DARKLING | 30/09, 20:00, ASTOR 

DUŠAN MILIĆ 
Director 

Dušan Milić is a screenwriter, director and producer. Dušan was born in Belgrade, Serbia. He graduated from the department of Film and TV Directing at the University of Dramatic Arts. His previous two films ‘Jagoda In Supermarket’ (produced by Emir Kusturica) and ‘Gucha!’ (produced by Karl Baumgartner) were screened in the official program of Panorama Program at the Berlin International Film Festival. His third feature film ‘Traverlator’ premiered in Montreal Film Festival in the competition program and won the Innovation award. His new film ‘Darkling’, co-produced with Greece, Denmark, Bulgaria, and Italy and supported by Eurimages and Creative Europe MEDIA, had its premiere and distribution in 2022. 

HOW TO SAVE A DEAD FRIEND | 30/09 & 02/10, 21:30, DANAOS II 

KSENIA GAPCHENKO 
Producer 

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. She worked as a programming director for the Documentary Film Center (first Russian documentary cinema). Alumna of Ex Oriente (2018) and Eurodoc (2019), participant of IDFA Forum, recipient of IDFA Bertha Fund, recipient of the first award of Baltic Sea Docs. Ksenia is a founder of DOCS VOSTOK, a Moscow-based film company with a focus on the production of independent creative documentaries from Eastern Europe and CIS countries. 

ΕΝΝΙΟ | 01/10, 19:30, ATHENS CONCERT HALL 

MARCO MORRICONE 
Son of Ennio Morricone 

Entrepreneur, he was born in Rome in 1957, and after completing his classical studies he obtained a degree in law. He has been married to Monica Volpini since 1986 and is the father of two daughters, Francesca and Valentina. He worked for almost 30 years at S.I.A.E. Italian Society of Authors and Publishers. Since 1990 he has also followed the concert activity of his father Ennio, accompanying him all over the world. Since 2017 he has been an external consultant for activities concerning the third sector. 

GIANNI RUSSO 
Producer 

Piano B produzioni is a recently established film and television production company, born from the collaboration between Gabriele Costa and Gianni Russo, both with over 25 years of experience in the movie and tv production business. Piano B started with the Italian version of an international television format, entitled Cash Taxi, with more than 100 episodes to its credit. Piano B won the prestigious Nastro d'Argento for the documentary "Giuseppe Tornatore: ogni film un'opera prima" about the director's artistic and professional life, a documentary that received critical acclaim and was distributed globally. Following this successful collaboration, Piano B and Maestro Tornatore start to work on a new film on the life of the legendary composer Ennio Morricone. The film ‘ENNIO’ by Giuseppe Tornatore, produced by Piano B, was premiered at the edition of the Venice Film Festival (September 2021) and released in Italy from February 2022, then distributed in the rest of the word. ENNIO won 3 Donatello’s David. 

ALESSANDRO DE ROSA 
Biographer of Ennio Morricone 

Alessandro De Rosa (Milan, 1985) undertook his study of music composition following Ennio Morricone’s advice. He studied with Boris Porena in Rome and then graduated from the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, Netherlands. As a composer, arranger, producer he collaborated with Jon Anderson of the band Yes, with the brazilian twice platinum winner songwriter Fantine Tho and for numerous agencies and companies specialised in providing music for media. Together with Ennio Morricone he is the author of the book “Ennio Morricone – In His Own Words. Ennio Morricone in conversation with Alessandro De Rosa” (Oxford University Press, 2019, 2020), the Maestro's official autobiography, originally published in 2016 in Italy by Mondadori Libri and translated into several of the most spoken languages in the world, the podcast “Io e Ennio Morricone” (Amazon Audible, Feb. 2020) and he also took part in Giuseppe Tornatore's documentary "Ennio". Among his concert pieces: Duetto per violini, Gravità Ritrovata per Orchestra, commissioned and performed by the Residentie Orkest for its 110th anniversary, and the opera Trashmedy, premiered at the 63rd Biennale Musica in Venice. During these last years De Rosa worked as the Pastelle Music's Head of A\R and Talent Manager, he currently works as a freelance musician and collaborates as author and speaker with RSI (Radiotelevisione Svizzera di Lingua Italiana). From 2021 he also hosts the programme “Ascoltare il cinema“ (Listening to cinema) on RSI – Cult + and LA1. In February 2022, he published the album "Pele e Alma" with Fantine Tho. 

GOD SAID GIVE ‘EM DRUM MACHINES | 01/10, 22:00, ASTOR 

KRISTIAN R. HILL 
Director 

Motor City native Kristian R. Hill is celebrated and respected as one of Detroit’s most talented creative professionals. Excelling as a filmmaker, videographer and rising director with more than 20 years of experience in the business, Kristian has long cast his own distinct glow in the Film, Video & Entertainment industries.  

JENNIFER WASHINGTON 
Producer 

Born and raised in Detroit, Jennifer Washington was inspired as a child by the rich musical culture of the city. Today, Washington’s most pressing mission is to help uplift her hometown’s image in the media. Most recently she co-founded Washington Hill Pictures. The company has produced uplifting precursory stories on the roots of Techno and its global influence with their Detroit Sound Project.  Since 2011, Jennifer Washington has produced several short films, podcasts, and events that recognize the transformative innovations of Black artists, exposing the mainstream consciousness to the Black origins of Techno in Detroit in the early 1980s. By excavating the forgotten stories of these Detroit music luminaries and making them accessible for future generations, her work champions the unofficial campaign for the city to be recognized by the world as an official music capital. 

LOVING HIGHSMITH | 01/10, 19:30 & 02/10, 19:15, DANAOS II 

EVA VITIJA 
Director 

Born 1973 in Basel, Switzerland. Eva Vitija completed her screenwriting studies at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB) in 2002. She has written many years for cinema and television in Switzerland and in Germany. Her first documentary as a director MY LIFE AS A FILM (2015) was nominated for the Swiss Film Award and a prize of the International Documentary Association in Los Angeles. The film garnered various national and international awards, among them the Prix de Soleure, the Basel, the Manchester and Zurich Film Awards. 2022 her second documentary Loving Highsmith opened the Solothurner Filmtage and was shown in many Film Festivals (DocAviv, Sydney & Locarno Filmfestival, Biographilmfestival, Outfest, Frameline etc.) around the world and is currently showing theatrically in more than 20 countries. 

THE STORY OF MY WIFE | 03/10, 20:00, IDEAL 

ILDIKÓ ENYEDI 
Director 

Ildikó Enyedi, awards winner and Oscar nominated film director, has started her career as a concept and media artist. She was a member of the art group Indigo and the Balázs Béla Studio, the only independent film studio in Eastern Europe before 1989. She later turned to feature film directing and script writing, wrote and directed six features and several shorts. With these works she’s won more than fifty international prizes. Her film, My 20th Century, was chosen as one of the 12 Best Hungarian Films of All Time and selected among the 10 best films of the year by The New York Times. In addition to prizes awarded to her as a filmmaker, she has also received recognition as a script writer (as winner of the Grand Prize of the Hartley Merrill International Screenwriting Prize). She lectures at European masterclasses (Switzerland, Poland) and was a prof. Habil of film directing at University of Film and Theatrical Arts in Budapest. After the university was deprived of its academic autonomy, she became founding member of the FreeSzFE, an independent creative hub, an assotiation for learning and teaching. She was member of the main jury at Berlin, Venice, Moscow and San Sebastian Film Festivals (among others). She was awarded the Balázs Béla and the Merited Artist Prizes, and has received the Republic President’s Order of Merit Cross. She is a member of the European and the American Film Academy. A mother of two, she lives in Budapest. 

JIMMY IN SAIGON | 02/10, 19:30, ASTOR & 03/10, 19:00, DANAOS II 

PETER MCDOWELL 
Director 

Surrounded by opera as a child and trained as a musician and actor, Peter has always been drawn to melding music and film in his own productions. He produced opera professionally in Chicago from 1999-2006; prior to that, he made two Super 8 short films in the early 1990s that played at San Francisco’s Frameline Film Festival. One of those shorts, I Dream of Dorothy, went on to festivals worldwide. In addition to filmmaking, Peter works as an arts producer and fundraiser., which has helped him bridge the creative aspects of filmmaking with the more managerial aspects essential for production. Peter is the recipient of a highly competitive three-year DeVos Institute for Arts Management International Fellowship. In 2018, Peter was the recipient of grants from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the California Humanities Council for Jimmy in Saigon. His curatorial, managerial and fundraising experience have proven essential for this project.  

THE QUIET GIRL | 03/10, 19:30, DANAOS I & 05/10, 19:00, TRIANON