DIRECTOR
Marusya Syroechkovskaya
Marusya Syroechkovskaya is a Moscow-born award-winning filmmaker and visual artist, who had to flee Russia as the March 2022 crackdown on opposition voices increased.
Marusya studied filmmaking at the School for Documentary Film in Moscow under professor Marina Razbezhkina and received her MA in Film Directing at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Moscow (graduated with honors).
Her student short, Exploration of Confinement received a Jury Award at the New Orleans Film Festival 2013 and qualified for the 2013 Academy Awards. It was also selected for the 35th Moscow International Film Festival, the Message to Man International Film Festival 2013, Tenerife Shorts Film Festival 2014, and a number of other international film festivals.
Her training includes workshops such as Ex Oriente Film, B2B Doc, and IDFAcademy.
Marusya is a 2015 Nipkow Program Fellow (Berlin, Germany).
PRODUCERS
Ksenia Gapchenko
Ksenia is a forward-thinking producer and film programmer with 10+ years’ experience, striving to create engaging powerful content with a lasting impact.
Ksenia received her Master's in German Studies at Moscow State Humanitarian University. Later she graduated from Marina Razbezhkina and Mikhail Ugarov School of Documentary Films and Theatre in Moscow.
For many years Ksenia worked in the field of film programming and festival advising: as a programming director for the Documentary Film Center (first Russian documentary cinema). Ksenia is an alumnus of Ex Oriente (2018) and Eurodoc (2019); a participant of IDFA Forum; recipient of IDFA Bertha Fund and participant of IDFA Forum, EDP, as well as a recipient of the first award of Baltic Sea Docs.
Along with the director Marusya Syroechkovskaya, Ksenia co-founded DOCS VOSTOK, a film company with a focus on the production of independent creative documentaries from Eastern Europe and CIS countries, producing and promoting upcoming directors with a unique voice and vision.
Mario Adamson
Mario Adamson is a producer and founder of Sisyfos Film Production, an independent production company based in Stockholm, Sweden and Edinburgh, Scotland that produces high-profile documentaries with a focus on creative collaborations with international and domestic directors and producers who have a unique voice, a high artistic ambition and share the passion for the art of cinematic storytelling.
Mario has produced and co-produced such internationally acclaimed films as the multiple award-winning documentary “Scheme Birds” by Ellen Fiske and Ellinor Hallin (Best Documentary Feature, Tribeca Film Festival, 2019), ”Merry Christmas, Yiwu” by Mladen Kovacevic (Winner of the Heart of Sarajevo, 2020), "The Scars of Ali Boulala” (world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival, 2021), “How to Save a Dead Friend” (World premiere at VdR 2022 in main competition) by Marusya Syroechkovskaya, the animated short films “Still Born" (Swedish Academy Award 2015 and The Golden Taube for Best Documentary Short in Leipzig, 2015 ).
Mario is an alumnus of the EURODOC and Jihlava Emerging Producer program, as well as the Sundance Institute Fund. He is originally a sound designer/composer with a career spanning four decades in the film industry.
EDITOR
Qutaiba Barhamji
Born in Damascus, Qutaiba Barhamji is an award-winning film director and editor. He has edited more than 50 films in 20 different languages, including both feature documentaries and fiction films. His works have been shown around the world at festivals including Cannes, Venice, Berlin, IDFA, Paris, Nyon, and many others. Among them are the multi-award-winning documentary films "Little Palestine: Diary of a Siege" (2021, dir. Abdallah Al Khatib), "Still Recording" (2018, dir. Ghiath Ayoub and Saeed Al Batal), and "Poisonous Roses" (2018, dir. by Ahmed Fawzi), the feature film representing Egypt at the Oscars. As a director his first feature documentary film "Gevar's land" (2020) participated to more than 20 festivals including Cinéma du réel, IDFA, Doclisboa, Jihlava etc.
Qutaiba also works as an editing consultant and trainer for several organizations and universities in Europe and the Middle East. As a juror, he has participated in numerous festivals and funds, including Sundance Documentary Fund, Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC), Docudays UA, Minsk International Film Festival Listapad, among others.