Walter Sittler

Producer

Born the youngest of eight children in Chicago, my parents moved around a lot with us, which had to do with my father’s constantly changing employments. Our large family’s steadfast companionship has probably been vital for me and has shaped my attitude towards social communities and mutual respect. After a few detours I have become an actor, which has further intensified my longing for tolerance and generosity. With the documentary film project „199 Little Heroes“ I want to make a contribution towards directing an empathic view onto the weakest of society, onto their courage and imagination, and onto the need of protecting them and furthering them with all means.

www.schneegans-productions.eu

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Gerhard Schmidt

Producer

Gerhard Schmidt, producer of TV films and TV series, documentary films, german and international cinema films - Gemini Film & Library GmbH, Cologne

www.gemini-library.de

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Frank Oliver Terjung

Producer/head of postproduction

Skilled industrial management assistant, independent producer and executive producer of numerous nonfictional filmproductions. Dad of 12 year-old Emma.

From the very beginning I was impressed by the concept of "199 Little Heroes". I really wish for the documentary line to get a lot of support as well as international acclaim and I am happy to be part of this team.

www.wiesefilm.de
www.hiqmedia.de

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Valerio Tassara

Director

I am an author, director and producer from Rome, Italy. I am in business since the 80's and saw so many changes and unbalances in the communication world that at a certain point in life I decided that concentrating my efforts in realizing quality products for children was the best option for my life. I wrote a story about diversity and multiculturalism titled "Clandestini" which was supposed to be a cartoon and become a book. Then I directed and produced the italian episode of „199 Little Heroes“ and finally  promoted and produced STUDENT DOC FEST, the first italian documentary festival dedicated to students and film literature in schools.  Working on the itlaian episode of 199 little heros was a fantastic experience. I had the feeling of being in a real international project with a clear purpose in mind: have the children believe that there are other children out there struggling like them, and that, even if from different countries  we are all the same below this sky. A message in wich I recognize myself. meeting Sigrid, Walter and Gerhard has been great and I hope we can work togheter again in the future. My team has been great as usually. Ilyas is a fantastic boy who has been choosen after a very difficult selection mainly because of its double identity which, we believed, offered the opportunity to give a clear, interesting look at the world of the future in his way to school.   Currently my main objectives are to promote the European and international links and connection in the audiovisual industry with special regards to children and young adults products, film litteracy and thematic like world peace and people empowerment.

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Sigrid Klausmann

Leading Director

I have been born the third of seven children into an indeed financially poor, but all the more tolerant family. My childhood is probably the cornerstone for my activities as an adult, the interest I take in the arts and in children. Via my education and professional practice as sports teacher, dance educator, choreographer and mother I have made my way to the documentary film section. The needs of adolescents are my cinematic concerns (for example, „Lisette and her children“). „199 Little Heroes“ is now giving me the opportunity to tell the stories of children from around the globe, to document their living conditions against the backdrop of their daily voyage to school. It is a wonderful and very moving task - I am a true lobbyist for children and want to stay that way forever.

www.schneegans-productions.eu

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Burkhard Feige

Director

My passion is to tell touching stories with moving pictures: to transform socially relevant topics into suspensful and ideally entertaining movies. Engaged in the sections feature film, advertisement and documentary with shooting experience in Europe, Asia and Africa.

Born in Hechingen, Baden-Württemberg. Raised in Tübingen. High School degree during a one-year stay in the USA. A levels at Rudolf Steiner School. Following alternative service. Guitarrist of a ska-band 'Court Jester's Crew' from Tübingen. Studies philosophy, law and rhetoric. After taken midterm exam studied direction at HFF Munich. Graduation Diploma. Besides studying working as journalist at Süddeutsche Zeitung, cutter and docent for dramaturgy and edit.

Full-time freelance screenwriter and director living in Munich. 2011 awarded with the Grimme Prize.

www.feige.tv

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Ariane Kessissoglou

Director

It's exciting for me to encounter people with the camera, because the time you share is way more intense. Because of filmmaking people converge. Movies emerge out of the moment and collective: together with team and protagonists. I find this process to be fascinating because afterwarts you are always a little smarter than before. What I found to be fascinating at the 199heroes project is, to start learning about a country and to find through the reasearch to the girl, which becaume ICELAND to me.

—
Ariane Kessissoglou, born 1971 in Collogne, graduated at the "Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln" with a study stay at EICTV Filmschool in Cuba and "Ecole supérieure des Beaux-Arts Genève". Since 2007 she produces documentary children portraits for the TV show „Sendung mit dem Elefanten“ (WDR).

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Harold Lucian Baer

Director

I found this project to be interesting because it has a very positive message. It's about children who search their way, against all adversities, to go to school and to take control over their lifes. The children talk openly about themselves, the environment and their problems. Simultaneously I wanted to support this project to show how the life in different countries inspire children start reflecting.

I made my first movies together with Frank Terjung in 11th grade of Humboldt Gym. in Collogne. In Bucharest I studied film and television directing and now I'm making films for almost 20 years. Documentaries are my passion because they are so authentic and show life in all its variety.

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Petra Pan

Director

Documentary film is my home , films are as family albums, life would be worthless without them. 199 Little Heroes is a serial that I feel proud to work on, is a pearl neckless, I made one of the pearls of everyday life. Our heroes have little or big problems and they are equally important to them, they have to live with them. I am especially happy to find not only good but also troubled kid, this kids usually do not get as much attention as the good ones do. So this one is to support naughty children.

I wish this film would be shown all over the world and this kids would have friends all over the world.

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Anna Katharina Brinkschulte

Interactive Producer

While studying Mechanical Engineering at Munich Technical University, Anna discovered she had a longing for acting out her creative tendencies in her professional life to come.

After several internships, she was offered an employment as Junior Producer at Made in Munich film productions, where she realized several music videos and television commercials. As freelancer she worked for, among others, Claussen & Wöbke & Putz film productions („Stellungswechsel“, Krabat“) and at SüdArt film productions for international cinema motion pictures („Die Farbe des Ozeans“). From 2008 to 2013, Anna studied Production for Film & TV and Interactive Formats at Film Academy Baden-Wuerttemberg. In 2013, she and Sebastian Uhlig founded the Brinkenschulte & Uhlig GbR. She has since addressed herself to the conception and production of interactive projects.

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Jonas Kirchner

Web Development

Jonas Kirchner is founder, managing director and creative producer of Pixelcloud GmbH & Co. KG, a creative and web agency for integrated communication focussing on gamification and new media, based in beautiful Ludwigsburg, Germany. He finished his studies at prestigious Film Academy Baden-Wuerttemberg in Ludwigsburg in 2014, with an excellent diploma in „Trans media & Games Producer“. He also works as lecturer at 'media Akademie' in Stuttgart, where he teaches a course entitled „Creative Practice II“.

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Hannah Katharina Weissenborn

Online-Kommunikation

As long as I can remember I was fascinated by movies. My parents allowed me to watch only one movie a week. Therefore, after I thoroughly handpicked a movie every week, I was longing for the day I could watch it.

Already during my schooldays I started collaborating for student filmproductions at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. After one year travelling and working on several filmprojects, I decided at first to go for “safety” by studying politics, social sciences and law. Here I realized pretty soon: safety or not, for me there’s no other way than to make movies. Besides doing several internships at film production companies like Network Movie, Bavaria Fernsehproduktion GmbH and Polyphon Film- und Fernsehgesellschaft mbH, I have the possibility to realize my own fictional, as well as documentary movies these days.

I’m fascinated by movies which want to move something – in particular our documentary filmproject “199 Little Heroes”!

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Dieter Soldan

Communication

Born in 1963, studies in Würzburg. Then Stuttgart: Stankowski+Duschek, local city magazine LIVE, local city magazine LIFT, Ernst Klett publishers. 1998 founding of soldan kommunikation.

Networker from conviction and passion. Specialist for corporate and editorial design. Visualization artist and communication strategist, who, with soldan kommunikation, is able to turn complex matters into pictures, campaigns and events - with a highly developed sense for the right tone. Specialities are creative fundraising and workshops on appearance / profile development. www.soldan-komm.de

In 2011, Dieter Soldan founds the art development project zwischenKunst (betweenArt).

www.soldan-komm.de
www.zwischenkunst.net

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Hannelore Ohle

PR & Fundraising

Responsible for foreign business in Europe and Oversea in large German industry players for ten years as skilled industrial clerk. During the period of its creation, district chairman (voluntarily) of BUND, Federation for Environment and Nature Protection Germany. 1990 until 2000 consultant for Press and Public Relations at Publishers Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart. Subsequent employment as head of Press and Public Relations Ernst Klett Publishers in Stuttgart, and head of University Communication at private Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen. 2006 founding of indivisio kommunikation + public relations.

www.indivisio.de

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Oliver Krimmel

Producer

OA Krimmel is Art Director and author of books. The design agency „i_d burro“, co-founded by him, has won more or less all important international awards and is mainly engaged in the area Corporate Design and Culture. Always true to their motto, provided for by Victor Hugo „There is nothing so strong as an idea whose time has come.“

www.i-dbuero.de

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Martin Sroczynski

Assistenz Postproduktion

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Insa Onken

Director

Every documentary film means entering a completely new and individual living world: that of the protagonist. I have always been deeply intrigued by what it actually is that makes people become who they are. Filming a documentary gives me the authority for pursuing this desire of wanting to find out. In my opinion, it is important that we humans be interested in each other and try understanding each other, however greatly our living worlds differ from each other. Documentary films can further this process. They offer a glimpse into the thoughts and emotions of other people, and open up pathways for encounters. 199 little heroes has an outstanding capacity for connecting the most varying living conditions of children the world over, and for opening our eyes to one another.

After finishing my studies in music and biology education I started making documentary movies. From 2006 until 2011 I was given the chance of widening the scope of my self-trained skills by studying at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. Ever since then I have been telling stories about people for people.

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Lina Luzyte

Director

Film-making is a lifestyle: once you’re in, there’s no way out of it anymore. And I do love this “trap”. Working both in fiction and documentary, it’s the latter, which always leaves me in awe: true stories bigger than life and me - a filmmaker, given a chance to tell them. “199 Little Heroes” is a mind blowing experience to me. Used to a comfortable life in Europe, I’m suddenly confronted with children in other parts of the world, who dream of having a water tap installed or finding the way to escape forced prostitution. It’s sad but true and it calls for awareness.

Lina Luzyte was born in 1985 in Vilnius, LITHUANIA. She graduated from the LITHUANIAn Academy of Music and Theatre with an MA in Film Directing. Her first feature “Together For Ever”, which thematizes communication gridlock as a diagnosis of today’s society, has premiered in Karlovy Vary Film Festival in 2016. In 2010 Lina shot IGRUSHKI, a documentary about the locals of a provincial town in Byelorussia, who survive merely by selling soft toys to the passengers of passing trains, whilst constantly being chased by the militia. In 2009 she wrote and directed It Would Be Splendid, Yet, a short film about a LITHUANIAn woman, seeking her new identity after the country regained its Independence. The film has been selected for over 15 international festivals and has won several awards.

“IGRUSHKI”, 2010

“It Would Be Splendid, Yet...”, 2009

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Jacob Dammas

Director

A Danish-Polish director and producer of documentary films – ideally in cooperation with international partners. Jacob was born and raised in Copenhagen, studied communication at Roskilde University in Denmark and film directing at Andrzej Wajda Film School in Warsaw, Poland. Some of his work include "Kredens", "ABCinema", and "Polish Illusions". The project "199 Little Heroes" is Jacob's first film about and with children, and he has not regretted one second to be part of this great series.

www.graniza.pl

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Sigrid Klausmann

Leading Director

Drehorte

GERMANY1 (SCHWARZWALD) SOUTH AFRICA, LAOS, JORDAN, SWITZERLAND 1(WALENSEE) SWITZERLAND2 (WANGENRIED), USA, ARGENTINIA, PERU, JAPAN, AUSTRIA1 (FEUERKOGEL), MONGOLIA, ISRAEL, PALESTINE, BURKINA FASO, GUATEMALA

sigrid.klausmann@me.com

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Ali Kareem

Director

Ali Kareem Obaid, born 1984, is an Iraqi filmmaker. In 2011 he graduated as Theater Director from the Academy of Fine Arts, Baghdad University. In 2016 he finished his Master 'Choreography and performance' at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies, Gießen University (Germany). His first short film HASSAN IN WONDERLAND has been on 40 film festivals all around the world winning seven awards, lastly the 'Van Gogh Award for the best family film' at Amsterdam Film Festival 2015.

www.alikareem.de

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Ingrid Terhorst

Voice-over Director

I have always been fascinated by language, which is why I studied to be a translator. Soon however, I realized that language can be rendered even more lively and expressive when in connection with images, so I started making films. On top of that, I have been realizing German versions of foreign-language documentary films for TV and cinema for 15 years now. Over the course of the past 3 years, working on the „Little Heroes“ project has become especially dear to me. I continue to be amazed by the children in the movies, by their energy, their boundless determination to learn and by the joy they take in life – a life often so hard we can hardly imagine it. A special gift that comes with this work are the kids with I record the voice-overs with. All of them put a great amount of earnestness into their task of giving a voice to these children from all over the world. And they do a most wonderful job.

ini.terhorst@netcologne.de

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Gessie George

Director

Bevor ich mit dem Filmemachen angefangen habe, habe ich Philosophie studiert. Und wenn ich etwas finden müsste, was die Stationen in meinem Leben miteinander verbindet, ist es, dass ich die Welt und die Menschen darin verstehen wollte. Wie sie funktionieren, worum es geht, wie alles miteinander verbunden ist. Das Leben der einzelnen Menschen als ein Puzzleteil im großen Ganzen dokumentarisch festzuhalten, finde ich deshalb berührend und bin sehr glücklich, mich Filmemacherin nennen zu können. Mit meiner Regie für eine Episode zu „199 kleine Helden“ über das syrische Flüchtlingsmädchen Rania konnte ich einen Beitrag zu diesem Puzzle leisten.

http://www.gap-doc.com

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Reinhold Geneikis

Director

Many, many years ago, somewhere on a dust road between Cape Town and Luanda, I lost my heart to Africa. Since then, I have been deeply involved with the fate of this fascinating, beautiful, miraculous, brutal continent and its people. Being the father of three kids, I am particularly touched by children's stories – like that of Zacheo. A white boy, growing up in the bush alongside the San, capable of expressing himself fully in the natives' language, and who loves their myths, rituals and customs. Among these children, apartheid and class divisions are (yet) of no significance: black-and-white cliché put quite outside the box. Since 1982, I have been working as radio and television journalist and television producer for nearly all German broadcasters. This has given me the opportunity to report from all continents, and witness contemporary history eyeball to eyeball.

http://www.spin-tv.de

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Stephan Bruckmeier

Director

Before turning to the theatre I studied piano pedagogics. To this day, my passion for working with and for children, for giving children the opportunity to express themselves and for working towards an understanding of them as humans with vast knowledge and great empathy for the world has not left me. Kenya has been my second home for 10 years now, the Hope Theatre Nairobi is possibly my most important project. 199 Little Heroes are an ideal combination of my two living realities: children explaining to us the reality beyond power, greed and complacency, and us seeing the world through the lens of a personal story. There is no better way... I am very thankful for having been given the opportunity to contribute to this project with my film about a way to school in Nairobi.

Stephan.Bruckmeier@gmx.de

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Elena Dimitrakopoulou

Director

STUDIES
1996-2000 Academic School of Cinema & TV "Lycourgos Stavrakos" on Directing Class.
1997 Seminars on TV & Radio Production, of Social Secretary of Cultural Education.
1993 Seminars on Psychological & Social Support of Young People.
1992 Graduation of General Lyceum.

PROFESSIONAL OCCUPATION:
2013-5 She has directed Short Docs, such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiUIrFA6OnQ,
on Dropbox https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOyCtTiToyc
and Short film „Zafiris“
2009 one of 4 Directors in «Ι LOVE GR», fοr Sky TV program
1997-2018 A.D., Casting for kids etc. and Script Continuity Supervisor, on a number of Feature Films, Short films, Documentaries, TV series & TV commercials

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Kaye Harrison

Director

PROFESSIONAL OCCUPATION:
Kaye develops strong relationships of trust with her participants and this translates into a powerful intimacy in her films. Her vision is to represent her subject’s with integrity and compassion so that their stories might open the hearts and minds of the audience. Kaye was director/DOP of the award-winning Australian documentaries Crossing the Line (2005) and The Long Goodbye (2010). Her acclaimed feature documentary The Sunnyboy (2013) premiered at the Vivid/Sydney Film Festival and had a successful cinema release around Australia. In 2017 Kaye completed The Troublesome Priest, a film about controversial Anglican priest Father Rod Bower who is famous for his church signs that go viral around the world via social media. Her documentary feature film Sanctuary, which takes the audience on a 10-year journey alongside young Iraqi asylum seeker Khaled, received a Special Mention in the Documentary Australia Foundation’s Best Australian Documentary Competition at the Sydney Film Festival in 2019.

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