Industry 2024 Experts

Louise Johansen holds an MA in Film Studies from the University of Copenhagen. She is a film festival programmer for more than 15 years, and has lived and worked in Copenhagen, Reykjavik, and now settled in Prague. Moderator of master classes and other film related talks. Producer of independent feature documentaries and experimental shorts. Member of the Danish and European Film Academies, and the founder of Sane Cinema, an initiative for mental health in the film industry.

Theatrologist, theater educator, dramaturg, and director. For the past 20 years she has directed performances for adolescents, theater walks, and site-specific shows for the whole family. As a dramaturg, she has primarily collaborated with dance troupes and dance theaters. She has established artistic educational institutions, the latest being the “Epidaurus Lyceum” at the Athens and Epidaurus Festival. She teaches theater and cinema in drama schools and schools, and participates in educational programs for the development and promotion of cinema for both young and adult audiences (DISFF, Olympia IFF, ATHICFF, Greek Film Centre, etc).

Scriptwriter and story consultant, she works extensively for Czech Television as a dramaturg and creative producer of animated series and other children’s programmes. She also regularly works with independent producers as a freelance script consultant and script editor on feature films and animated shorts. She wrote the script for ‘Martin and the Magical Forest’ (2021), Petr Oukropec´s feature film for children, and directed several animated and documentary films. Lecturer at Film and TV School of Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU).

A recognized TV producer with a rich career spanning three decades. Froso has been involved in more than 200 TV productions and has received numerous awards and distinctions. She held the position of CEO of ATA Studios from 1996 to 2012 and continues to be actively engaged in a wide range of artistic and cultural activities. She has produced two theatrical performances. She worked at the Ministry of Culture where she collaborated closely with Melina Mercouri during her tenure as minister. During this time, she was responsible for organizing events for the “Athens, Cultural Capital of Europe” initiative. Frosso has been one of the most significant contributors to shaping the Greek TV landscape as we know it today. Her recent strategic partnership with Feelgood Productions has already yielded excellent results (such as the TV series ‘Kookooland’ and ‘Psychokores’), and together they are planning significant and noteworthy productions that are already in the development stage.

As President of Attraction Distribution, Xiaojuan Zhou is instrumental in elevating the company to the position of a world leading sales agent in high quality family films. Over the years, she has fostered long term relationships with dozens of producers around the world, licensed hundreds of movies and episodes to either major studios, networks, global streamers or smallest (but very innovative) distributors and led a team to turn multiple independent productions to global hits. She obtained two master’s degrees, was trained in cinema management by Village Roadshow in Australia and took a summer course at Harvard. Based in Montreal, she has traveled extensively and served as a juror or panelist at various film festivals or forums. 

Two-time EMMY award winning producer Alain De Levita is one of the most successful producers in the Netherlands. He has produced over a thousand hours of TV-drama and numerous feature films. Alain was a freelancer for 12 years and produced drama at John de Mol productions for 7 years until he founded NL Film in 2001. Under his direction as a CEO and producer, it became one of the biggest TV and film fiction companies of the Netherlands. Since then, he has produced many titles including the hit-series ‘Penoza’, ‘The Body Collector’ (Menten Case), and features like ‘Tonio’, the Dutch entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards, ‘In my Father’s Garden’, and five-time ‘Gouden Kalveren’ winner, ‘The Resistance Banker’. In January 2018 he founded the production house Levitate Film, where he worked as CEO and producer on high-profile films and series such as the biggest war drama of the past 10 years, the feature film ‘The Forgotten Battle’. He is currently the CEO and producent of Dark Alley Pictures.

Based in London, Mark Tucker has many years experience working across production, development, and acquisitions for international sales.  Mark currently handles acquisitions at LevelK, a Danish international film sales agency handling around 12 cinematic titles per year, aimed for theatrical release internationally. With a longstanding reputation in the marketplace for high quality projects, LevelK employs a carefully targeted bespoke sales, marketing, and festivals strategy for high quality projects across all genres, including family and animation titles such as ‘Dancing Queen’ and ‘Oink’. 

Jo-Anne Blouin has worked in the arts with and on behalf of children for all of her professional career. At the age of 16, in her native Quebec, she began working in theater for children, and embarked in the heady world of creating collective works for children’s theater. From theater, she moved to film for children and created the Montreal International Children’s Film Festival (FIFEM). She still acts as CEO and artistic director of the festival for 27 years. From 1998 to 2008, she was CIFEJ’s Executive director, where she created the Kids For Kids Festival. In 2017, she was nominated Honorary Member of the European Children Film Association (ECFA), and in 2018 received an Honorary Award from Schlingel festival (Germany). 

Gert Hermans (Belgium) has been involved in initiatives in distribution, education and exhibition (festivals) of films for children and youth. He has been working with multiple target groups, such as young filmmakers, young focus groups, film festivals, documentary makers, toddlers, prisoners, teachers, etc. As Content & Communication manager for ECFA (European Children’s Film Association), Gert Hermans is an active networker and publicist for Europe’s biggest networking platform for children’s film professionals, and is chief editor of the ECFA Journal. He is working as a consultant for the world sales company Attraction Distribution and as a content provider and industry expert for some of Europe’s biggest children’s film and documentary festivals (Zlin Film Festival, DOXS RUHR, Filem’on) and platforms (CEE Animation).