Sven Zellner is a documentary filmmaker, cinematographer, photographer, and producer. His debut PRICE OF GOLD had its premiere at HotDocs in Toronto and received the ARTE Documentary Film Award 2012. The feature documentary follows artisanal gold miners in the Gobi into dangerous makeshift underground mines.
His work as photographer has been exhibited in New York, Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Arles and Ulaanbaatar. His photos appear in magazines like DIE ZEIT, GEO, and LFI by Leica.
Zellner focuses on finding the right cinematic expression and language for each project. He tries to be open and ready to take creative risks and finding new ways to tell stories in documentaries and features. As producer he engages with sustainability in documentary and fiction filmmaking. Zellner gives lectures at the Munich University of Television and Film.
Born in 1977, TRẦN PHƯƠNG THẢO is a Vietnamese independent documentary filmmaker. She graduated from Hanoi Foreign Trade University and later studied Documentary Film at the University of Poitiers, France. In 2011, Thao co-founded Varan Vietnam with four other young Vietnamese documentary filmmakers. Her 2006 debut documentary Workers’ Dreams received recognition at many international film festivals. They regularly organize filmmaking camps targeting young Vietnamese filmmakers. Notable works: Workers’ Dreams (2006, Pierre and Yolande Perrault Grant, Cinéma du Réel, 2007); With or Without Me (2011, White Goose Prize, DMZ International Film Festival, Korea, 2012); Finding Phong (2015, Nanook Grand Prix, Jean Rouch Film Festival 2015); Pomelo (2019).
