The Talented Filmmakers of the 2020 Water Docs Film Festival

Lesley Chilcott, Director/Producer
WATSON
AUSTRIA | 2019 | 100 min | Canadian Premiere

LESLEY CHILCOTT is an award-winning filmmaker, documentarian and producer. Chilcott directed the feature documentaries A Small Section of the World and CodeGirl, the latter being the first feature-length film to premiere on YouTube, where it received a million views before going on to theaters and other outlets. She was a producer of the 2007 Academy Award®-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth and also produced the cult rock documentary It Might Get Loud (2008), featuring legendary guitarists The Edge, Jimmy Page and Jack White, and Waiting for “Superman” (2010), for which she won a PGA Award for Outstanding Producer of a Documentary Theatrical Motion Picture.    Chilcott frequently shoots internationally on shorter form projects and prior to making documentaries worked at MTV networks on series and live multi-camera shows.

Persia Beheshti, Filmmaker
Wetlands
USA | 2019 | 3 min | Canadian Premiere

A fluid magic permeates the documentary work of Iranian-New Zealand director Persia Beheshti. In her documentary shorts, Silicon Tails and Wetlands, this rising Brooklyn-based filmmaker uses surrealism to spotlight an American subculture rarely explored on film, the mermaid community. 

In all her work, Beheshti reveals a softer side to the otherwise hard or misunderstood. From her first discovery of the little-known, carnival-like society, she was inspired to chronicle mermaid life with Silicon Tails. Recognizing a mystical inspiration in the individuals she met, people who are living their own wonderfully unusual lives in Virginia, she went on to create Wetlands. 

Beheshti cites her upbringing as formative of her identity as a filmmaker. She describes her birthplace of Dubai as a source of her inspiration, a modern city filled with weird magic that celebrates multiculturalism and individuality while respecting very old customs and community. And because she was raised in this fast-growing mega-city, and by parents from two very different places - Iran and New Zealand - Beheshti always felt a bit like an outsider. It was in this dystopian desert-beach city that she learned to swim and to observe. Her films illuminate this rootless but enchanted sensibility in style and substance, especially in her newest Wetlands. 

Charlie Luckock, Filmmaker
Our Oceans: A Journey of Discovery
SOUTH AFRICA | 2019 | 90 min | Canadian Premiere

John Webster, Filmmaker
Little Yellow Boots
FINLAND | 2017 | 95 min | Canadian Premiere

Michael Genz & Jeremias Galante, Co-Directors/Co-Producers
Mni Wiconi: Water is Life
USA | 2018 | 3 min | Canadian Premiere

Miguel Araoz Cartagena & Stephanie Boyd, Filmmakers
And That is How the Rivers Came to Be
PERU | 2019 | 3 min

Sophie & Clement Guerra, Co-Directors/Co-Producers
The Condor & The Eagle
USA | 2019 | 79 min

SOPHIE GUERRA (Germany) – Co-Director & Co-Producer For the past 10 years, Sophie has been concentrating herself on researching the health impacts of environmental pollution. After completing her Master’s Degree in Pharmacology sciences in 2012, she decided to live her passion for films, seen as a powerful strategic way to reach out to a larger audience.

CLEMENT GUERRA (France) – Co-Director / Cinematography Clément has been working as an International Marketing Consultant Manager in London as well as a professional photographer. He has been focusing on creating his own independent production company, promoting a creative approach for documentary films seen as an innovative social change tool. He is “Survival Media Agency” Europe director, producing high quality visual media for climate organizations and social movements.

Byron M. Dueck, Filmmaker
Valley of the Southern North
CANADA | 2018 | 19.5 min | Water Docs 2020 Best Short Film Award Winner

Richard Ladkani, Director/Cinematographer
Sea of Shadows
AUSTRIA | 2019 | 105 min | Water Docs 2020 Best Feature Film Award Winner

RICHARD LADKANI has gained international recognition for his award-winning feature documentaries. 

His 2016 Netflix original documentary, “The Ivory Game,” executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, produced by Walter Köhler and co-directed by Kief Davidson, was shortlisted for an Academy Award. An investigative docu-thriller about the illegal ivory trade and the threat of elephant extinction, the movie premiered at the Telluride and Toronto International Film festivals and won multiple international awards. 

In early 2015 Ladkani and his wife, Anita, founded Malaika Pictures to produce films that shine a spotlight on the most pressing environmental and political issues facing the world today. They are currently developing a scripted feature film based on the bestselling book “City of Thorns,” chronicling the desperation of life in Dadaab, Kenya, the site of the largest refugee camp in the world, which houses nearly a quarter of a million Somali refugees and asylum seekers. 

Among Ladkani’s most renowned films are “Escape Over the Himalayas,” about the plight of Tibetan children fleeing their homeland; “The Devil’s Miner,” a harrowing look at Bolivian silver mines that won 22 awards; “Jane’s Journey,” a portrait of conservationist Jane Goodall that was shortlisted for an Academy Award; “Vatican: The Hidden World”; and “Gas Monopoly,” a political docu-thriller about Europe’s dependence on Russian gas. 

Ladkani gained most of his early experience in New York City, where he lived for more than six years before moving back to Europe. His signature “you-are-there” approach to filmmaking gives audiences an immediate and visceral connection to his subjects. 

Ladkani has taught filmmaking workshops at prestigious film schools and served on international film festival juries. He lives near Vienna, Austria, with his wife and two daughters. 

Henley Moore & David Coffey, Filmmakers
Cold Stunned
USA | 2019 | 12 min | Canadian Premiere

André Musgrove, Filmmaker
Child of the Cenote
BAHAMAS | 2019 | 5 min | Canadian Premiere

Nicky Milne, Filmmaker
Green Gold?
UK | 2019 | 26 min | Canadian Premiere

Ioan Gavriel & Anja Franziska Plaschg, Filmmakers
Italy & (This Is) Water
AUSTRIA | 2019 | 5.5 min | Ontario Premiere

Ioan Gavriel was born in Bern in 1993 as the son of a Romanian violinist and a Swiss architect. He spent his childhood and youth in Vienna, Austria. Through his own animated films and animated work, he discovered his passion for film early on. At the age of 15 he shot the first film-funded short film with professional actors. Ioan works successfully as a camera technician and B- cameraman in various Austrian and international productions, with directors like Michael Haneke, Ridley Scott, Terrence Malick, Stefan Ruzowitzky, Josef Hader, Ulrich Seidl, David Schalko or Jessica Hausner. In addition to his work in the camera department, he directs various commercials and music videos for clients such as: UNHCR, Audi, McDonalds or currently for the singer Soap & Skin (O.S.T Netflix "Dark"). 

FILMOGRAPHY
2018 Soap&Skin „ITALY“ (MusicVideo)
2018 Soap&Skin „HEAL“ (MusicVideo)
2018 Thirsty Eyes „Slothchild“ (MusicVideo)
2018 Thirsty Eyes „838“ (MusicVideo)
2019 (preise) (fict, shortfilm)

Anja Franziska Plaschg grew up in a small village called Poppendorf (near Gnas) in south east Styria, where her parents have a farm. She has played piano since she was six. At the age of 14 she began violin studies and developed an interest in electronic music. She attended the Graz Polytechnic for Graphic Design, but dropped out at 16 and moved to Vienna shortly afterwards. There she studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts in the master class of Daniel Richter, but at 18 dropped out again. After only playing a handful of concerts she was already being dubbed a "Wunderkind". In 2008 she played German singer Nico in the play "Nico - Sphinx aus Eis" by Werner Fritsch in Berlin and Vienna, performing several songs in it, including "Janitor of Lunacy", from her first EP. Her first album, called "Lovetune for Vacuum", was released in March 2009. It received excellent reviews and placed in the Austrian Top 10. The album also achieved chart positions in Germany, Belgium and France. Music journalists have already claimed to see in her a new star of Austrian pop. 

Plaschg's father died in 2009 from a heart attack. During this time, Plaschg stated that she suffered serious depression for which she was hospitalized. 

The death influenced much of her second album, "Narrow". In 2010 she won a European Border Breakers Award for her international success. Her tracks "Brother of Sleep" and "Marche Funèbre" were used in the soundtrack for Universal Pictures thriller "War Games: At the End of the Day" in 2010. 

In 2012, she debuted as an actress, playing the role of the supporting character Carmen in the Austrian movie Stilleben (English title: Still Life). In 2017, she created the title melody of the German Netflix-series Dark. Two tracks, "Italy" and "Safe with Me" are used in the Italian film Sicilian Ghost Story (2017), written and directed by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza. 

Plaschg's third full album, "From Gas to Solid / you are my friend", was released on 28 October 2018. A music video for "Heal", one of the tracks from the album, was released on 7 August 2018. 

FILMOGRAPHY
2012
STILLEBEN - STILL LIFE (as Carmen)
2016 DIE GETRÄUMTEN - THE DREAMED ONES (as Ingeborg Bachmann) 

John Harvey, Filmmaker
WATER
AUSTRALIA | 2017 | 12.5 min

Cassidy McAuliffe, Filmmaker
Call of the Lake
CANADA | 2018 | 4 min | Toronto Premiere

Sarah Koenigsberg, Filmmaker
The Beaver Believers
USA | 2018 | 20 min | Ontario Premiere

Sarah Koenigsberg is an award-winning filmmaker, photographer, and educator whose work focuses on stories of art, environment, and community in the American West. Her films and teaching cross disciplines, illuminating the power of storytelling as a medium through which to explore complex science and policy issues. Her commercial clients include the US Forest Service, National Park Service, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, US Department of Energy, Discovery Channel Canada, Grand Canyon Trust, Wallowa Resources, Methow Salmon Recovery Foundation, American Rivers, and River Management Society. Koenigsberg’s work has screened across North America in venues such as the National Climate Adaptation Forum, the North American Congress for Conservation Biology, and The Wildlife Society and American Fisheries Society’s annual conference. Winner of the Green Spark Award from the American Conservation Film Festival, her feature documentary “The Beaver Believers” has screened worldwide in film festivals such as the Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival, Banff World Tour, International Wildlife Film Festival, Ireland Wildlife Film Festival, Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival, Environmental Film Festival at Yale, and the Portland EcoFilm Festival, among others. She loves strong coffee, dark chocolate, organizing cupboards, and finding an excuse to climb up high to “get the shot.” She detests sticky jar lids and tangled power cords.

Mark Pearce, Filmmaker
Pilliga Rising
AUSTRALIA | 2019 | 40 min | Toronto Premier