Inherited Shadow
Finland
Lament singing has a long history as a therapeutic method for healing when people have faced traumatic experiences. Can this universal women’s tradition help a Mexican psychologist Mariana Reyes, a wounded healer, to heal herself? In this stylized observational documentary film, we first follow Mariana’s life and work in Mexico City as a psychotherapist, helping others to heal. Then it is revealed Mariana has wounds of her own, including a divorce from a violent Finnish man and a difficult relationship with her mother Victoria. Victoria's failing health is a ticking clock that injects a sense of urgency for Mariana to act. Mariana makes a journey to Finland where, guided by one of the last remaining lament matriarch’s Pirkko Fihlman through many stages, she will write her own lament song. In the end Mariana returns to Mexico and sings her lament song to her mother Victoria, hoping to heal their relationship.
Creative Team
Mariana Reyes was born in Mexico City and spent her childhood and youth there. She holds 2 degrees in psychology (UNAM, Mexico) and game design (XAMK, Finland). She currently lives in Finland and has been a permanent resident of Finland since 2020. Mariana studied film production at UACM, Mexico City. Her early video work was nominated as a finalist at the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival (Berlin, 2011). She is currently working on her debut documentary "Inherited Shadow" with Making Movies Oy and Cactus Film & Video. As her daytime job, Mariana works at Lapland University of Applied Sciences exploring the possibilities of artificial intelligence in the visual arts and virtual production for film and video games.
Kaarle Aho was born in Helsinki in 1968. He has a Master of Arts degree in history from the University of Helsinki and he is an EAVE-graduate 1999 and EURODOC-graduate 2004. After his studies in Helsinki and in Ireland he promoted Russian classical music in Finland and other Scandinavian countries. He joined Making Movies, a Helsinki based film production company, as a producer and shareholder in 1998. Since then he has produced three feature films, four TV-dramas and over 60 documentary films and programmes of which many have been screened in international festivals – including Black Ice by Petri Kotwica which was in the official competition of Berlinale 2008. Kaarle Aho was selected in 2008 – together with his business partner Kai Nordberg – as producers of the year in Finland by the Finnish film producers organisation.
Mikko Sippola F.C.E graduated as an editor from the Department of Film Arts at Aalto University in 2007 and has worked on a variety of awarded documentaries like Monsterman, fiction Sisko tahtoisin jäädä, and TV series like Koukussa.
Entr'actes
Ukraine
In wartime Kyiv, Serhii, a young theatre director, meets Olena, a retired concierge leading an amateur troupe of the elderly. Across a fifty-year gap — on stage and off — they resist loneliness and abandonment, discovering an unexpected friendship in the fragile space between youth and death.
Entr’actes follows Olena, a 73-year-old retired concierge in Kyiv who leads an amateur theatre group of elderly actors during wartime. Amid rehearsals, blackouts, and memories of motherhood, she forms a tender bond with Serhii, a 24-year-old director helping her stage a new play. Their friendship becomes a quiet act of care amid chaos, while Olena’s writings reveal loss, fear, and resilience. Between laughter and air raids, the troupe’s fragile performances turn into a metaphor for survival — rehearsing, enduring, and refusing to disappear.
Creative Team
Yuriy Shylov is a Ukrainian filmmaker and member of the European Film Academy. A graduate of the directing department at Kyiv National Karpenko-Kary University of Theatre, Cinema, and Television, his work spans both fiction and documentary. His short fiction film “Weight” premiered at the Odesa International Film Festival in 2016, the same year he released the short documentary “Panorama”, which received the Student Jury Prize at Docudays UA and a Special Jury Diploma at OIFF. His debut feature-length documentary “Projectionist” premiered in the Documentary Competition at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2019. Most recently, Yuriy directed the documentary "Children of the Occupation: Donetsk, Mariupol, Crimea" for The Reckoning Project, based on testimonies of young people from Ukraine’s temporarily occupied territories.
Olha Tuharinova is an independent filmmaker and producer from Kyiv, Ukraine. With a background in architecture, she has worked as a programmer and project manager for film festivals, NGOs, and cultural institutions, including the 86 International Festival of Film and Urbanism, Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, Goethe-Institut Ukraine, and German Films.
In 2020, she directed and produced “Her Place”, a documentary web series highlighting Ukrainian women entering professions previously restricted to them.
In 2025, Olha founded Kshtalt Productions, a company dedicated to creative documentaries and hybrid films.
Her debut feature as a producer, “Cognition Trilogy: Separation” by Sophia Gera, premiered at the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival in 2024. Olha’s latest producer’s project, “Entr’actes”, directed by Yuriy Shylov, has been selected for DOC LAB POLAND 2024, Baltic Sea Docs 2024, DOK Co-Pro Market 2024, CPH:DOX CHANGE 2024-25, and ZagrebDox Pro.
Olha graduated Magna Cum Laude as part of the 12th generation of DocNomads, the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master's in Creative Documentary. She is also a member of the EURODOC 2025 cohort and Sarajevo Talents 2025.
1978
Spain
1978 intertwines a personal and political reckoning across three generations. When filmmaker Albert Kuhn discovers a photograph revealing his grandfather as an SS officer, the film unfolds as both a family excavation and a reflection on the disillusionment that followed the dreams of 1968 (his father’s generation). Through archival images, Kuhn traces how one generation’s defeat echoes into another’s silence, and how that silence still shapes us. What begins as a search for origins becomes a meditation on the conditions of political belief and the fragile distance between rebellion and repetition. As the film will say: “If history rhymes, it does so wistfully…”.
Creative Team
Albert Kuhn is a film director and producer. He has studied journalism and cinema in Barcelona and Berlin. He also holds a Masters in Artistic Research from the Netherlands Film Academy (2019), where he developed his research Future Nostalgias. For ten years he has combined his role as an artist and as a producer. His best known films are Abdala / Lafdal and H, which have been screened in festivals in more than 15 countries. His journalistic work has led him to Mexico, Western Sahara and Palestine, among others. As a producer he has worked for artists such Jordi Colomer (Join Us! Venice Spanish Pavilion Biennial 2017) and Ivan Argote (The Messengers, FID Marseille). He is currently producing Juan Palacio’s new film (Permanent Being) and last year co-produced Teddy Williams’s The Human Surge III.
(Born in Barcelona, 1985) is a producer and co-founder of 15L Films. She studied Philosophy at the University of Barcelona and Film Directing at CECC, later specializing in Feature Film Screenwriting at EICTV, Cuba. Her productions include The Travel Agent (2015), awarded Best Documentary at MiradasDoc and listed among the 10 most influential Spanish-American films of 2015. Recent works include Hafreiat (Alex Sardà, 2022) (Best documentary at SEMINCI 2023), Anxious in Beirut (Zakaria Jaber, 2023) (Best International Documentary at Shanghai IFF 2023), Carmen, No Fear of Freedom (Irene Baqué, 2023) and Podul de Piatrâ (Artur-Pol Camprubí, 2021) (Special mention at San Sebastián IFF 2021). Dedicated to supporting unique and innovative projects, Carlota continues to develop documentary films with international co-productions and funding support from national and international institutions like ICAA, ICEC or Eurimages, among others. She values close, creative collaboration with her teams throughout the production process and participates regularly in different international pitchings and workshops such as CannesDoc and BDC Discoveries among others.
(Born in Barcelona, 1984) is a producer and co-founder of 15L Films. He holds a degree in French Philology from the University of Barcelona. He later graduated in Film Directing from the Center for Cinematographic Studies of Catalonia (2008, CECC, Barcelona), complemented by a Specialization Workshop in Scenic Direction at the Cuban Film and TV School in San Antonio de los Baños (2008, EITCV). His films have been awarded at festivals such as Seminci, the Golden Goblet at the Shanghai International Film Festival, San Sebastián, and have been selected at Sheffield DocFest, Curtas Vila do Conde, Márgenes, Punto de Vista, among others. His recently produced “The Prince” won the best short film at Gaudi Awards 2025. Currently, he is producing Ser Permanente (Juan Palacios), Como Todo Mortal (María Molina), and +10K (Gala Hernández), three projects that intersect in their search for hybrid and experimental narratives.
End of Season
Italy
In an Italian seaside town populated mostly by elderly tourists, time seems to stand still. Over a summer, Laura, Beppe, and Giovanni – armed with sunscreen, swimsuits, and plenty of humour – face the uncertainty of their own future.
It’s summer in Zadina, a small seaside resort stuck in the 1970s, where elderly tourists return year after year. It feels like nothing ever changes, yet, like summer, everything must end.
Laura (84) lives among the Alps and seeks a carefree world where you laugh even at old age. Beppe (68) owns an old-fashioned bar, and as business dwindles, he puts on a brave smile. Giovanni (67), the lifeguard, spends his days in swimwear and compression socks while retirement draws near. Each of them, as the season comes to an end, can’t help wondering what lies ahead.
Creative Team
Giulio is a film director and editor. Originally from Italy, he now lives and works in the United Kingdom. He studied documentary filmmaking at University College London and, since 2013, has worked in the film industry, focusing primarily on creative non-fiction.
His debut short film, Struggle for Existence, premiered at the Open City Documentary Festival in 2013. In the following years, Giulio worked mainly as an editor, primarily for non-profit organisations and commercial clients. In 2019, he co-directed No Island Like Home with Jan Stöckel. The film was selected for several industry markets, including Visions du Réel and Sheffield Doc/Fest, and went on to screen at multiple international festivals.
In 2020, Giulio returned to solo directing with 652 miles = 0 (or the wonderful convenience of videocalling), which achieved notable success. It was selected by over 40 international festivals, including the Oscar-qualifying CineLebu (Chile) and the BAFTA-qualifying Bolton Film Festival. In Italy, it premiered at the 17th Lago Film Fest and won several awards, including Best Documentary and Best Film at the 23rd CortoLovere.
In 2022, Giulio was selected for the Laguna Sud Artistic Residency. The short documentary he created there, Nettuno, won the residency and was screened at Giornate degli Autori during the 79th Venice International Film Festival. It was later chosen by the Italian Short Film Centre as one of the ten most significant Italian shorts of the year for their international showcase.
That same year, Giulio was selected by BAFTA for its emerging talent programme. He is currently developing his first feature documentary, End of Season.
Cecilia was born in Correggio, Italy, in 1995. She graduated in 2018 from the DAMS programme at the University of Bologna with a specialisation in cinema, and also completed a diploma at Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, a film education centre in Bologna. In 2020, she earned a Master’s degree in film production from the renowned Cineteca di Bologna.
Since then, she has been working in the production department on film and documentary sets, as well as in the cultural sector as a project manager and funding consultant for film-related initiatives.
In 2020, Cecilia produced the documentary Hotel Eritrea, currently on the festival circuit, and in 2021, the short film Arthur, 1973, which was selected for the 39th Torino Film Festival in the Italiana.corti section. In 2024, she produced the short film Cani, selected for the Festa del Cinema Pirata (2025).
In 2021, she co-founded Approdi, a production company based in Bellaria Igea Marina. Since 2023, she has been a producer on the documentary End of Season by Giulio Gobbetti, produced by Approdi with the support of Dario Zonta. Since 2024, she has also been coordinating the BFF Industry and BFF HUB at the Bellaria Film Festival.
The Grandfather Puzzle
Hungary, USA
My 100-year-old Hungarian grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, never wants to do anything except jigsaw puzzles. So I travel to Hungary to photograph locations from his escape story, transforming them into custom puzzles. As we assemble these pieces of his past together, I search for the untold stories he refuses to share, while confronting my own patterns of displacement and avoidance. This intimate journey explores how trauma echoes across generations and what it takes to finally stay put and build the family I've always wanted.
Creative Team
Ora DeKornfeld is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, cinematographer, and editor. Her work has been showcased in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic, as well as on CNN, Netflix, and National Geographic. She directed, produced, filmed, and edited the Emmy-nominated short USA v Scott, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2020 and was acquired by The New Yorker. She directed, shot, wrote, and edited a New York Times Opinion video, This is What a Post-Roe Abortion Looks Like, which was nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy Award in 2023. Other independent work has received awards from Picture of the Year International, The Webby Awards, and SXSW Film Festival. She directed several episodes of Vox’s original Netflix documentary film Explained, and was cinematographer and editor on the feature documentary film Mija, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2022. Mija was acquired by Disney+ and earned an IDA Award and Independent Spirit Award nominations. Ora recently was part of the editing team of Elizabeth Lo’s Mistress Dispeller (Anonymous Content / Impact Partners).
Noémi is an IDA Awards nominated producer and director, the co-founder of Match Frame Productions, an independent film production company based in Budapest. Noemi was a Sundance DFP Grantee in 2015 (Afterglow), 2019 (Her Mothers) and 2021 (Agent of Happiness). The documentaries she produced (Agent of Happiness, I Won’t Die, Her Mothers) premiered at festivals like Sundance, Hot Docs, CPH:DOX, Warsaw etc, winning several awards worldwide. She currently produces three feature documentaries and an AR piece: The Grandfather Puzzle (Ora DeKornfeld), Missing 10 Hours (Krisztina Meggyes), Little Ones (Mate Artur Vincze), If Thee Streets Could Talk (Barna Szász). Noémi studied at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in the Graduate Filmmaking Program on a scholarship in 2018, but she dropped out in order to focus on her ongoing projects. Her first feature film as a director, Six Weeks, premiered at Sarajevo in 2022 and won more than 20 international awards since, among them the Just Film Grand Prix at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival and the László B. Nagy Award for Best Film in 2022 from the Hungarian Film Critics. Currently she is writing her second feature film, while pursuing her BA in Psychology.
Máté Artur Vincze is an IDA Documentary Awards nominated producer and filmmaker. He graduated from the Graduate Filmmaking MFA program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He established Match Frame Productions with Noemi Veronika Szakonyi in 2014. Their production company is dedicated to making creative documentaries and XR content. Their work has received funding from organizations such as the Sundance Institute, HBO Europe, and Creative Europe MEDIA. Their films have premiered at renowned festivals including IDFA, Hot Docs, Warsaw, Sarajevo, and Sheffield. Their latest feature documentary, 'Agent of Happiness' premiered in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.
My Sister and the Eternal Feminine
Georgia
In a society where a woman’s worth is measured by motherhood, Dea, a young Georgian woman, navigates infertility for 13 years. Filmed by her brother, this deeply intimate portrait captures her search for identity beyond the expectations that shaped her world.
Creative Team
Rati Tsiteladze is a European Film Academy Award-nominated filmmaker. He is an alumnus of the Locarno Academy, TIFF Filmmaker Lab, Berlinale Talents, and Cannes Résidence. Rati’s short films won over 50 awards and were screened at around 300 festivals worldwide, including Hong Kong, Melbourne, and Locarno. His short "Prisoner of Society" won multiple Oscar-qualifying awards and was nominated for the European Film Academy. Rati was awarded the Moulin d’Andé Prize at Cannes, and at TIFF, he received the HFPA Film Independent Award from the Golden Globes.
Olga Slusareva is a film producer from Georgia with a background in Economics and Management of Organizations. She is the co-founder of ArtWay Film, specializing in cinematic documentaries and art-house films. Her works have been screened at around 100 festivals worldwide, including Melbourne, Hong Kong, and Locarno. Her feature documentary projects have been selected for platforms like EAVE Change and Movies that Matter, where she received the main award for Impact Campaign, and have been featured at festivals such as Karlovy Vary, CPH:DOX, and Visions du Réel, winning awards including the Silver Eye Award from the Institute of Documentary Film and the HBO Max Award at Sarajevo FF.
MADOKE x Verzió Hun Docs Cookin’ Projects 2025
Borders of Belonging
Hungary
Borders of Belonging is a feature-length creative documentary tracing the journey of an immigrant actor who, after being challenged in her ability to relate, embarks on a 40-day solo road trip across 22 U.S. states to get to know her chosen country. Inspired by the podcast Dolly Parton’s America, strangers host her with vastly different worldviews—Republicans, abolitionists, anti-vaxxers, firearm dealers, etc. Their conversations, at times raw, become unexpected mirrors. The quest evolves into a search for belonging and a confrontation with her own inherited traumas. Interwoven with the road trip are psychodramatic reenactments filmed in Puerto Rico, revealing new layers of understanding and empathy. Unexpectedly, the journey takes her to explore what it meant to grow up next to the Iron Curtain, and it culminates with the FreeSZFE occupation in Budapest, resisting the government’s takeover of her former university.
The film is a deeply personal search for connection beyond cultural and ideological lines—offering a path toward healing, empathy, and a place to call home.
Creative Team
Julia Ubrankovics is an award winning film, television and theater actress, international theater producer and filmmaker. She was born before the Iron Curtain fell in Hungary and is a proud Hungarian - American dual citizen. "Borders of Belonging" is her directorial debut as a documentarian and film producer. Julia co-founded J.U.S.T. Toys Productions LLC, a Los Angeles based production company, producing international plays between 2015-2020. Shows traveled extensively in the USA -New York, Los Angeles and in Europe - France, Hungary, Romania. Her career covers 20+ years of work with features, shorts, theater plays, radio plays and commercials. She was awarded Best Actress at the 40th HFF and she appears on several HBO, Netflix and CBS shows. HAESF scholarship recipient, MA Acting from SZFE. Prior to becoming an actress she studied film history at the ELTE University, Budapest. “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto”, meaning "I am human, I consider nothing human alien to me” has been her ars poetica drawing her to the experimental world of documentary filmmaking.
2019 / Ultra Challenge: Caribbean Series/sports event producer
since 2017 / Juan Salgado mural&multimedia artist /strategy consultant
since 2020 / Bikismo / muralist&painter/ project manager
Jan Maduro is the founder of AE Syndicate, an award-winning creative production company behind three Guinness World Record–recognized projects. With over 20 years of experience spanning law, culture, and government, he brings a multidisciplinary lens to filmmaking and project development. He currently serves as Secretary of the Board of Trustees at the Puerto Rico Museum of Art and sits on the Board of Directors of the Coloring the World Foundation, which supports underserved communities through art and design. A licensed attorney, Jan holds an LL.M. from Northwestern University and studied international business at IE Law School in Madrid. His work centers on the intersection of civic engagement, cultural heritage, and visual storytelling. His recent collaboration on *Borders of Belonging* reflects his commitment to artistically ambitious, socially conscious filmmaking that explores themes of identity, displacement, and belonging. Jan continues to champion projects that connect diverse communities through art, education, and dialogue.
László “Pamacs” Hargittai is an award-winning Hungarian film editor and post-production supervisor with over two decades of experience in both Hungarian and international cinema. A recipient of the Béla Balázs Award, Hungary’s highest state honor for film artists, Hargittai has edited more than fifty narrative and documentary films and currently serves as Head of Post-Production at Origo Studios Budapest, one of Central Europe’s leading post facilities. His work bridges creative storytelling with technical mastery, contributing to acclaimed productions such as Eternal Winter (Örök tél), Tall Tales (Apró mesék), and international projects shot or finished in Hungary including Blade Runner 2049 and Dune.
Renowned for his intuitive storytelling sense and collaborative spirit, Pamacs has mentored a new generation of editors through his teaching and festival jury work.
Chip Warren is a writer/filmmaker dedicated to American incarceration, rehabilitation and social justice issues. He has produced and directed human interest pieces for film and television with partners, including ABC News, MSNBC, A&E, Channel 4 UK, The BBC, and Discovery International. Chip’s experience with the justice system began at 17, via a weekend commitment to a juvenile detention center in Reno, an experience that galvanized his interest in incarceration. Later, working for NYC’s social service agency, he gained perspective on how poverty contributes to breakdowns in social justice. Later still, as a documentarian, he began to explore the confluence of those issues in the American justice system. In recent years, Chip has written and produced commercial podcasts for Audible and independently, focusing on wrongful convictions in the United States. In 2014, Chip cofounded ManifestWorks which became one of the pioneering organizations in the area of diversity and inclusion in Hollywood.
Home is a Dollhouse
Hungary
Home is a Dollhouse is a personal documentary that blends narration, archival fragments, fictional reconstructions, and filmed encounters with the filmmaker’s estranged mother. Growing up between continents and more than 25 apartments, Dorottya’s childhood was marked by absence and unanswered questions after her mother, Adrienn, left Hungary for Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. Through forgotten objects, staged memories, and acts of co-creation, the film traces their fragile attempt to reconnect after years of silence. At its core, Home is a Dollhouse asks how identity is shaped by absence, what we inherit beyond genes, and whether reconciliation is possible across generations.
Creative Team
Dorottya graduated from the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest, in documentary film directing. Her work has been screened at FIPADOC, Verzió International Human Rights Film Festival, MakeDox, Zsigmond Vilmos Film Festival (ZSIFF), and her film, How did I get here? won the best short film award in DocsBarcelona in 2025. Her work is on the border between documentary and personal essay film, often using narration, and mixed media elements. In addition to her personal films, she directs creative documentaries for cultural and artistic institutions, such as Museo Egizio in Turin.
After earning her MA in Film Studies, Anna has worked across fiction, animation, and documentary. She produced the documentaries Wholeheartedly and Ali – The Hungarian Yazidi and the short film Paws in Paradise. Additionally, she was the line producer for Colors of Tobi, Agent of Happiness (world premiere: Sundance 2024), Mi vagyunk Azahriah, as well as the audience award–winning feature Riviera East.
She is currently developing four documentaries: Home is a Dollhouse, Loba Loca, Violence of Freedom, Little Someone, a feature animation, the Children of the Wind Mother and a feature fiction project Thanks, We’re Fine, which was selected for the Biennale College workshop. In early 2026, she will complete the documentary Don’t Forget the Steps and the short film Unwellness as producer.
In 2024, she took part in the Producers Link program; in 2025, she completed the Green Film Lab, a sustainable filmmaking workshop by TorinoFilmLab; and she has been selected for the Ji.hlava Emerging Producers 2026 program.
Journey Home II : Orbán and Me
Hungary
Thirty-five years after Hungary’s democratic rebirth, filmmaker Réka Pigniczky returns to the story that shaped her own. Chasing an interview with Viktor Orbán—her generation’s onetime hero of freedom, now a ruler who shuts out those who challenge him—she finds herself reckoning with the fragile line between memory, belief, and disillusionment.
Hungarian-American filmmaker Réka Pigniczky, who was actively involved in Hungary’s democratic transition 35 years ago, returns to Budapest to reconnect with the people who lived that historic moment. In a country sharply divided over Viktor Orbán, she embarks on a near-impossible quest to interview the long-standing prime minister—once a hero of the transition, now a polarizing figure—navigating her own ambivalence about his legacy while exploring national identity, liberal democracy, and the promises, contradictions, and enduring questions of freedom.
Creative Team
Réka Pigniczky is an American-Hungarian documentary filmmaker and producer, and the co-founder of 56Films. A former Associated Press television journalist in New York, Washington, D.C., and Budapest, she now focuses on creative documentaries exploring memory, identity, and the legacy of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
Her films include Journey Home (2006, Schiffer Pál Award), Inkubátor (2010, Top 25 Hungarian films of the year), László Hudec – The Man Who Built Shanghai (2010), Heritage (2012), Cold Warriors (2017), Memory Project 1956/2021 (2021), 56/Z (2023), and Kaláka: From the Carpathians to the Caribbean (2024).
Pigniczky is also the co-founder and director of the Memory Project: Visual History Archive, featuring more than 150 life-story interviews with Hungarian refugees from WWII and 1956. She holds graduate degrees in International Relations and Documentary Filmmaking from Columbia University. She is a board member of MADOKE (Hungarian Documentary Association).
Eva Rybková is an independent consultant with expertise in public relations, communications, and international film promotion. She uses her background in journalism and television production (Prague and New York) to strategically promote films with social impact and ensure they reach global audiences. Currently, as a creative producer at 56Films, Eva is actively engaged in Concrete Jungle Dreams, a documentary series that blends policy analysis and creative storytelling by exploring global urban housing projects, and she is also working on Journey Home II: Orbán and Me, a creative documentary by Réka Pigniczky.
Her experience includes human rights and media freedom projects with leading NGOs and think tanks, programming and selection committee work at the One World Human Rights Film Festival (2014–2016), and international market development through Dok.Incubator (2017).
Currently, Eva is a Senior Advisor at PRINCEPS Advisory in Prague, where she actively seeks innovative ways to integrate risk intelligence into film production and distribution. Recent consulting projects include the Ukrainian feature The Editorial Office (2024), the Czech documentary A Marriage (2024), and the experimental short films Medical Field Guide and Rules of Engagement with Native E-girls (2024).
Barnabás Gerő, a corporate financial advisor by trade, is the co-founder and financial producer at 56Films. His work includes securing financial backing for all films created by 56Films from both European and U.S. funding sources, finding co-production opportunities, EU Media grants and Hungarian tax rebates. He is also responsible for all contracts and financial reports on all films. Born in Hungary, Barnabás spent 15 years living and working in New York and San Francisco, and received his PhD in Business Management from Columbia University in New York.
East of Hope
Hungary
The Danube splits into three branches before flowing into the Black Sea in Romania. Like a magical wedlock, the river and nature intertwine in this no-man's land, transforming into a mythical place. The last stage of the river's life creates a unique biosphere, home to rare flora and fauna.
We get into this mysterious world through the subjective perspectives of several characters.
Ivan (the philosopher) takes refuge in his deep faith in God, Ioan (the lost one) turns to alcohol and his friendship with his human-like donkey. Juli (the little whisperer) still sees the world through childish eyes, naively and magically, while his brother Edi takes care of her as a third parent. Mircea (the silent observer) is a donkey, but smokes and drinks like a human.
The story of the documentary East of hope runs on several threads: like the great river, it branches, sometimes stops and lingers with a character, then moves on. The goal of our characters is to find their individual happiness. Their episodic stories speak about the fragility of human existence.
People are at the mercy of a powerful and merciless nature, struggling with forces they can never overcome.
But perhaps they can find their inner happiness.
Creative Team
Réka Ugron is a documentary film director, based in Hungary. Her DLA research area is magical realism in documentary film language. After making several short films, her first feature film is East of hope, a poetic story about the possibilities of finding individual happiness in the beautiful but capricious nature.
Monica Lăzurean-Gorgan is an experienced producer and a member of the AMPAS/Oscar, as well as EFA. Monica is the producer of the successful documentary Acasa, My Home by Radu Ciorniciuc, winner of the Sundance Cinematography Award and other 40 international awards, delegate producer for Touch Me Not by Adina Pintilie and co-producer for Chuck Norris vs Communism by Ilinca Calugareanu. Monica is the director for feature length documentaries such as A Mere Breath, winner of Best Doc in Sarajevo IFF, Best Doc in CEE Vienna IFF, co-director of Wood, premiered in HotDocs and CPH:Dox 2020 etc.