DocHouse Conversations: Filmmaker Panel

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Programme Associate Carol Nahra welcomes a panel of filmmakers whose documentaries were all at different stages when the world went into lockdown. Listen as they share their experiences navigating this uncertain new world. With Judit Olah, Taghi Amirani, Judith Mizrachy and Jerry Rothwell

You are a hard working documentary filmmaker, and just about to release your film – which you have worked on for years – to the outside world.

You are looking forward to live audiences, to Q&As, to instant feedback, to word of mouth, to the buzz. And then the pandemic hits, and obliterates your plans for your film to be seen by cinema audiences anywhere.

Our next DocHouse Conversations episode is a panel of filmmakers, whose documentaries were all at different stages when the world went into lockdown. They will share their experiences navigating this uncertain new world with podcast host Carol Nahra.

DocHouse Conversations: Filmmakers Panel

Here are the panellists, and a glimpse of their new films:

Judit Oláh

Judit Oláh is a graduate in Film Studies from the Eötvös Lóránd University. She debuted with the short film Leaving (2013), and went on to co-direct the short film Loop (2013) and Mom’s Imprint in 2015.

Judit has also worked as a script consultant, developing the scenery for the short film En Passant. Her second short film, Beauty Queen, was done with the support of the Hungarian National Film Fund.

Return to Epipo is her feature documentary directorial debut.

Return to Epipo

Judith Mizrachy

Judith is a Brooklyn-based independent producer and theatrical outreach and distribution consultant. She has produced award-winning documentaries, features and shorts which have screened at festivals around the world including New York Film Festival, SXSW, DOC NYC and more.

Judith also served as the Director of Marketing and Communications at Women Make Movies, and prior to that led the Marketing and Outreach team at First Run Features.

She’s been a member of screening committees for festivals and organizations like Chicken & Egg Pictures, and has participated as a film industry consultant for New York Foundation for the Arts. She holds a master’s degree in Cinema Studies from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Her most recent film The Booksellers is currently in release in the U.S. and Canada, and will be out in the UK on 29th June with Republic Film Distribution. Find out more about the film here.

The Booksellers

Jerry Rothwell

Jerry is a filmmaker whose work includes the award-winning feature documentaries: How To Change The World, about the founders of Greenpeace; Sour Grapes (co-directed with Reuben Atlas) a film about a wine counterfeiter; School In The Cloud, about radical educationalist, Sugata Mitra; Town of Runners, about two girls in an Ethiopian village who aspire to be athletes; Donor Unknown, about a sperm donor and his many offspring; Heavy Load, about a group of people with learning disabilities who form a punk band, and Deep Water (co-directed with Louise Osmond), about Donald Crowhurst’s ill-fated voyage in the 1968 round the world yacht race.

His latest film is The Reason I Jump, based on the bestselling book by Naoki Higashida, winner of the World Documentary Audience Award at Sundance 2020.

His work has won numerous other accolades including two Grierson Awards, a Sundance Special Jury Prize, an RTS Award, the IDA Pare Lorentz Award and a BAFTA nomination.

The Reason I Jump

Taghi Amirani

Taghi was born in Iran and moved to England when he was 15. He made his first documentary while studying physics at Nottingham University. Shades of Black was about the science of black holes and got him into film school at Bristol University.

In 1989 he got his broadcast directing break on Channel 4’s flagship science series Equinox with Earth Calling Basingstoke, a film about British amateur astronomers.

He went on make some 40 films for a wide range networks including PBS, Channel 4, the BBC and National Geographic. Among them are The Dispossessed, Red Lines and Deadlines and Watch this Space.

Coup 53 which is, Amirani’s first feature documentary, has taken 10 years to make. Edited by Walter Murch, the film had its world premiere at Telluride Film Festival 2019. It was nominated for a BIFA and The Grierson at the BFI London Film Festival.

Coup 53