Image (Left-Right): Charlotte Reekers, Sophie Duncan, Lisa Marie Russo, Carlos A. Gutiérrez, Elçin Bahçeci, Hicham Falah, Marina Burić, Rico Johnson-Sinclair and Seggen Mikael.
We are delighted to announce our Industry Programme Team and MeetMarket Assessors. We welcome back Charlotte Reekers as Marketplace & Talent Manager, and Sophie Duncan as Industry Programme Producer, and are pleased to introduce Lisa Marie Russo as Industry Consultant for the 2023 Edition.
Charlotte returns to Sheffield DocFest to oversee the Marketplace activity, including the MeetMarket (entries close 17 February) and Alternate Realities Talent Market, for the second year running. She will deliver a range of initiatives taking place during the festival for delegates of all experience-levels who are interested in making industry connections and gaining industry knowledge. She will also oversee live pitches and bespoke sessions for international delegations.
Charlotte has worked as an Industry Program Consultant for organizations such as IDFA, EFM, The Gotham and Black Film Space. In 2022, she created the Fiction Toolbox program for the EFM Market, and was the Head of the Industry Days at FIPADOC. She gained international experience as the Senior Program Manager at the Gotham (formerly IFP) in NYC, where she organized their Project Forum, the largest co-production market in the US. During her tenure at The Gotham, she set up industry programs with the EFM Market and the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) in Busan.
We welcome back Sophie for her fourth year in the Sheffield DocFest Industry team. As Industry Programme Producer, Sophie will produce the MeetMarket and other Marketplace activities including networking events and workshops. She also facilitates year round Industry activity including schemes like Future Producer School (applications close 8 February).
In addition to her experience organising DocFest’s Marketplace, Sophie produced one on one meetings at the 2022 IDFA Forum, and has worked at a range of other festivals including London Short Film Festival, Open City Documentary Festival, Leeds International Film Festival and BFI Flare. She is also Festival Producer & Programmer at volunteer-led film festival, Women X, a North East event which uplifts women, non-binary and gender nonconforming filmmakers.
We’re pleased to also welcome Lisa Marie to the team this year as Industry Consultant. Lisa Marie is a filmmaker and consultant; she works in docs, fiction and animation, and has led three UK Funds including the BFI Doc Society Fund from 2018-21. Her feature EP credits include Is There Anybody Out There? (Sundance World Cinema Doc Competition 2023), Nothing Compares (Sundance 2022, two BIFAs, PGA nomination 2023, Showtime), A Bunch of Amateurs (Sheffield DocFest Audience Award 2022, BBC Storyville), Rebellion (IDFA, BAFTA nominated 2023), Poly Styrene: I am a Cliche (two BIFAs), Locked In (BAFTA, Grierson, BBC Storyville) and the shorts The Nightcrawlers (Emmy, Nat Geo) and The Black Cop (BAFTA, Guardian Documentaries). She has EP’ed over twenty animation shorts, and was BAFTA nominated for The Tale of the Rat that Wrote, which she produced.
In 2009, Lisa Marie and Kate Ogborn launched Fly Film. Her producer feature credits include Ken Loach’s The Spirit of ’45 (Berlin FF and C4), Gillian Wearing’s Self Made (LFF, MOMA) and Andrew Kotting’s Swandown (Cannes Acid). She was EP on Hockney (BBC Arts) and on Terence Davies’ The Deep Blue Sea, starring Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston (London, Toronto) and Of Time And The City (Cannes Out of Competition).
Lisa Marie is currently developing the adult animation feature Lollipop, inspired by her experience surviving breast cancer twice.
MeetMarket Assessors
We are pleased to also welcome six international industry professionals, who will be involved in assessing applications for the MeetMarket, our flagship industry event for new documentary features and series. Their expertise covers production, development, sales, distribution, exhibition, and festivals.
Carlos Gutierrez
Latin America
Carlos A. Gutiérrez is co-founding executive director of Cinema Tropical, the leading presenter of Latin American cinema in the U.S. He has screened films at MoMA, Film at Lincoln Center, and the Guggenheim Museum, among other institutions. In 2007, he co-curated the Flaherty Film Seminar, currently sits in Film Forum’s Board of Directors, and has served as a juror and panelist for festivals and foundations including Tribeca, Mar del Plata, New Orleans, Morelia, the Sundance Documentary Fund, and the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.
Elçin Bahçeci
Turkey/France
Elçin holds Masters in political science from Sciences Po Paris, and creative documentary filmmaking from French National Audiovisual Institute (INASup) and École normale supérieure (ENS). She started her career in the audiovisual industry at Alegria Productions, and worked for FIPADOC International Documentary Festival (Biarritz, France) as Head of International Development and Executive Assistant. Currently, she is developing her first feature-length documentary and she works occasionally for international festivals in programming (Cinéma du Réel Paris 2023) or industry production (IDFA Amsterdam 2022).
Hicham Falah
Morocco
Hicham Falah is a director of photography, author-director, producer and programmer. He is the artistic director of the International Women’s Film Festival of Salé (Morocco) and is the general representative of the International Documentary Film Festival of Agadir (Morocco) and its training and artistic support programmes, addressed to up-and-coming Moroccan and African filmmakers: the FIDADOC documentary BeeHive, its Pan African writing residency and the Agadir Produire au sud workshop organised in collaboration with the Three Continents Festival (Nantes).
In 2018-19 he designed and launched Sisters in Film, a programme to empower female filmmakers from the MENA region in the framework of the MedFilm UNESCO programme, co-funded by the European Union.
Since 2019, he has been in charge of the artistic coordination of SENTOO, a Pan African programme to support cinematographic creation and south-south co-productions, initiated and piloted by the Film Centres of various countries in North and West Africa.
Marina Burić
Croatia
Marina Burić is a freelance documentary industry professional working at events like IDFA Forum and Qumra (the talent incubator event by the Doha Film Institute). She used to run the industry section at ZagrebDox IFF, and in 2018 she co-founded GoCritic!, a training program for emerging film critics and journalists, organized by Cineuropa. Before moving to event production she worked as a distribution and exhibition coordinator and a cinema manager for Restart, a Zagreb-based education, production and distribution company.
Rico Johnson-Sinclair
UK
After working with Flatpack Festival in Birmingham in 2017, Rico Johnson-Sinclair went on to build CineQ, a queer film festival that prioritises QTBIPOC perspectives. Although his career has developed since then, his ethos has always centred audiences first, understanding that the screens industries have the power to shape hearts and minds.
He is currently Race Equality Lead for the British Film Institute, working intersectionality to develop work around racial equity from an intersectional perspective.
He produced the BFI-backed film Sweet Mother in 2019 written and directed by Zane Igbe, has worked as a consulting producer for many films in the regions and nations and is currently working on his first short film as Writer/Director named PREY which was also funded by BFI.
Seggen Mikael
Germany
Seggen Mikael works as a freelance cultural manager, programmer and writer. She designs programmes and social media presences, curates talks and organizes projects with a focus on marginalized groups. She is also part of the consultancy collective DisCheck. In her work as a programmer and facilitator, she mainly focuses on film/art and media, as well as intersectional discrimination, inclusion and equity. Seggen was also part of the jury for the IDA Doc Awards 2022.
Entries for the MeetMarket will close 17 February, 16:00 GMT.
We are inviting prospective applicants to join us for an online Ask Me Anything Session - 9 February, 17:00 GMT. The session will be lead by Industry Programme Producer Sophie Duncan and Creative Director Raul Niño Zambrano, and will be an opportunity for you to ask questions about the MeetMarket and application process. Click here to find out more.
