Making a Mark in Unstable Environments: An Encouraging Conversation

Industry Insights - The EFM Podcast

Industry Insights – The EFM Podcast is presented by the European Film Market of the Berlinale. Hosted by Curator and Impact Producer Nadia Denton, it delves deep into the rapidly evolving film industry.

In this episode movers & shakers within the international film landscape Amra Bakšić Ćamo, Hania Mroué and Sadaf Foroughi talk about their personal approaches as filmmakers living in unstable environments – all three with an immense motivation to shape change in the film industry and to move forward. They share what drives them and how they are able to navigate and overcome challenges, and reflect on sustainable leadership and humanity in our film industry.

Hania Mroué is an established film programmer, distributor, and industry professional. She founded and became the director of Metropolis Cinema, the only art house movie theatre in Lebanon, in 2006, and in 2010, she established MC Distribution, a company dedicated to distributing Arab and international independent titles in the MENA region. Mroué is a founding member of the Beirut DC association, which supports and promotes independent Arab films, and she has served as the Managing Director of the organization's Arab film festival, Ayam Beirut Al Cinema'iya, for the past decade. From 2010 to 2012, she also served as Chief Arab Programmer at the Doha Tribeca Film Festival. She's currently a programming consultant for the Marrakesh International Film Festival. Mroué has been a jury member at a number of prestigious film festivals, including Cannes, Berlinale, Adelaide and Malatya International Film Festival.

Amra Bakšić Ćamo is one of the founders of SCCA/pro.ba, an independent production company from Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She has produced and coproduced award-winning feature films, TV programs, shorts and documentaries,. Since it’s inception in 2003, she is Head of the CineLink, a regional co-production market, work in progress and project development workshop for feature films and drama series at the Sarajevo Film Festival and one of the curators of Torino Film Lab. She is a member of the European Film Academy as well as ACE and EAVE producer networks. She has been a longtime collaborator of Berlinale Coproduction Market and Biennale College. Amra teaches Producing at the Academy of Preforming Arts in Sarajevo.

Sadaf Foroughi is an award-winning Iranian-Canadian filmmaker and Berlinale Talents alumni. She directed a short documentary episode of The Why Democracy? Project, which was nominated for Best Non-European Film at the Grand Off-European Off Film Awards in Warsaw and won Best Short Film at the annual Oxford Brooks University Film and Music Festival. In 2009, Foroughi founded Sweet Delight Pictures (SDP) with fellow filmmaker Kiarash Anvari. SDP was nominated as one of the top five emerging Canadian production companies at the 2017 Indie Screen Awards. Sadaf Foroughi’s debut feature as writer/director/producer AVA premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival, winning the FIPRESCI award in the Discovery section and earning several nominations. Her second film, Summer With Hope, won the Crystal Globe Grand Prix for Best Film at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2022. Sadaf has also served as a juror for various festivals and awards, including the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television’s annual awards in 2019 and most recently the Tibilisi International Film Festival in Georgia in 2022.

The host Nadia Denton is a film industry specialist with over a decade of experience as a Curator, Impact Producer and Author. Her focus has been on cinema of the African diaspora, she specialises in Nigerian Cinema and is author of two books The Black British Filmmakers Guide to Success and The Nigerian Filmmaker’s Guide to Success: Beyond Nollywood. Nadia is also an official V&A African Heritage Tour Guide.

This podcast episode has been developed in collaboration with Berlinale Talents.

The Berlinale’s European Film Market is the first international film market of the year, where the film industry starts its business. Industry Insights - The EFM Podcast puts a spotlight on highly topical and trendsetting industry issues, thereby creating a compass for the forthcoming film year. The year-round podcast is produced in cooperation with Goethe-Institut and co-funded by Creative Europe MEDIA.