Jakob Ballinger – Gaffer

Jakob Ballinger’s relentless interest to tinker with lights, rigs and fixtures was fused with his fascination for film early in his childhood. Years later he enrolled at the National Film School in Vienna to deepen his knowledge of the craft
. He has been working as a gaffer, in the field of his choice, ever since. Specializing in large scale feature films and commercials, his international career has taken him all over the world. The Light Bridge emerged as Jakob wanted to address and find answers for the needs and possibilities of new age lighting for digital cinematography. The companies first launch was in collaboration with DoP Christian Berger – they released the first stable version of the Cine Reflect Lighting System.
As an industry gaffer with experience on projects ranging from small productions to major film studio shoots, he understands the need for high-quality and economical lighting for various creative projects with differing budgets. 

Masterclass: CHEMICAL LIGHT

Martin Blankemeyer – Chairman Münchner Filmwerkstatt

Martin Blankemeyer studied Directing (ESAV Toulouse: Ingénieur-Maître), Media Management (FH Wiesbaden: Diploma Media Economist) and Media Law (University of Mainz: LL.M.), completed further education courses like the Atelier Ludwigsburg-Paris and the EAVE Producers Workshop and worked among others. as production manager (“The Longing” – Golden Leopard in Locarno 2002), line producer (“The Policeman’s Wife” – Special Prize of the Jury in Venice 2013) and producer (“The Red Spot” – Bavarian Film Award for Best Newcomer 2008). Today, he works primarily as a trainer and consultant, as an expert for the film and media industry and as chairman of the Münchner Filmwerkstatt.

Masterclass: NO BUDGET, NO BULLSHIT!

Nicola Daley – Director of Photography

Nicola Daley had a nomadic childhood, living on four continents by the age of eight. Originally from Derbyshire, England, Nicola somehow ended up in Sydney, Australia and in 2003 Nicola was accepted into the prestigious Australian Film, TV and Radio School to study an MA in Cinematography, where she trained on film under Andrew Lesnie asc acs and Peter James asc acs. At film school Nicola worked on the 2006 Academy Award nominated drama short ‘The Saviour’.
Her fourth feature film, ‘Pin Cushion’ directed by Deborah Haywood has been a film festival hit and premiered at the 2017 Venice Film Festival. In 2014 Nicola was only the 8th woman in history to be accredited into the Australian Society of Cinematographers.

Masterclass: COLOUR: IT’S NOT ALL BLACK AND WHITE

Philipp Fleischmann – Artist & Filmmaker

Philipp Fleischmann is an artist and filmmaker based in Vienna. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the Schools for Artistic Photography and Independent Film in Vienna

. Since 2014, he has served as the artistic director of the School Friedl Kubelka for Independent Film. Fleischmann’s artistic practice can be situated in the fields of the fine arts and film. He is interested in the institutional logics and mechanisms into which he repeatedly intervenes as a protagonist. For his filmmaking he has developed a formal idiom that is completely bound to analogue film
. His work has been shown at numerous international film festivals like the Berlinale or Toronto International Film Festival.

Masterclass: WORKING INDEPENDENTLY

Piotr Jaxa – Director Of Photography

Piotr Jaxa is a Swiss-Polish cinematographer and photographer living in Switzerland.
He graduated from the Polish National Film School in Lodz and has worked as Director of Photography on a range of fictional and documentary films worldwide (his work has been shown at festivals such as Cannes, Mannheim, Krakow, Los Angeles and Berlin)
. His film style draws from the period when he did numerous documentaries. 
Following his photographic & cinematographic collaboration with Krzysztof Kieslowski on the set of the film trilogy “Blue”, “White” and “Red”, he prepared an exhibition entitled “Remembering Krzysztof”, which has been touring the world since 1994. 
Today he is mainly shooting long feature films – “Animals” (d: Greg Zglinski, which premiered at the Berlinale Forum 2017), “Curry Western” (d: Kamal Musale) and “I Witness” (d: Mitko Panov)… to name just a few.

Masterclass: PHOTOGRAPHY IN FILM

Katharina Mückstein – Director

Katharina Mueckstein is a Vienna based screenwriter, director and producer. She studied philosophy and gender studies and later on film directing and film production at the Filmakademie Wien, University of Music and Performing Arts. In 2010 she co-founded the production company La Banda Film. Her first fiction feature TALEA (2013) won the best director at Max Ophüls Preis in Saarbruecken, her second fiction feature L’ANIMALE premiered at the 2018 Berlinale featured in both sections Panorama Special and Generationen. L’ANIMALE so far has won a Panorama audience award, the award for best actors’ ensemble at the Diagonale – Festival of Austrian Film, best film at the Seoul International Women’s Film Festival and the Prix Cima at Cinema Jove IFF in Valencia.

Masterclass: TOOLS OF A DIRECTOR: HEART, MIND and ANALYSIS

Peter Rösner – Soundengineer

Peter Rösner studied sound-engineering at the University of Music and performing Arts in Vienna. Since 2008 he is a Freelancer working on international Feature and Documentary Productions, mainly for theatrical release. He holds numerous prices from the Audio Engineering Society (AES) in the categories score and sound for picture as well as classical music production.

Masterclass: Sound-Design and Production Sound for the industry and the one-(wo)man-show.