Ella Cieslinski
Ella Cieslinski is a German film director and writer with a strong international background formed in France, Brazil, the U.S. and Uruguay. Currently she is based in Berlin. She finished her screenplay studies at Film university in Munich in 2018. Her diplom work won the best feature screenplay at Sehsüchte filmfestival. Since then she has written and co-written several feature scripts. Her short movies FOU DE TOI and FANTASY IS A FLEEING ANIMAL were shown at numerous international film festivals such as Hofer Filmtage. She has collaborated as a script consultant with both fictional and documentary film projects. Also she was part of the short film festival jury in Triest in 2021. Currently she is working on her first feature film.
Ella Kohn
Born in Jerusalem, Israel in 1990, Ella Kohn served as a Military Photographer in the Israeli Defense Forces. Her military service inspired her in creating her short film “Who Sank Your Ships?”. She is currently developing her first feature film, which is also based on her time in the army, as well as a short animated project produced by Academy Award Nominee Kobi Mizrahi.
She holds an MA in film studies from The Steve Tisch School of Film and Television, Tel Aviv University, and works as a director, editor, and animator.
Presently, she directs animation shorts for Hop! Media Group (an Israeli children’s television channel), heads the content department at TIIF (an American-Israeli NGO) and participates in the Torino Short Film Market as a tutor.
Living as a Digital Nomad, Ella works remotely from different destinations around the world.
Gaia Meucci-Astley
Gaia is a film programmer, script reader and project assessor, with 10 years of experience working in new and emerging talent.
From 2012 to 2021 Gaia was the Short Film Programmer of short film and animation festival Encounters in Bristol, in charge of curating the live action international competition. In 2009 and 2010 she was the Short Film Programmer of the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Gaia also worked in the UK and France in different capacities, including animation production for Red Kite Animation in Scotland, short film distribution for Paris-based Autour de Minuit, film festivals operations and programming. Her festival positions also include the BFI London International Film Festival and the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival.
As a freelance film curator, she has collaborated with organisations such as the ICA in London, where she programmed the retrospective Jarmusch in Context in 2009, and the Forum des Images in Paris, where in 2012 she was the Assistant Programmer of London Calling, a season of films about London.
Currently, she is focusing on expanding her freelance work in talent development, collaborating as a script reader, mentor, assessor and judge for organisations including the BFI Network, Berlin-based Serial Eyes, screenwriting services provider Shore Scripts and LIM | Less is More.
Tiko Nadirashvili
Tiko Nadirashvili (1992) is a Tbilisi- based film producer. Since 2019, Tiko works as a head of production at Millimeter Film – an independent film studio with its production base and rentals in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Tiko is the Atelier Ludwigsburg Paris 2020/21 Alumna and a board member of the Atelier Network. In the framework of the ALP program, she produced a short film THE ELUSIVE JOY OF LABOR in collaboration with the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg, La Femis, and ARTE. She is also a member of the Documentary Association of Europe: DAE.
In 2022, Tiko produced award-winning director Davit Pirtskhalava’s debut feature A LONG BREAK which world premiered at Toronto International Film Festival.
Michal Reich
Michal Reich has been working in the film industry since 2011. He is a graduate of the Editing Department at FAMU in Prague and participated in several script consulting workshops (Script Consulting Incubator, Midpoint Training, Script Circle).
Some of the films he edited have garnered international recognition / Cannes 2012, TIFF 2019, Busan IFF 2019, Cairo IFF 2019, Cottbus FF 2020 / and since 2017 he has been teaching film language and dramaturgy at FAMU.
Co-founder of script consulting platform “Catalyst” (in development) which aims to support films from the initial idea to the final cut.
In his free time, he loves to visit remote regions around the world, listen to local stories and direct short documentaries on socio-political issues.
