Barbara Albert
Born in Vienna in 1970, Barbara Albert studied directing and screenwriting at the Vienna Film Academy. After having introduced her short films at several festivals, her first feature film NORDRAND was internationally acclaimed after its screening in the competition of Venice Int. Film Festival in 1999. In the same year, Barbara Albert founded the production company coop99, together with Martin Gschlacht, Jessica Hausner, and Antonin Svoboda.
She worked as a producer on GRBAVICA, DARWIN’S NIGHTMARE, SLEEPER and LOVELY RITA. As a writer, she has worked together with the writer/ directors Jasmila Zbanic, Andrea Staka, Ruth Mader and Michael Glawogger. After FREE RADICALS, FALLING and THE DEAD AND THE LIVING, which premiered in the competitions of San Sebastian, Venice and Locarno, MADEMOISELLE PARADIS is Barbara Albert’s 5th feature film.
Her films have received numerous awards. She is a teacher and vice president of the Film University Babelsberg “Konrad Wolf” in Potsdam and has been living in Berlin since 2010. In 2016 she co-founded Berlin-based production company CALA Film, together with the producers of MADEMOISELLE PARADIS, Martina Haubrich, and Michael Kitzberger.
Marcia Nasatir
Marcia Nasatir broke the glass ceiling in 1974 becoming Hollywood’s FIRST Woman Vice-President of Production for a major motion picture studio, United Artists. This Texas native’s passion for storytelling led her to New York City as a single mom to work in publishing, climbing the ladder to an editor for Dell, Bantam Books and Ladies’ Home Journal. Her role as the “movie-tie-in-person” ultimately sent her out west to join Hollywood literary/movie agent, Evarts Ziegler and represent writers, Robert Towne (Chinatown) and Lorenzo Semple, Jr. (Three Days of the Condor, Batman TV series).
Nasatir was recruited by Mike Medavoy at UA as story editor, a position she negotiated into a VP title — paving the way for women to achieve this executive status within a male-dominated movie industry. While at UA, Nasatir championed Rocky, Carrie, Apocalypse Now, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. She later joined Johnny Carson’s production company and produced The Big Chill, which garnered three Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (Glenn Close) and Best Screenplay. At Marcia Nasatir Productions, she independently produced the Vietnam drama, Hamburger Hill, and Ironweed starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep.
Her legendary career is documented in A Classy Broad: Marcia’s Adventures in Hollywood, directed by Anne Goursaud. At 91 years of age, Nasatir is an active member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and serves on the Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee. She also actively pursues film projects and is in development with Mark Twain’s classic, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Anne Goursaud
Anne Goursaud is an accomplished film editor and director. It was Francis Ford Coppola who first spotted Anne’s talent, giving her the chance to edit ONE FROM THE HEART. Since that time, she has directed and edited a wide range of projects, and she has worked with some of the most highly acclaimed professionals in the movie industry.
Her directing credits include the cult thriller EMBRACE OF THE VAMPIRE, POISON IVY II, both for New Line Cinema, and the erotic drama LOVE IN PARIS (ANOTHER 9 1/2 WEEKS) for Trimark. Her editing credits include Francis Ford Coppola’s teen classic THE OUTSIDERS, starring Matt Dillon and Tom Cruise, the Oscar-winning hit BRAM STOKERS DRACULA, starring Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins, and IRONWEED, starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. She also edited films for Bruce Beresford, John Duigan, Janusz Kaminski, and Jack Nicholson.
Anne last produced, directed as well as edited A CLASSY BROAD, a feature-length documentary about the first woman Production VP at a major studio, Marcia Nasatir. The film opened at The Santa Barbara International Film Festival. She just finished re-cutting THE LONGEST RIDE, a feature documentary about refugees in Kurdistan. Anne received a License in History of Art from the Sorbonne and a Masters in Fine Arts from Columbia University. She is a member of the Directors Guild of America, the Editors Guild, A.C.E, the Academy of Arts and Sciences and SACD.
Virgil Widrich
Virgil Widrich, born 1967 in Salzburg, works on numerous multimedia and film productions. He is one of the founders and Managing Directors of the multimedia company checkpointmedia GmbH, University Professor of Art & Science at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and owner and Managing Director of Virgil Widrich Film- und Multimediaproduktions G.m.b.H. His first feature film is “Heller als der Mond” (“Brighter than the Moon”). His short film “Copy Shop” won 35 international awards and was nominated for the Oscar. “Fast Film” premiered in Cannes 2003 and won 36 awards until today. His newest film is “Night of a 1000 Hours”. Virgil Widrich lives in Vienna.
Marisa Mazria Katz
Marisa Mazria Katz is the Director of Media Initiatives for the public art nonprofit Creative Time. As a journalist, she has contributed to publications that include The New York Times, Financial Times, Time, The Guardian, Vogue and the Wall Street Journal. In addition to her writing, Marisa ran a US State Department-sponsored program in Casablanca, Morocco, for four years that taught marginalized youth journalism and blogging.
David Schwartz
David Schwartz is Chief Curator of Museum of the Moving Image, where he has worked since 1985. He oversees the Museum’s wide-ranging film programs and changing exhibitions. He is a visiting professor at Purchase College, the host of the Westchester Cinema Club and the Cinema Arts Centre Preview Club. He is also the programming director of First Time Fest, a New York-based film festival devoted to the first films of emerging and established directors. He has been on numerous juries, including the international competition jury at BAFICI (in Buenos Aires) and FIDLab (in Marseille, France) in 2015.
Jessica Hausner
The director, screenwriter, and producer was born in Vienna, Austria in 1972. She studied directing at the Filmacademy of Vienna, where in 1996 she made the short film FLORA, which won the ‘Leopard of Tomorrow’ at the Locarno Festival. INTER-VIEW, her graduation film, won the Prix du Jury of the Cinéfondation at the Cannes Film Festival in 1999. Two years later, LOVELY RITA, her first feature film, was presented in ‘Un Certain Regard’ at the Cannes Film Festival before being distributed in twenty territories. Her second feature film HOTEL was again selected in ‘Un Certain Regard’ at the Cannes Film Festival 2004. Her next film LOURDES had its premiere at Venice Film Festival 2009 in International Competition where it won the ‘FIPRESCI Prize’. Hausner’s latest film AMOUR FOU is set around 1810 in Berlin and avails itself of the tragic life of the German writer Henrich von Kleist. AMOUR FOU premiered again in ‘Un Certain Regard’ in Cannes.
Sara Driver
Sara Driver directed Paul Bowles’ short story, YOU ARE NOT I (1982, 48 min.) Restored and celebrated at the Masterworks NYFF 2011. Her feature film; SLEEPWALK (1986, 78 min.), won the prestigious Prix Georges Sadoul. SLEEPWALK given by the Cinematheque Francaise, premiered Critics Week of Cannes, Sundance film festival, Museum of Modern Art’s 1987 New Directors New Films Series. And recently shown at BAM for their 80s series. WHEN PIGS FLY (94 min.,1993), Premiered Locarno Film Festival and shown in Toronto, and Rotterdam, and the film was recently shown at the Museum of Modern Art in the Women in film series. She wrote and directed the short documentary, THE BOWERY – SPRING, 1994, part of “Postcards from New York,” an anthology program for French TV.
Driver’s other film credits include Jim Jarmusch’s, PERMANENT VACATION (1979, producer, production manager) and STRANGER THAN PARADISE (1984, producer). Her films have had retrospectives in Denmark, Buenos Aires, Anthology Film Archives NYC, Thessaloniki International Film Festival, TIFF Cinematique, Toronto, Maine International Film Festival, Filmoteca Spain and Estoril/Lisbon where she was awarded the prestigious Tribute Award for her work in cinema. Her films are available in a boxset from Filmswelike.
David Schwartz
David Schwartz is Chief Curator of Museum of the Moving Image, where he has worked since 1985. He oversees the Museum’s wide-ranging film programs and changing exhibitions. He is a visiting professor at Purchase College, the host of the Westchester Cinema Club and the Cinema Arts Centre Preview Club. He is also the programming director of First Time Fest, a New York-based film festival devoted to the first films of emerging and established directors. He has been on numerous juries, including the international competition jury at BAFICI (in Buenos Aires) and FIDLab (in Marseille, France) in 2015.