Business vs. Human Stories: How to Safely Produce Even the Most Sensitive Topics? PANEL
Participants: Sára László (producer, Don’t Worry, Sári!), Rita Balogh (producer), Daniel Abma (director, The Family Approach), Rachel Leah Jones (producer, Coexistence, My Ass!), Rafael Balulu (Filmmaker)
Moderator: Julianna Ugrin (producer, My Chemical Information System)
How can filmmakers ethically and safely handle the most delicate, vulnerable subjects in documentary filmmaking? This conversation offers practical insight — from producers and directors — into navigating conflicts, personal stories, and emotionally sensitive content throughout the production process.
Julianna Ugrin – The EFA nominated producer is the founder and owner of Éclipse Film, an independent film production company founded in 2011. She develops and produces films on an international level for more than ten years. Films produced by her, as A Woman Captured, Easy Lessons, or The Next Guardian were screened, nominated, and awarded at festivals like EFA, SUNDANCE, IDFA, LOCARNO, DOK Leipzig, Hot Docs, Sheffield, or Sarajevo IFF. Since 2013 she teaches at the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Documentary MA studies and is a doctoral student there. In 2019 she was selected to Producers on the Move in Cannes. She is EURODOC and an EAVE graduate. She is an organizer of DunaDOCK Master Class & Pitching series, member of MADOKE, DAE, IDA, of the Hungarian and of the European Film Academy.
Co-founder of Budapest based production company Campfilm, Sára László has been producing documentaries and features since 2007. Her producer credits include Soft Rain by Dénes Nagy (45th Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes), Cain’s Children by Marcell Gerő (62nd San Sebastian IFF), The Euphoria of Being by Réka Szabó (Grand Prix of the 30th Semaine de la Critique of the Locarno International Film festival, IDFA Best of Fests) or Natural Light by Dénes Nagy that premiered at the 72nd Berlinale Competition and received the Silver Bear Award for Best Director.
She is a Eurodoc, Nipkow Programme, EAVE, DokIncubator, Producers on the Move, ACE Producers alumni. She teaches film production at the Budapest Metropolitan University as well as ELTE and she works as a consultant for training programmes such as Eurodoc or EWA Mentoring Programme.
Rita Balogh, passionate about documentaries, works in distribution, producing, and directing. In 2016, she founded her production company OTHER FILMS, creating impactful works for the international market like Whose Dog Am I?, screened at festivals such as Warsaw IFF and Tallinn Black Nights. Her recently co-produced series Iron Curtain premiered on ARTE in 2024. OTHER FILMS focuses on international co-productions and alternative distribution, fostering social discourse across the world. Co-founder of the Budapest International Documentary Festival (BIDF), she also launched a rural open-air cinema. Her online docu series as a director, Before We Grow Up, reached 20K viewers per episode.
Daniel Abma was born in 1978 in Westerbork, Drenthe, Netherlands. After a degree in primary school education, he moved to Berlin to be a youth media worker. Then he studied film directing at the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF in Potsdam, where he realised the feature-length documentaries Beyond Wriezen (Nach Wriezen, Grimme Award, 2012) and Transit Havana (2016), The Family Approach (2024). His documentary films about social themes are observatory and based on people. Since 2017, Abma has taught documentary film directing. He also tutors pitching workshops at European film festivals and is still a freelance youth media worker.
Rachel Leah Jones is an Emmy-winning nonfiction filmmaker whose trajectory in the field — from producer to director to editor to writer — has spanned three decades and three continents. Her work has been nominated for the PGA Awards, the IDA Awards, selected by the European Film Academy, awarded by the Asia Pacific Screen Academy, honored by Cinema Eye, and shortlisted for the Oscars. A three-time Sundance Festival and Institute alumna, her critically-acclaimed films
— ADVOCATE (2019); GYPSY DAVY (2012); ASHKENAZ (2007); 500 DUNAM ON THE MOON (2002) — have screened in festivals worldwide such as IDFA, True/False, Visions du Reel, Sheffield, CPH:DOX, DocNYC, Hotdocs, and aired on dozens of channels including PBS; BBC; ARD; France Television; RTS; YLE; DR; SVT; 2M; Radio Canada; and HBO. In addition to maintaining a prolific career as an activist-artist, Jones, a Documentary Branch member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, has collaborated extensively with other filmmakers and worked as a story consultant, directing mentor, and curator.
Rafael Balulu is an award-winning filmmaker and recipient of the Israeli Minister of Culture Award for Cinema, as well as the World Sephardi Federation’s Pioneer Award in Film. He is the co-founder of the production company BFILMS and serves on the Cultural and Arts Council of the lottery, where he is Chairman of the Film Committee and a board member of the Landau Prize for Science and Arts. Balulu is a member of the Israeli Academy of Film and Television. Previously, he served on the board of the Israeli Documentary Filmmakers Forum and taught cinema at the Technion’s Faculty of Architecture.
His acclaimed films include The Last Righteous Man, A Song of Love, Levantine, Tapes of Revolution, and Death in Umm al-Hiran, among others. His works explore the narratives and histories of MENA Jews and Jewish–Muslim relations, and have been screened, honored, and awarded at major international festivals, including Berlin, New York, Jerusalem, Auckland, Toronto, Kosovo, Seoul, and Hong Kong.
Balulu is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents, the TIFF Filmmakers Lab, and the Greenhouse Documentary Development Program. He studied at the Sam Spiegel Film and
Television School, is an alumnus of the Mandel Institute’s Jewish Culture Leadership Program, and a Fellow of the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies at the
University of Michigan.
