Opening Keynote & Master's Pitch

Sabine Bubeck-Paaz is a Senior Commissioning Editor at the German Public TV Broadcaster ZDF, where she is dealing with diverse documentary slots on ARTE, the European Culture Channel. Within the editorial department “ZDF/ARTE Culture and Music”, she mostly co-produces documentary films (52minutes and feature length) for the ARTE documentary slots: Visual Arts, Culture, Music, Pop-Culture, Cinema Documentary and La Lucarne. Sabine Bubeck-Paaz is also tutoring at diverse documentary development initiatives.

Leonard Cortana (France/Guadeloupe) is the Inclusion Program and Strategic Partnerships Manager at EURODOC, coordinating the BIPOC EURODOC taskforce. A PhD candidate in Cinema Studies focusing on the transnational circulation of social justice films at NYU. Leonard directed the short documentary Marielle's Legacy Will Not Die (2019) & contributed to social impact campaigns for films like Murder in Paris (South Africa) and Sementes (Brazil). He has served as a consultant for the UN’s Anti-Racial Discrimination Section and organized discussions for advocacy films globally. Leonard organized post-screening discussions and participated in various social impact campaigns worldwide for advocacy films. He led a session at the 2024 Cannes Doc Edition and 2026 Sundance Collab on Post-Screening Q&As:Leading Ethical Interactions to Boost Impactful Conversations.

Aleksandra Derewienko completed postgraduate studies in TV and Film Organization at the National Film School in Lodz, and the MEGA Plus course – European Master in Audio-visual Management in Spain. In 2016, after working as a sales manager at Taskovski Films for four years, she joined CAT&Docs in sales and acquisition. She has participated in many international festivals and markets and was a member of the pitching panels at Baltic Sea Docs, Visions du Reel, Krakow Film Festival, DMZ DOCS or Tokyo Docs, among others.

Gitte is independent film consultant in the int. documentary field with focus on development, production, financing and distribution of films with international potential. Gitte is currently committed mentor for the co-production training-scheme Close-Up, as well as CineDoc and Finnish AVEK’s Development Lab. In addition, she serves at institutes, events, companies and organizations as mentor, tutor, consultant or expert. She works with production companies as individual consultant with a background as executive producer of more than 20 international documentaries and series for First Hand Films, where she was deputy director and headed sales and acquisitions for many years. Gitte holds a Master of Film & Rhetoric from the University of Copenhagen.

1992 first job at ARTE in Strasbourg as part of the founding team; since 2000 commissioning editor at WDR within the culture department

Bernd Seidl, born in Germany in 1963, has more than 35 years of experience in journalism, broadcasting and the television industry. After studying theology in Tübingen, he graduated in 1992. He works as a director and editor at Südwestrundfunk (SWR) in Baden-Baden. His current position is commissioning editor in the department for co-productions with the German-French broadcaster Arte. He is responsible especially for feature-length documentaries and international co-productions.