Guests

Lili Fuhr

Lili Fuhr leads the International Environmental Policy Division of the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s head office in Berlin. She focusses on international climate and resource politics globally.

Lili studied Geography, Political Science, Sociology and African Studies in Cologne, Tübingen, Strasbourg and Berlin. She was born in Cologne, Germany, and lives in Berlin with her two daughters.

Craig Shaw

Craig Shaw is the investigations editor of theblacksea.eu, an in-depth, investigative news site covering eastern Europe and beyond. He is also the co-coordinator for European Investigative Collaborations(EIC.Network) projects in the region.

For nearly ten years, Craig’s has produced investigative reports for leading media, such as The Guardian, The Sunday Times, Der Spiegel. L’Espresso and others, on the topic of financial and political corruption, organised crime, and human rights. Increasingly, investigative journalism is digging into environmental topics. 

Craig will talk about about the process of getting an environmental investigation started, including funding, obtaining necessary data, and planning and executing field research, using the most recent example of The Black Sea’s and EIC’s.

lya Gomyranov

Born and raised in Moscow.

Professional zoologist, wildlife photographer, and press secretary of the Zoological Museum of Moscow State University.

He graduated from the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University. Ilya was engaged in the study of dipterans insects. He is the author of several popular books about insects. Ilya Gomyranov is the author of the project “Animals are cooler than people”. He is a laureate of the contest “Golden Turtle” and winner of the award “For fidelity to science” for his reports from nature reserves all over the world.

Ilya is a member of more than 30 expeditions to various regions of Russia and abroad. He went everywhere from the tundra to the subtropics of the Black Sea in Russia as well as visited many different regions of the world.

Boris Revich

Russian scientist, expert in environmental epidemiology and environmental hygiene, head of the laboratory for predicting environmental quality and public health at the Institute of Economic Forecasting, Russian Academy of Sciences. Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor.

The developer of measures to preserve people’s health in Moscow after the summer of 2010, when smoke from forest fires was observed in the capital

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Grigory Kuksin

Head of the fire department of Greenpeace Russia, one of the best peat fire specialists in the world. Fireman practice for about 20 years. In 2018, he entered the top ten best forest firefighters in Russia

Mariel Villela

Director of Global Strategy

Mariel is currently driving the global work of Zero Waste Europe as Director of Global Strategy, building bridges and identifying opportunities for collaboration across borders to promote zero waste policies and practices with members worldwide. Prior to this role, between 2014-2019 she was the Managing Director of Zero Waste Europe, during its foundation and early development. Before 2014 she was the lead climate policy campaigner for the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA). Today she continues to guide GAIA’s work on zero waste project guidelines for major sources of climate finance, and international energy policy with impacts on the waste sector. She has extensive experience in research, publication development and project management. Key recent publications include ‘Zero Waste Circular Economy: A Systemic Game-Changer to Climate Change’. Mariel has a BA in Sociology from the University of Barcelona, a MA in Discourse Analysis and Argumentation from the University of Amsterdam, and a MA in Social Communication Studies from the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona.

Katherine Bruce 

Katherine is Executive Director at the Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival, Canada’s largest environmental media arts organization that promotes film as both an art form and a meaningful tool for social change. 

She has worked extensively in the arts sector as a producer in film, theatre and visual arts including the UK-based Cape Farewell as Development Director for Carbon 14: Climate is Culture in partnership with ROM Contemporary Culture. Katherine has an MA in Communication and Cultural Studies with a research focus on fresh water as both a commodity and a human right through the historical narrative of Toronto’s R.C. Harris Filtration Plant. She also serves on the steering committee of CREW Toronto, a Project of Tides Canada. 

A part of the Planet in Focus team from 2010-2012, Katherine was delighted to return to the festival in 2016. She has worked extensively in the arts sector as a producer in film, theatre and visual arts including the UK-based Cape Farewell – The cultural response to climate change as Development Director for Carbon 14: Climate is Culture in partnership with ROM Contemporary Culture. Katherine has an MA in Communication and Cultural Studies with a research focus on fresh water as both a commodity and a human right through the historical narrative of Toronto’s R.C. Harris Filtration Plant.

Lena Kolbe 

Lena Kolbe is a production manager and executive assistant to Denis Delestrac at Intrepido Films in Barcelona.

In Scotland, she studied Media and Communications at Glasgow Caledonian University, where she specialized in short documentaries about social activism, on gentrification and food up-cycling. After graduating, Lena worked for ARTE in Strasbourg and Point du Jour in Paris, as assistant producer and writer on long-form and documentary series such as Un Jour en France/Allemagne (2 x 92 min.), ​France- Allemagne: Une Histoire Commune (10 x 26 min.),and​ ​Entre Terre et Ciel​ (10 x 26 min.). Her latest independent production is a long-form about the Catalonian independence referendum and its impact on citizens.

Enrico Parenti 

Enrico Parenti is an Italian-American documentary director and producer, who has lived in the UK, Brazil, USA, and studied filmmaking in Spain.

Since 2005 he has worked as on numerous documentary productions in Italy and abroad. Among some of his work: “Standing Army” which became a bestselling film in 2011, being bought by 15 televisions worldwide and released in movie theaters. He has also directed numerous short “docudramas” films “Zewdu the street child”, “While the train runs” which got him numerous audience awards and a Vimeo “Staff-pick”. He is now on tour with SOYALISM, his latest documentary film which premiered at IDFA in 2018 and later won 9 awards at international festivals. The film is sponsored by the Pulitzer Center, and extracts have been shown at the United Nations headquarters ahead of the climate change summit 2019. Elliot Films production company formed with producer Susanna Trojano collaborates regularly with an Italian satellite television platform Sky Italia as a production service, and Enrico has been directing for the last four years a docu-series on fine arts and theater, shot on the island of Stromboli and aired by Sky Arte. 

Srapyan Elena

Producer of documentary projects. 

Elena has been a journalist for more than ten years.

Since 2018 she has been actively working with wide-ranging projects such as exhibitions and films. In the summer of 2019, together with photojournalists Alexander Fedorov, she held the ethnographic exhibition AMAZONAS at the cultural center “Khleb Zavod” presenting the results of the expedition to the Amazon Lowland.

Peter O’Brien

Peter O’Brien is an environmental media consultant, working with filmmakers and festival organizers to strengthen the impact of films about the environment.  

He has advised filmmakers and film festivals in the U.S. and internationally.  From 2008-2014 he was Executive Director of the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital, and is currently a member of the EFF board of directors.  He is also a board member of the Green Film Network, an international film festival consortium, and of the American Resilience Project, which produces media about climate change adaptation in the U.S.  He is an advisory committee member of the Dominican Republic Environmental Film Festival, and has served on numerous international film juries. A native of Washington, DC, he holds a B.A. in English and American Language and Literature from Harvard University, and an M.A. from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Eleonore Isunza

Co-founder and Director of the Cinema Planeta, International Environmental Film Festival of Mexico. Film director, producer. 

Eleonora began her career in 1988 as a writer, producer and presenter at the Intitution of Radio and Television Morelos (Instituto morelense de Radio y Televisión). In 2009, she co-founded Cinema Planeta, the international Mexican environmental film festival, which she heads to this day. From 2011 to 2013, Eleanora hosted a film program on the news channel TVC Ambientales.

Senora Isunza is the founder and member of the board of the Green Film Network (international network of environmental film festivals) and of the project “Seminar on the culture of Mexico “(branch in Cuernavaca). Eleonora also is a member of directors’ board of the Mexican film festival network (Red Mexicana de Festivales Cinematográficos).

Since 2010, Eleanor has been a jury at the environmental film festival in France, Italy, Brazil and Portugal. In 2016, she directed her first feature film “Nahui Ollin, Sol de Movimiento”, dedicated to climate change in Mexico. In 2018, Eleanor returned to the topic of climate change in her new work, the documentary “The Burning sea”.

Simon Holmström

Member of the Åland Parliament for the party Sustainable Initiative (Aland Islands, Finland)

Simon Holmström has experience in all these spheres — he was one of the founders of the youth movement for sustainable development ReGeneration 2030, and recently he was elected as a member Of the Parliament of the Aland Islands. During his lecture, Simon will talk about what sustainable development is, how this topic penetrates the agenda of political parties, and why voters no longer only vote for benefits and new jobs.