Rick Minnich - Writer/Director

Rick Minnich is an American independent filmmaker based in Berlin, Germany. 

He holds a B.A. in English from Columbia University and an MFA equivalent in film directing from the Film University Babelsberg "Konrad Wolf” in Germany. Rick Minnich has been writing, directing and producing shorts and feature documentaries since 1993 through his companies Rickfilms and Our Man in Berlin and in association with various German broadcasters, film funds, and production companies. 

His award-winning films include: 

HEAVEN ON EARTH (50 min., 2001, IDFA, Fipa d'Or Biarritz)

HOMEMADE HILLBILLY JAM (80 min, 2005, Premiere at HotDocs, closing night film True/False 2006, distributed by First Run Features)

FORGETTING DAD (84 min, 2008, Premiere: IDFA - Special Jury Award, True/False, Full Frame, Hot Docs, Grand Jury Prize at GZ DOC in Guangzhou, China, Shortlisted for the German Film Award 'Lola' - German Oscar)

THE BOMB HUNTERS (52 min., 2015)

Currently he is working on the feature documentary THE PRESIDENTS’ TAILOR (about Holocaust survivor and presidential tailor Martin Greenfield) and the documentary series THE BIG THAW (about four atmospheric scientists investigating the impact of thawing permafrost in Arctic Alaska).

Visit him at www.ourmaninberlin.com

Matt Sweetwood - Co-Writer/Editor

After earning a BA at UMKC and California State University San Diego, Television and Film Department in 1990, Matt worked as a writer, director, assistant director and production manager on various independent projects in San Diego and L.A. In 1995 he moved to Berlin, Germany, where he started a career as a writer for fiction and documentary with the agency Verlag der Autoren.

His documentaries include

Homemade Hillbilly Jam (Dir. Rick Minnich, 2005, co-writer and editor)

Forgetting Dad with Rick Minnich (2008, co-director and editor)

Beerland (2013, writer/director)

The Beer Jesus from America (2019, writer/director/producer). Matt Sweetwood owns and operates Sweetwood Films (UG) in Potsdam, Germany.

Visit him at www.sweetwoodfilms.com.

Lutz Reitemeier - Director of Photography (USA/Germany)

Born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1963. Worked as a camera assistant for many years in both feature and documentary films for some of the top German directors including Werner Herzog and Roland Emmerich before becoming a director of photography in 1994.

One of his earliest works is Die Überlebenden (The Survivors) from acclaimed German director Andres Veiel. Since 1998, Reitemeier has shot numerous films in China, including Wang Quan’an’s Berlinale winner “Tuya’s Wedding” (2007) and Berlinale opening night film and Silver Bear winner “Tuan Yuan” (2010).

In 2012, Reitemeier received the Silver Bear for his outstanding cinematography on Wang Quan’an’s “Bai lu yuan” (White Deer Plain).

Lutz Reitemeier is a member of the German Society of Cinematographers, the German Film Academy, and the German Documentary Association / AGDOK.

Sergei Amirdzhanov - Director of Photography (Russia)

Born in Moscow, Russia in 1986. Graduated from the Russian National Film School VGIK in 2008. Member of the Russian Documentary Guild. Sergei Amirdzhanov has shot more than 40 short, mid-length and feature-length documentaries, including:

Women of the Gulag (Dir. Marianna Yarovskaya, 2018)

Sanatorium (Dir. Mariya Osipov, 2018)

Faith, Love, Hope (Dir. Katja Fedulova, 2017)

Zemlyaki (Dir. Pavel Mirzoev, 2014)

Jonathan Skorupa - Sound Recordist (USA/Germany)

Born in Leipzig, Germany in 1986. After completing his apprenticeship in 2011, Jonathan Skorupa worked for various television production companies before becoming a freelance sound recordist.

He has worked on numerous fiction and non-fiction films, including

Landrauschen (Max Ophüls Award 2018 for best script),

LIEBESFILM (“Love Film”)

Der Krieg und ich (“The War and I” - winner of Golden Sparrow award 2018).

This Kind of Hope (AT) (work-in-progress)

Vertreibung - Odsun. Das Sudetenland (Deutsch-Tschechischer Journalistenpreis 2021)

Sorin Apostel - Sound Recordist (Russia)

Sorin Apostol is a sound designer, sound engineer, composer, musician. He manages and creates all stages of sound design from sound recording to post-production of documentary films, final mixing, mastering of audio products, arrangement and composition.

He was born in 1978 in the city of Kishinev, USSR. Lives in Moscow. Married. Sorin obtained a Master’s degree from The Academy of Arts. He collaborates with the Foundation for Ethnographic Research, The Ministry of Culture of Russia, Gorky Film Studio, the companies “zero one films GmbH", "WDR", "ARTE", "ZDF”, "Al Jazeera International", Netflix.

He has worked with the directors Louie Psihoyos, Rick Minnich, Askold Kurov, Sergei Miroshnichenko, among others.

Lukas Sweetwood - composer (Germany)

Lukas Sweetwood is a video and music producer living in Potsdam, Germany. He started composing for theater and film in 2016, and has since written music for two documentary films, (“The Beer Jesus” - 2019) and “The Strait Guys (2022)”, and for many international theater projects in collaboration with OKEV Potsdam.

Geoffrey Smith - Story Consultant

Geoffrey Smith is a double Emmy award-winning director who was at the BBC in London for over 13 years. He has made 24 films for all the major UK broadcasters, won over 40 International awards, was listed in the 2009 NY Times Best Films list for the “The English Surgeon”, and his last two feature documentaries have sold widely, had theatrical releases, and screened at hundreds of film festivals across the world.

Geoffrey is currently developing several feature documentaries and is in demand as a consultant and script editor on a wide range of international projects. He is also passionate about getting documentaries out into the wider community and for the last 5 years curated and ran the Castlemaine Documentary Film Festival in Victoria, Australia.

Gunter Hanfgarn - Producer

Born in 1959 in Düsseldorf, Germany. 1984-90 psychology studies; 1991 founded Hanfgarn + Ufer Filmproduktion with Andrea Ufer; vice-president of the AG DOK - German Documentary Association 2009-2012.

Selected filmography:

NO LAND ́S SONG (2014 Germany / France) by Ayat Najafi (nominated for the European Film Prize 2015; Audience Award & Best Documentary, Montreal World Film Festival 2014; Human Rights Watch Film Festival London/New York 2015),

MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE (2014 Germany) by Marc Bauder. European Film Prize 2014; Grand Prix Semaine de la Critique Locarno 2013; Prize of the German Film Critics 2014,

PELO MALO (2013 – Venezuela / Germany / Peru) “Golden Shell”, “SIGNIS Award” and “Sebastiane Award” San Sebastián;

DIE ARIER (2013 – Germany) by Mo Asumung. Magnolia Award – Shanghai 2014;

CALLING HEDY LAMARR (2004) Special Mention Locarno Film Festival 2004; official selection Hamptons, AFI; CINEMANIA (2002) “Best Documentary” Hamptons, official selection Locarno.

Visit him at www.hu-film.de.

Holm Taddiken - Co-Producer

Holm Taddiken grew up in Bremerhaven, Germany, and completed a master’s degree in Communications and Media Studies in Leipzig.

While still a student he began producing short films and supervising film productions. Many of these short films and student productions screened at film festivals, where they won a number of prizes. After a spell in advertising at Scholz & Friends (Hamburg), Taddiken worked for the production companies Scala Productions (London), Rheinfilm (Cologne) and Tellux (Dresden), in the editorial office at Senator Entertainment, and for Looks Film & TV GmbH. In late-2004, Holm Taddiken founded his own company Neufilm GmbH. In the years that followed, he produced a number of documentaries and feature films.

Taddiken is also the owner and managing director of Cine Impuls Leipzig Fernsehproduktion GmbH, a successful service company for a wide variety of fictional and non-fictional television formats. Additionally, he is a board member of the Central Germany Producers’ Alliance (“Mitteldeutsche Produzentenverband”).

Teresa Renn - Co-Producer

Teresa Renn studied directing with Prof. Thomas Schadt at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg in Germany.

Her graduation film “Janine F.” won the prestigious First Steps Award in 2004 and was screened in the “Perspectives on German Cinema” section of the Berlinale in 2005. The same year she founded the production company Torero Film in Berlin together with Rouven Rech.

In 2007, Renn and Rech opened a second office in Konstanz. Renn works as a writer, director and lecturer for documentary films and video installations. She has also produced or co-produced the theatrical documentaries “Adopted,” “Union for Life”, and “No Land’s Song”, which was nominated for the German Film Award.

Visit her at www.torerofilm.de

Rouven Rech - Co-Producer

Rouven Rech was born in Bochum, Germany in 1973. For years, he has devoted himself to scholarly work in documentary film.

Rech studied AV Media Studies at the University of Paderborn and at the Film University Babelsberg “Konrad Wolf”, where he graduated in 2001. There he was a member of the organising team of the popular student film festival SehSüchte. From 2001-2004, Rech studied documentary film directing at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg. Thanks to a graduate fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Rech then spent a year studying at the Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires. With the support of the Baden-Württemberg Foundation, he spent six months at the Escuela Internacional de Cine in Cuba. The Heinz-Kühn Foundation in North-Rhine Westphalia supported his three-month research trip to Egypt.

In 2005, Rech co-founded the production company Torero Film, where he works as a director and producer. His short and feature-length documentaries have won major prizes at a number of film festivals.

Visit him at www.torerofilm.de

Bettina Morlock - Line Producer

Since completing her studies in film production at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, Bettina Morlock has been working as a producer, production manager and line producer. 

Her debut as a producer “Teenage Response” was the opening film of the Generation section at the 2009 Berlinale. In 2021 she finished the documentaries “The Strait Guys” by Rick Minnich, “Who We Were” by Marc Bauder and and ”Behind the Headlines" by Daniel Sager.

She is currently working on “Valley of Gold” by Klaus Stern and “Burnout with John Heartfield” by Katrin Rothe, and preparing the children's documentary “Moritz spielt”, to be written and directed by Frank Marten Pfeiffer.