THE TEAM:
Director – VERNON FILMS – Ilinca Calugareanu
Ilinca Calugareanu is a London-based Romanian documentary filmmaker and editor. She studied filmmaking at Manchester’s Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology. Her short films have been screened in festivals around the world. Calugareanu’s credits include The Writing on the Wall (2006, Romania) and Endgames (2008, UK). She has a background in anthropology with a focus on communist and post-communist Romania, which gives her a unique perspective on the story of the VHS phenomenon.
Producer – VERNON FILMS – Mara Adina
Mara Adina started her career as a production manager and then line producer at Kuwait National Television (KTV), whilst also producing with several Middle Eastern production companies during her stay there. On her return to the UK, she established Vernon Films, an independent production company based in London. In 2014 she released Counterpart, the first English-language film directed by two-time BAFTA-winning director and Golden Bear nominee Adrian Sitaru. Counterpart opened at Clermont Ferrand International Film Festival 2014 and has secured distribution in Europe, UK, and North America. Adina recently completed Ilinca Calugareanu's debut feature film Chuck Norris vs Communism which premiered in competition at Sundance 2015. Chuck Norris vs Communism is an HBO Europe, ARTE and Openvizor co production, presented by RatPac Documentary films and Impact Partners produced in association with Passion Pictures.
Producer – RATPAC DOCUMENTARY FILMS – Brett Ratner
RatPac Documentary Films is a division of RatPac Entertainment, the film finance and production partnership of filmmaker Brett Ratner and Australian mogul James Packer. RatPac Documentary Films most recently premiered Electric Boogaloo to great acclaim at the Toronto Film Festival, as well as Roman Polanski's Weekend of a Champion, and will premiere the award-winning Night Will Fall on HBO in January 2015. Brett Ratner previously produced the controversial Sundance documentary Catfish; the acclaimed HBO documentaries Helmut by June, about the legendary photographer Helmut Newton and I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale; and, for PBS, the Emmy-nominated American Masters production, Woody Allen – A Documentary.
Executive producers – PASSION PICTURES – John Battsek & Nicole Stott:
Passion Pictures is one of the most prolific feature documentary production companies in the industry. From the Academy Award-winning One Day in September in 1999, Passion has been involved in over thirty high-profile documentaries, including Searching for Sugar Man (Academy Award winner, 2013), The Imposter (BAFTA winner, 2013), Restrepo (Academy Award nominated, 2011), Sergio (Academy Award shortlisted, 2010) and The Tillman Story (Academy Award shortlisted, 2011). In 2014, Passion had four films premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, including The Green Prince, which opened the festival and went on to win the Audience Award. In the same year, The Great Invisible won the Grand Jury Prize at SXSW. In 2015, Passion will launch three new films at Sundance Film Festival, including Listen to Me Marlon, National Lampoon: Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead and Chuck Norris vs Communism.
Executive producers – IMPACT PARTNERS – Dan Cogan & Jenny Raskin:
Since its inception in 2007, Impact Partners has been involved in the financing of over 60 films, including The Cove, which won the 2010 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature; The Garden, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature in 2009; Hell and Back Again, which won the Documentary Grand Jury Prize and Cinematography Award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature in 2012; and How to Survive a Plague, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature in 2013.
Executive Producer – HBO EUROPE – Hanka Kastelicová
Hanka Kastelicová earned a Master of Arts degree from the Faculty of Film and TV Documentary Department at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. As an experienced documentary filmmaker, she came to HBO Europe from Slovenian public broadcaster RTV SLO. There she directed and produced many documentaries and recently attained the position of Head of Documentary Development and Commissioning Editor. Kastelicová is the Executive Producer of Documentaries for HBO Europe. Based in her Budapest office and working closely with HBO Europe’s production centres in Warsaw, Prague and Bucharest, she oversees all aspects of HBO Europe’s documentary output.
Co Producer - Abbas Nokhasteh
Abbas Nokhasteh is a producer, filmmaker and curator. He is founder/director of Openvizor an international multi-disciplinary arts organisation based in London, UK. Openvizor film and documentary projects include works in the United Kingdom, France, Turkey, Iraq, Unites States, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Projects include Perpetual Peace (2010), Norman me guÃa (2012), Mass-e-Bhat (2014), Udita (2015), Hiwa K 'The Bell' (2015), Rickshaw Stories Havana (2016), Alejandro Jodorowsky's 'Endless Poetry' (2016), The Region (2016), The Ballad of Exiles (2016) and Rising Silence (2016).
Editor – Per K. Kirkegaard
Per K. Kirkegaard is one of the most established editors in the Danish film industry. He has edited numerous critically acclaimed documentaries and features. Among the feature films Per has edited is Accused, which was awarded with the European Film Academy Discovery Prix Fassbinder; Armadillo, for which he was awarded an Emmy for best editing of a long-format documentary; TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard, which was recently selected for the Berlin Film Festival; The Sound of a Revolution, a Greenlandic documentary, premiered at 2014’s CPH:DOX; and Chuck Norris vs Communism, selected for the 2015 Sundance Film Festival World Cinema Documentary competition.
Cinematographer – Jose Ruiz
Jose Ruiz has over 15 years professional experience as a DOP and gaffer. Ruiz studied cinematography at Bournemouth Arts Institute in Poole, United Kingdom, where he graduated with a BA Honors. He went on to forge a prolific fiction film career as a cinematographer. For the past ten years, he has worked as a DOP on music videos, fiction and documentary productions. He feels drawn to stories that touch him emotionally and is fascinated by Eastern Europe.
Composer – Anne Nikitin
Anne Nikitin is an award-winning composer who has scored films ranging from action-packed thrillers to emotional dramas, quirky comedies and epic natural history. In 2011, Nikitin scored The Imposter, the BAFTA-winning feature film directed by Bart Layton, produced by Film4 and A&E Indie Films. It premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival before opening in cinemas worldwide. Other recent credits include the feature-length film JFK: Seven Days That Made A President; the hit TV series Locked Up Abroad for National Geographic Channel; Wootton Bassett: The Town That Remembers, directed by Henry Singer for BBC; Paranormal Witness for Syfy; and America: The Story of Us, a landmark series for The History Channel introduced by Barack Obama.
Composer – Rob Manning
Rob Manning is a London-based film and television composer who has scored high-profile documentary strands, drama, wildlife, hard-hitting factual films, edgy comedies, and commercials. During a decade in the industry he has composed music for various broadcasters including the BBC, Discovery, National Geographic, SKY, Channel 4, ITV and FIVE. Credits include Louis Theroux: Miami Mega Jail for the BBC; American Blackout, a feature-length drama for National Geographic; Deadly Islands, a five-part wildlife series for Discovery; The Wonderful World of Tony Blair for Channel 4’s Dispatches; On The Streets, a feature-length documentary made by acclaimed director Penny Woolcock; and the BAFTA-award-winning comedy series Fonejacker.