Speakers & Juries

Michaela Sabo

Michaela Sabo is a writer and development executive based in Berlin, working internationally across film and television. She is the co-founder and creative lead at Maison Vertical, a European microdrama studio focused on developing bold, mobile-first stories for a new generation of audiences. Her work bridges strong genre storytelling, international perspectives, and innovative formats, with a particular interest in how emerging forms of storytelling can connect with audiences across cultures and platforms.

Kryštof Šafer

Kryštof Šafer is a film producer and CreaTech showrunner focusing on the transformation of the audiovisual industry and the use of emerging technologies in audiovisual storytelling. An internationally recognised expert in mobile storytelling, he founded the platform Vertifilms in 2016, one of the first international initiatives dedicated to the vertical 9:16 format. At Dramedy Productions, he develops new international projects exploring innovative forms of content creation and distribution.

Alongside his work at the intersection of technology and creativity, he also serves as the Commissioner General of the Czech Republic’s participation at Expo 2027 Belgrade.

Andrea Mokosch

Andrea Mokosch is passionate about storytelling and developing original film and series concepts based on true stories. She completed the Serien.Lab programme at the Masterschool Drehbuch and the Winterclass in Serial Writing and Producing at the Konrad Wolf Film University Babelsberg x Erich Pommer Institute. Her very first series idea, The Summit, made it to the Creators Vision Pitch at Seriencamp and to a major programming conference. It was rejected, but at least by the programming director himself... Andrea's background in journalism and non-fiction storytelling gives her work a distinctive style, combining journalistic precision with keen observation of social settings and strong dramaturgy.

This approach also shaped her first major directing project, the event docudrama series Tera X History: Roadtrip 1945 (a Doclights production for ZDF 2025), which recently won the Gold Tower at the New York Festivals® TV & Film Awards.

Gregor Sauter

Gregor Sauter is a German producer who develops new IPs at the intersection of storytelling and data-driven development. At RED PONY, which focuses on vertical entertainment and young fiction, he drives performance-based content development and strategic IP building.

He has established RED PONY as the leading one-stop studio for vertical storytelling in Germany. Previously, he worked, amongst other roles, as a producer at LEONINE Studios, specializing in new fiction and entertainment formats. At Studio71 (ProSiebenSat.1), he combined creator marketing with fictional storytelling and developed formats that bridged the gap between platform, talent and brand.

Ondřej Polák

Ondřej Polák (born 1980, Prague) is a cultural innovator, producer, and entrepreneur connecting creativity, technology, and social impact. He is the founder of TIW venture studio, behind projects including Mytitle, Artinii.pro, and CinemaAnywhere. With over 20 years of experience in cultural production and strategic development. His work focuses on digital culture, AI tools, community collaboration, and fair remuneration for creators.

“Don’t complain about things you do nothing about. Create opportunities and tools, not competition.”

Dennis Ruh

Dennis Ruh is a Film and Media Industry Director and Film Festival Expert. He’s the Director of Seriesly Berlin, the festival for serial storytelling since 2024. Ruh was Director of the Berlinale’s European Film Market from 2020-2024. During his studies, he began working for the Oldenburg International Film Festival in 2008 and became a co-director in 2011. From 2012 to 2020, he was department head for Festival Relations & Producers Liaison at German Films. He regularly appears as a guest lecturer at film schools and panelist at industry conferences. Dennis Ruh frequently serves on festival as well as funding juriesand consults festival & market organizers, film tech companies and film producers.

Cecilia Shen

Cecilia Shen is Co-Founder and CEO of Utopai Studios, an AI-native entertainment company building the cinematic AI infrastructure for the future of filmmaking, television, and long-form storytelling. Under her leadership, Utopai Studios is combining proprietary AI technology, original IP creation, real-world production expertise, and global studio partnerships to help define how the next generation of entertainment is created, produced, and experienced.

Shen is guiding Utopai Studios beyond the limits of both a traditional studio and a standalone AI company. The company’s model brings together advanced cinematic AI, professional production workflows, and filmmaker-driven IP development, enabling artists, studios, and media partners to create premium entertainment properties with greater speed, flexibility, and scale.

At the center of that vision is PAI, Utopai Studios’ proprietary cinematic storytelling AI system. Built for long-form entertainment workflows, PAI supports story development, character and world consistency, cinematic visualization, production planning, and iterative creative execution. Through PAI and Utopai Studios’ expanding slate of original and partnered projects, Shen is positioning the company to help filmmakers and studios develop new entertainment franchises, build global story worlds, and bring ambitious IP to life while preserving the human creative vision at the center of the process.

Mollye Asher

Mollye Asher is an Oscar-winning producer based in New York City, best known for the Searchlight film Nomadland, which earned three Academy Awards including Best Picture. The film was her third collaboration with director Chloé Zhao. Her credits include Catch the Fair One (Tribeca Audience Award, IFC Films), Swallow (Gotham nominee), The Rider (Cannes winner, Sony Pictures Classics), Fort Tilden (SXSW Grand Jury Prize), She’s Lost Control (Spirit Award nominee), and Zhao’s debut Songs My Brothers Taught Me. Recently, she executive produced Andrea Arnold’s Bird and produced On Swift Horses. She won the 2020 Spirit Producers Award and is an NYU film alumna.

Gabriele Rose

Gabriele Rose is a german author, director and producer in the film and broadcast industry. She studied political science and history at the universities of Marburg, Aix-Marseille, France and Hamburg. During her studies, she already worked as a journalist and photographer for several newspapers. After successfully completing her studies, she was employed by various media companies.

Since 2003 she has been working as a freelance author, director and producer. She mainly focuses on historical topics, including numerous elaborately biopics of historical personalities. One of her recent film projects as a writer and director is the docudrama series Terra x History: Roadtrip 1945  (a Doclights production for ZDF in 2025), which was recently awarded the Gold Tower at the New York Festivals® TV & Film Awards.

Victoria Thomas

Victoria Thomas is a BAFTA-nominated producer, filmmaker and academic whose work spans original IP development, film business education, and practice-led research. She is the founder of No Password Required, an initiative mapping globally majority-led film production companies in Europe and an annual mini market, supported by the BFI and FDA, connecting these companies with international sales agents and distributors.

She is Course Leader of the MA International Film Business at London Film School and a lecturer at Queen Margaret University. A James McCune Smith PhD Scholar at the University of Glasgow, her research examines economic equity in European cinema. She is a voting member of BAFTA Scotland, BAFTA UK and the European Film Academy, and a Steering Committee member and co-author, with Dr Regina Mosch, of A New Europe Must Emerge: Rethinking Power, People and Pipelines in European Cinema (ARTEF Think Tank Report 2026).