For FOCAL:
Rachel Schmid, Co-Managing Director, Project Leader, Switzerland
Rachel Schmid studied economics, German philology and drama at the universities of Zurich, Berkeley and Paris. She also has a postgraduate degree in cultural management from the University of Hamburg.
She began her professional career in 1987 as a producer of stage plays and films, before taking up an international training programme to become a script development expert in 1999. As such, she has counselled countless production companies, film funds, training programmes and festivals in Switzerland and abroad in connection with project selection and script development.
From 2005 to 2019, she worked as director of MEDIA Desk Suisse, deputy director of the Masters programme in film at ZHdK (Zurich University of the Arts), the Swiss Federal Office of Culture’s delegate with Eurimages (European Cinema Support Fund), and as a committee member for various film funds (incl. the Zurich Film Foundation and the Luxembourg Film Fund).
She is committed to diversity in the film branch and a member of several commissions on behalf of gender equality.
Carola Stern, IPPP Coordinator, Switzerland
Carola Stern has been working in the German and Swiss film industry for 25 years, mainly in distribution, production, film funding and PR. Her academic background are Social Sciences, Psychology, Literature and Film. With FOCAL (Switzerland) she is Head of Training for distributors and exhibitors and Coordinator of the Producers Pooling Programme.
For ACE Producers:
Simon Perry, President, The Netherlands and France
Simon Perry was a trade journalist with Variety, a film development fund executive and then an independent film producer in the UK until 1990. He was head of British Screen, the UK’s national film funding agency, for ten years, then head of the Irish Film Board for five years, and head of international production at Film i Väst in Sweden for two years. He was a founder member of ACE in 1993 and has been its president since 1996. He devised and ran a film producing course at the International Filmschool in Cologne for 14 years, and currently teaches production at Aalto University filmschool in Helsinki.
For EAVE:
Danny Krausz, President, Luxembourg and Austria
Danny Krausz is managing director, producer and head of the national and international feature film department of DOR FILM, which he founded together with Milan Dor in 1988, and is managing together with Kurt Stocker since 1995. In 1998, he founded Dor Film-West in Munich and Dor Film Köln in 2009. He has collaborated on more than a hundred productions, mainly feature and television films. Since 2011 Danny Krausz holds the professorship for film production at the MDW–Vienne (University for Music and performing Arts).