FRANCESCO BELLINA

Francesco Bellina (Trapani, 1989) is a documentary photographer based in Palermo. His artistic work focuses mainly on contemporary socio-political issues with an emphasis on migration. His works have been published on major international media such as The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Globe and Mail, Paris Match, Le Monde, Internazionale, L’Espresso, The Washington Post, among others. He often works with NGOs and is a contributor to UNHCR, WHO, and others. In 2016 and 2017 he was nominated for the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass. In 2018 his work “Nigerian Connection” was included in the “Palermo Atlas” by the European nomadic biennial Manifesta12 and OMA. In the same year, his work “Tanakra” (2018), that depicts the human traffic between Niger and Libia, was exhibited at the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland, and presented as a socio-political study in lectures at the University of San Diego, California, Spring Hill College, and others. In 2019 he was invited to the World Press Photo exhibition in Bari, Torino and Palermo (Italy) about “On a gagné” (2019), a series of pictures taken on board of the ship “Mare Jonio” during a rescue operation in the Mediterranean Sea. He has just completed the long-term project “Oriri” (2016-2020), that follows the interlace of sex trafficking and voodoo rituals in Benin, Niger, Ghana, Nigeria, and Sicily.  In 2021 his ongoing project “The Last Fishermen”, curated by Izabela Anne Moren, won the 10th Edition of the Italian Council fund, promoted by the Italian Minister of Culture. In 2022, the work commissioned by the World Health Organization to document its activities in Palermo, Lesvos and Sarajevo was exhibited at the organization’s annual meeting in Istanbul.

GRAZIELLA BILDESHEIM

Graziella Bildesheim has decades of experience in the international audiovisual field, from the creative development to the production, apart from directing advanced training programs, at international level, to the coordination of co-production market. She spent the last fifteen years of her professional career to the training of emerging professional in the audiovisual field. She is the founder and director of Maia Workshops, a training program supported by Creative Europe MEDIA for European emerging producers (2015-2018), the series of Story Development and Producers’ Workshops for filmmakers coming from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine (supported by the EuroEast program, 2012 and 2013) and the program HERMES (supported by the European Council and by Eurimages, 2009). She currently collaborates with Black Nights, the International Festival of Tallinn (Estonia) for the planning of Discovery Campus, a training action for all trades of cinema. She is also an expert evaluator at the Development field of the European Media Program (since 1994). Moreover, she collaborates with different Film Commission and Regional Funds in Italy evaluating projects for Development and Production.  She teaches the Production Schedule for Anica Academy and Projects Development at the Experimental Centre/National School of Cinema and she is engaged in the planning and implementation of intensive workshops for the professionalization and internationalization of emerging producers of the audiovisual with their Italian Film Commission partners. In 2019, she started the first and only workshop of Italy dedicated to the analysis and assessment of the script. She is in the Jury of the David di Donatello Award of the Italian Cinema Academy since 2015. She is the member of the European Film Academy since 2009 and since 2018 she represents Italy in the Board of EFA.

CHRISTILLA HUILLARD-KANN

Christilla Huillard-Kann is Producer and co-founder of Elda° Productions, a production company based in Paris and created in 2016. ELDA° produces and coproduces for the French and international market, focusing on social issues, contemporary history, and culture. The company’s main partners include CNC Funds, Eurimages, FTV, ARTE, French Regional Funds, European TV broadcasters, World Cinema Fund, Catapult and Procirep and major festivals such as IDFA, Berlinale, FIFA, Artecinema. She was formerly Deputy Director of New Medias at RADIO FRANCE, the major French Public Radio Station. Prior to this, she was commissioning editor at ARTE FRANCE, producer and head of documentary department at Image et Cie (Lagardère group) and journalist/reporter/editor at France Inter, the major French Public Radio channel. For a short time, she also worked as a demographer at Unesco. She holds a M. Philo in Demograhics and Econometrics at SciencesPo and a MSc in Economics at the Institute for the Study of Economic and Social Development (IEDES Paris).

MICHELE PENNETTA

Born 1984 in Varese, Italy. 2008 BA in Visual Communication from SUPSI (University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland), Lugano. 2010 MA in cinema from ECAL (École Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne). His short documentaries The Bet (2013) and The Dogs Bark (2010) were selected for numerous festivals. His first feature-length documentary Fishing Bodies (2016) premiered at the “Locarno Film Festival, Cineasti del presente”. Il Mio Corpo’s international premiere was in the ACID section of Festival de Cannes 2020.

HELLA WENDERS

Hella Wenders studied at the German Film and Television Academy (DFFB). Her graduation film Berg Fidel (2012) was selected and awarded at several international film festivals and was released in theatres all around Germany. After the sequel School, School -The time after Berg Fidel (2017) she worked on A Black Jesus by Luca Lucchesi (Best documentary award in Sole Luna Doc Film Festival 16th edition). She is currently developing her feature debut Jellyfish that takes place in Sicily. She is the co- managing director of the Wim Wenders Foundation.