre and Film Arts in 2014. She continued her master's studies in Norway, at the Norwegian Film School. She has attended several master courses and seminars, such as Norman Hollyn's editing workshop in Prague, Monika Willi's masterclass in Copenhagen, Chris Dickens' masterclass in London, and completed Robert McKee's story seminar in Ireland, in 2016.

She has been working as an editor since 2008. During this time, she has edited numerous works of fiction, animations, and documentaries. Her first feature project won the Gamechanger award at SXSW Film Festival. A short animation, Balcony, won the Jury Prize at the Annecy Festival, and Traub Viktoria's Mermaids and Rhinos received the Hungarian Film Critics Award. Her most recent documentary, Too Close, was screened in the Documentary Competition of the Sarajevo Film Festival. She teaches editing and dramaturgy for animation and motion picture students, and is a member of HSE, the Hungarian Society of Film and Video Editors.

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Diana Toucedo Editor, Director, Producer (Spain)

Diana Toucedo, is a Spanish filmmaker and editor based in Barcelona and Amsterdam. She stands at the intersection of film and research. Her work has been selected for film festivals, such as the Berlinale, IDFA, San Sebastian International Film Festival, Nara International Film Festival, Sao Paulo International Film Festival, FIDBA, Pesaro, DocLisboa, Visions du Réel, and others, and museums, like CCCB and the Centre Pompidou. Diana has edited more than 25 feature films to date, which have premiered and won awards at IDFA, Rotterdam, Cannes Semaine de la Critique, Moscow International FF, etc. She has also edited series for Netflix, HBO and Movistar. Diana currently combines her profession with teaching at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), and is core-teacher in the Master of Film at the Netherlands Film Academy. She is also pursuing a PhD in Practice-based Communication, exploring how moving images address identities, memories, historical crystallizations and social tensions.

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Stefano Tealdi Director and producer, Stefilm (Italy)

Stefano Tealdi established Stefilm in Torino, Italy, in 1985. He develops, produces and/or directs drama and documentary film features and series. Stefilm’s recent productions include: Exemplary Behaviour (winner of Dok Leipzig Golden Dove, Fipresci and Interreligious Award, 2019), My Home, in Libya (Locarno FF 2018); The Strange Sound of Happiness (Special Mention Next Masters DOKLeipzig 2017); Char, No Man’s Island (Berlinale Forum 2013). He tutors for Biennale Cinema & VR College Venice, Cannes Film Market, Documentary Campus, La Fabrique - Les Cinemas du Monde, Films de 3 Continents – Produire au Sud, New Chinese Film Talents, Ouaga Film Lab, Scuola Holden, TFL-Torino Film Lab, ZagrebDox Pro, and ZELIG Film School/ESoDoc.

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Leena Pasanen Festival director, Biografilm Festival (Italy)

Leena Pasanen started her career as a journalist in print media. In 1993, she joined the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE, where she worked as a reporter, political commentator, TV presenter and the head of documentaries for YLE TV1. In 2000 she was appointed the Head of Programs responsible for cultural, factual and fiction programs in YLE Teema. She stayed with the channel until November 2005, when she started working as the Director of the European Documentary Network (EDN) in Copenhagen, Denmark. From 2011 to 2014, she led the Finnish Institute in Budapest, Hungary and served as cultural attaché at the Finnish Embassy in Budapest. From 2015 to 2019, she was based in Leipzig, Germany, working as Managing and Festival Director of DOK Leipzig. In January 2020, she took over the direction of Biografilm Festival in Bologna, Italy. She has been a regular expert, tutor and lecturer at several training programs, for example: EDN, Discovery Campus, EURODOC and Television Business School. She has been a board member of IDFA Forum and served as a jury member at several international festivals, such as Sundance and IDFA.

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Christine Camdessus Managing & Artistic director, FIPADOC (France)

In 2001, after working as a lawyer-in-firm and a film finance banker, Christine Camdessus launched her production company, ALEGRIA PRODUCTIONS. They have produced more than 60 creative documentaries, distributed throughout most of the world, including: Pakistan Zindabad, The Vatican's Lost War?, Five Broken Cameras by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi (Sundance Director’s Prize 2012, Oscar Nomination 2013, International Emmy Award 2013), Divided Korea, The Wonderful Kingdom of Papa Alaev, Erdogan, the Making of a Sultan, One Day in Tehran, and Forman versus Forman (selected in Cannes Classics in May 2019). Christine is chairwoman of NIPKOW’s jury (Berlin). She was vice-president of USPA (the leading TV producers union in France) from 2014 to 2018. In June 2018, Christine was appointed Managing & Artistic director of FIPADOC.

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Jeremy Braverman

Jeremy Braverman is the Media and Visual Education Specialist at Central European University. He teaches courses in documentary filmmaking in various departments at CEU, and oversees the library’s Mirabaud Media Lab. As a filmmaker, his short films have played in festivals across the US, and he is currently collaborating on documentary films with faculty from CEU and ELTE. Prior to joining CEU, Jeremy spent 15 years teaching filmmaking in the US, and worked in the independent film industries in Chicago and Pittsburgh. He earned his MFA in Film & Video from Columbia College Chicago. In the 1990s, he worked as a freelance translator and television personality in Budapest, Hungary.

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Thomas Ernst

Thomas Ernst is a freelance film editor and author. Through joining each project at a very early stage he co-creates the workflow and concept of the production together with the director and d.o.p - from the development of the story to the screening of the finished film. HBO Europe documentaries like Invisible Strings, Overdose, Stream Of Love and ULTRA are on his long credit list. The film Drifter won the “First Appearance Award” at IDFA 2014. For The Queen of Silence Tom won the German Kamerapreis for Best Editing 2015. He is consulting and lecturing for international workshops as Docu Rough Cut Boutique, ESoDoc, and EDN.

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Zsuzsanna Gellér-Varga

Zsuzsanna Gellér-Varga studied filmmaking at UC Berkeley (USA) as a Fulbright scholar. Her Screw Your Courage won awards at several US film festivals and was broadcast on public TV. She worked for the New York Times Television as a video-journalist and later directed documentaries Once They Were Neighbours, Synagogue for Sale, and Mr. Mom, which were screened internationally and broadcast on public TV. She taught documentary ethics at the international masters program, DocNomads. Currently she is D.L.A. candidate at the University of Theater and Film Arts in Budapest.

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Moniek Wester Keegstra

Moniek Wester Keegstra is an independent documentary (web)filmmaker, editor, interview trainer and film coach. She worked with NGOs Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam Novib and Amnesty International. Her Gaza, Gabbers, Graffity co-produced by Amnesty International was nominated for the Prix d’Europe. Moniek was involved as filmmaker and creator of the online platform 26,000 Faces with short film portraits about asylum seekers in the Netherlands. She is co-creator of the online Lifeboat Project.

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Team

Péter Becz Creative Director of Verzió DocLab
Director, Editor, Producer
Péter Becz Creative Director of Verzió DocLab
Director, Editor, Producer

Péter is a director, editor and producer working with documentaries, narrative projects, commercials and music videos, based in Budapest and Copenhagen. He completed his MA in documentary filmmaking at SZFE in Budapest and completed an MA in Film and Media at the University of Copenhagen.

His Danish-Hungarian co-production short, I Miss You, Marius (2021) received the Audience Award for the Best International Documentary at the Friss Hús Budapest International Short Film Festival.

Besides making films and working with commercials, Peter is actively mentoring and creating support systems for other filmmakers. As the Creative Director at Verzió DocLab, he selects, mentors and connects projects with the international industry. He has been a mentor at FAMU and he is a guest teacher at Krogerup Højskole, teaching documentary in a danish-hungarian field trip. Since 2022 he is an elected board member of MADOKE, the Hungarian Documentary Association an independent collective of filmmakers representing and safeguarding the interest of all who are involved in the making of documentary films and art in Hungary. Peter was the program manager of the Hungarian Regional workshop of dok.incubator. In 2023 Péter was aninvited jury member at Finale Pilzen FF.

Currently developing his own films as a director and producing Réka Pinczés’ first feature Steps of Domonkos in co-production with The Speak Easy Project, László Józsa and creative-producer Brigi Bacskai.

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Hanna Sára Kádár Head of Production at Verzió DocLab
Documentary Film Director
Hanna Sára Kádár Head of Production at Verzió DocLab
Documentary Film Director

Hanna Sára Kádár is a director, festival and workshop organizer from Hungary. She graduated in 2022 at VSMU in Bratislava as a documentary film director. She co-organized Verzió Doclab in 2022, and after that, in Vienna, she was the project manager of the first Austrian edition of Verzió. She participated as an observer in DokIncubator, and then she became a part of the organizing team. In 2023, she was a jury member for the Young European Stories Section at FIPADOC. In her films, she explores family dynamics and the connection between generations.

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Enikő Gyureskó Managing Director
Enikő Gyureskó Managing Director

Enikő has a BA in Liberal Arts (major in Art History, minor in Philosophy) from Pázmány Péter Catholic University (2013) and an MA degree in Design and Art Management from Budapest Metropolitan University (2017). During her BA studies, she took a year off and volunteered in Italy as an EVS volunteer for a green organization. It was a unique experience in civic activism, which made a long-lasting impression on her; it guided her attention toward social issues and gave her first experience of working in an international community. In Hungary, she worked at state museums and in a commercial photo gallery. Since 2016, she has been coordinating Hungary’s only human rights film festival, Verzió. Her responsibilities include festival staff coordination, rights clearance, venue logistics, production and financial management, liaising with sponsors and cooperating partners, tender writing, and grant management, as well as programming year-round events.

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Fanni Somlyai Submission Coordinator, Editor
Fanni Somlyai Submission Coordinator, Editor

After volunteering in 2016 and 2017, and working briefly with the festival in 2018, she joined the team in 2019. She is primarily involved in editing the brochure, the catalog, the website, and the blog of Verzió. She contributes to writing grants, keeping in contact with university partners, and coordinates the submission process. Before joining Verzió, she spent a year in Slovenia at an NGO, and worked for the RomArchive project at the Romedia Foundation. She studied Liberal Arts with a specialization in film at the University of Pécs, Art Therapy at the John Wesley College, Intercultural Psychology and Education at the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest, and holds a master’s degree in Film Studies from ELTE. In her free time, she likes to discover (old and new) films to watch, study languages, and spends too much time in bookshops.

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