Team | Rio Negro Film

Our mission

The impact for the community featured in the film is based on taking agency of their grief, of the loss of their land and people, and making known their particular history as part of the national historical narrative. This is not only accomplished through licensing and screening of the film, but also by creating historical archives of stories and images. We aim to offer this historical archive to museums, schools and universities with relevant faculties. We have already initiated contact with NGOs and organizations with a fitting thematic focus for supporting and financing these undertakings. The aim here is to exacerbate the process by which this largely unknown story becomes part of the national narrative.

We strongly believe that the educational impact of the film extends beyond borders. The socio-political themes of the film, mainly processing personal and inter-generational trauma caused by human loss, environmental disaster and subsequent resettlement (all in light of government interference), are themes that are omnipresent globally, and thus incredibly pressing. We believe that our film has the ability to humanise or give face to themes that, in our modern age, increasingly become relegated to numbers and statistics in the news. Giving platform to Julian Sanchez Chen as a representative of the Rio Negro community during Q&A sessions following film screenings, is a way to let this truly resonate and spark debate at important film festivals.

Our vision

In our visual language we will capture the poetry and beauty with which the protagonists speak about life. The camera will engage with the decelerated life and capture the atmosphere of everyday life in the village. In doing so, it will capture precisely and in carefully composed static images the living world of the present and the remembered. In intermediate passages, such as the transitions between the seasons, the camera may be faster and thus support the cyclical narrative. What is important in cinematic narration is that the story of the people and their VO indicate the narrative thread. They set the rhythm of the image composition.

After having been allowed to capture two research journeys, once on 16mm and another time digitally, we are sure that film material is the right working tool to support our visual storytelling. This way of working makes the film special in its look and will make it stand out in the distribution.

Our team

Anna Sophia Richard

Director

Jonas Schneider

Cinematographer

Marisa Meier

Producer (Intuition Club)

Vita Spieß

Producer (sehstern Filmproduktion)

Joaquín Ruano

Producer (Cine Conception)

Chiara Strickland

Filmmusic

Marisa Meier, co-founder of the Schleswig-Holstein based production company Intuition Club, studied international film-production at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, la fémis Paris, UCLA and Al Quds University Ramallah. She’s an Alumna of the Rotterdam Lab, IDFAcademy, and Nuevas Miradas by EICTV.

Chiara Strickland is a freelance composer for film, television, and theater. She began writing music for independent films during her studies in musicology at Heidelberg University. Following her Master's degree, she pursued studies in film music and sound design at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg.

Sophia Machado

Film montage

Reiner Krausz

Producer (sehstern Filmproduktion)

Anna-Sophia Richard is a Dominican-German director. She began her filmmaking career in Guatemala and later studied directing in Germany. Her cinema and television film, "Los cuatro vientos," (2021) was honored with the Civis YOUNG C Award, emphasizing the challenges that migration can pose for families. Anna-Sophia participated in the IDFAcademy 2022, the Nuevas Miradas program at EICTV in Cuba, and was part of the Berlinale Talent Program 2023. She is also a member of the European Film Academy.

With the award-winning documentary OPERNFIEBER in 2005, Vita Spiess and Reiner Krausz made their debut as producers and were awarded the Hessian Film Prize. In 2010 they began the production of the documentary film DIE KOFFER DES HERRN SPALEK. The film had its world premiere in 2013 at the São Paulo International Film Festival and its German premiere at the Lichter Filmfest 2013. In addition to their work as producers, Vita Spieß also works as a camera woman.

Cine Concepcion, funded by Joaquín Ruano, has produced feature films such as; DISTANCIA (Coral Prize Opera Prima Habana Film Festival) and 1991 by Sergio Ramírez, LA ASFIXIA by Ana Bustamante (Special Jury Prize at FICG, Fipresci Award at IFF Panama and Fipresci Award and Audience Award at BAFICI 2019) and NUESTRAS MADRES by César Díaz (Camera d‘Or Award at Cannes 2019). The feature ROZA by Andrés Rodríguez was part of Guanajuato IFF, Locarno Film Festival, Mostra Sao Paulo and Moscow IFF.

Sofia Angelina Machado graduated from the prestigious Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires and went on to complete a Master's degree at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf, specialising in montage editing. Particularly noteworthy is her collaboration on the documentary series "Juan Carlos: Love, Money and Betrayal", which earned her a nomination for the German Television Award in the category "Best Editing/Montage Information/Documentary" in 2023.

Paolo Giròn

2nd camera & 1st AD

PAOLO GIRÓN is a Guatemalan cinematographer that studied at the FUC Film University in Buenos Aires from 2005 to 2009. His first works as a cinematographer included several internationally acclaimed short films screened at Semaine de la Critic Cannes, Kodak Film School Competition, BAFICI and Mar del Plata Film Festival.

Emily Beck

Crowdfunding Manager (sehstern Filmproduktion)

Emily Beck studied Digital Film Production at SAE in Frankfurt, where she learned everything about film making and gained significant experience with the film making industry. During her studies she acquired numerous experiences shooting on Set. In 2024 she started an Internship at Sehstern Filmproduction and started working on the crowdfunding campaign for Rio Negro.

Before he began studying image design at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in 2014, Jonas worked as an assistant in the lighting and camera department, in television. During his studies, he gained numerous experiences shooting abroad. The works created during his studies were shown at renowned festivals such as the Cannes Film Festival, Camerimage, DOK Leipzig and the Berlinale. Jonas was awarded the Golden Frog for his work on „KashKash‘‘ at Camerimage 2022.

Jacob Jimenez

Sound Director

Jacobo Jimenez is a sound director graduated from Casa Comal Film and Television School in Guatemala, he has been sound recordist for feature films such as “José” from director Li Cheng, “Los Fantasmas” by Sebastian Lojo and the Salvadorian film “Luciernagas en el Mozote” starring Paz Vega.

Liselotte Merel van Balen

Junior Producer

Liselotte has primarily focused on politics and (digital) media during her academic and professional career. She holds a masters degree in Global Governance and Diplomacy from the University of Oxford.

Mona Bertschinger is part of the executive board at the Zurich film production company hillton AG. Prior to that, she established the in-house production department at VICE Media Switzerland, producing several short documentaries.

Mona Bertschinger

Producer (Hillton)