Filmmaking Team
A two-time Emmy nominated filmmaker, Otto-Bernstein most recently served as a producer of Joyland, winner of the Cannes Jury Prize, the Independent Spirit Award and short-listed for the Academy Award in 2023 and Oh, Canada (Cannes, 2024). Nonfiction works include the HBO documentaries Absolute Wilson, Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures, The Price of Everything and the documentaries Beautopia, When Night falls over Moscow, The Need for Speed, Obsessed with Light, and Crossing the River. Otto-Bernstein’s films have been screened at festivals worldwide, including Sundance, Berlin, Cannes, Toronto, BFI etc. She has won the Silver Hugo [IFF Chicago] and has been nominated for Critics’ Choice Awards, Cinema Eye Award and GLAAD Awards. Professional memberships include WGA, PGA, ATAS, IATAS, and NYWIFT.
Katharina Otto-Bernstein - Writer, Director, Producer
Oleg Dubson - Producer
Head of Productions at FMI where he oversees the US-based projects, Oleg Dubson’s producing credits include Oh, Canada (Cannes), Joyland (winner of two awards at Cannes Film Festival); Self (Director and Producer, Berlin International Film Festival); Barrel of Love (Director and Producer, Distrital Mexico City Film Festival), The Return of Tragedy (Actor, Venice Film Festival). Dubson previously worked at Bob Berney’s distribution companies Apparition and FilmDistrict on Jane Campion’s Bright Star, Nicholas Refn’s Drive, Angelina Jolie’s In the Land of Blood and Honey, James Wan’s Insidious, and Jean-Marc Vallee’s The Young Victoria. He began his career at the New York Film Festival and Film at Lincoln Center.
Sabine Schenk - Producer
An award-winning producer, line-producer and PGA member, Schenk has worked with renowned filmmakers Margarethe von Trotta, Tom Tykwer, Volker Schlöndorff and Maria Schrader, among others. She line-produced the films Hannah Arendt, Return to Montauk, Me & Kaminski, A Hologram for the King, Letters from Baghdad and the Emmy-winning Netflix series Unorthodox. She co-produced the documentary Ferry Tales, which was nominated for an Academy Award, and she line-produced the New York unit of the Oscar-nominated film The Reader. She is the executive producer of Katja Esson’s documentary, Razing Liberty Square, and the executive producer on Stephen Moyer’s new movie A Bit of Light starring Anna Paquin.
Kathrin Lohmann - Producer
Accomplished independent producer and longtime production partner of Katharina Otto- Bernstein, Lohmann is the Managing Director of FMI Germany and President of the Munich- based production company KJ Entertainment. Their collaborations include Joyland, Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures, Absolute Wilson and Beautopia. Lohmann’s other producing credits include the feature films Meeresleuchten, Jack the Ripper, Das Leben der Anderen, and the Amazon Prime TV series Für Umme. Forthcoming films include Katharina Otto Bernstein’s The Last Spy and A Test of Civilization, Heisenberg, and Amorelie for Amazon Prime. Lohmann’s films have been widely shown on the festival circuit, including Sundance, Berlinale, Cannes, and the Toronto Film Festival. She is a member of the European Producers Club, Deutscher Produzentenverband, EWA European Women’s Audiovisual Network and Atlantic Brücke.
Simon Kilmurry - Executive Producer
A documentary producer & executive producer, Simon Kilmurry has received a Primetime Emmy, 17 News & Doc Emmys, and eight Peabody Awards. Current films include Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy, which was short-listed for the Academy Awards in 2024, My Name is Andrea, and El Equipo. Kilmurry’s films have been selected by Venice, Telluride, Sundance, Toronto, BFI, etc. He served as executive director of IDA (2015-21) and executive producer of POV on PBS (2007-15). He is currently serving on the Board of Governors for the Academy Awards Documentary Branch.
David Dinerstein - Executive Producer
Academy Award-winning producer of Summer of Soul, Dinerstein served as Executive Producer on the Academy Award-nominated Netflix documentary Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom, and on the HBO Emmy Award-nominated documentary Cries from Syria. He served as President at Paramount Pictures and was a studio executive at 20th Century Fox. Dinerstein has been involved in the production, marketing or distribution on over 200 movies including Pulp Fiction, American Hustle, Her, The Illusionist, The Full Monty, Paris Is Burning, Mad Hot Ballroom. His films have garnered over 100 Academy Award Nominations and 15 Academy Awards.
Frida Torresblanco - Executive Producer
A principal of Hangtime International Pictures, Frida Torresblanco is one of the most prolific female Latin producers. Torresblanco served as a producer on the Oscar winner Pan’s Labyrinth, directed by Guillermo del Toro, The Assassination of Richard Nixon (starring Sean Penn), Disobedience (starring Rachel Weisz) and Cronicas (starring John Leguizamo). She also produced The Man in the Attic, The Accidental Spy, Fatima, Locked In and Magic Magic. Together with Alejandro G. Iñárritu, she produced Rudo y Cursi (directed by Carlos Cuarón) in 2008. Her work has been screened at major festivals worldwide, including Sundance, Cannes and Venice. Torresblanco professional memberships include AMPAS and PGA.
Frank Murray - Executive Producer
Based in London, Frank Murray is a career producer, studio executive and consultant with experience accrued over forty major motion picture projects and TV series. Murray founded Hangtime with Torresblanco, subsequently bidding farewell to the post he held for two years as Head of Production for Scripted UK/Australia/Canada and MENA at Amazon MGM Studios. There, he oversaw production on Amazon Original series such as “The Devil’s Hour” & “The Power”. Previously as an independent producer, he produced Paul Schrader’s critically acclaimed “First Reformed” and, as a physical producer and production manager, built a reputation as a hawkeyed quality-control stalwart for both studio features and indies working alongside the likes of Ang Lee, Darren Aronofsky, Phil Lord & Chris Miller, Todd Haynes, Jim Jarmusch and others on a variety of highly successful releases like “The Wrestler”, “Young Adult”, “22 Jump Street”, “Hope Springs” and “Sisters”.
Federica Belletti - CoProducer
An alumna of the Tribeca Film Institute and BAFTA North America, Belletti holds an MFA from the School Of the Arts at Columbia University. Her credits include JC Chandor's Triple Frontier, Adam Leon's Italian Studies, and Kirsten Johnson's Dick Jhonson Is Dead. She has produced the short film Refuge, distributed by The New Yorker, Nice Talking To You, a SXSW premiere, and Ayaan, which premiered at the Sydney Film Festival. Most recently, she produced Keep It Open (InsideOut Toronto) and the Aria, starring Pauline Chalamet. Belletti is a Creative Executive at Film Manufacturers Inc.
Matthew Cohn - Editor
Winner of The Vaclav Havel Jury Award for Editing at the Miami Film Festival for Strangers to Peace (Winner, Best Documentary), Cohn’s credits include Sembene! (Cannes Film Festival), Through a Lens Darkly (Sundance Film Festival), Bangla Surf Girls (Hot Docs), Councilwoman (Havana Film Festival). Matthew Cohn is a graduate of Middlebury College and received his MA from the University of Pennsylvania.
Bernadine Colish - Additional Editing
An award-winning editor whose past collaborations with Katharina Otto-Bernstein include Absolute Wilson, Beautopia, The Need for Speed, The Second Greatest Story Ever Told, and the upcoming A Test of Civilization. She also edited Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict, Herb & Dorothy, Truman & Tennessee, Ella Fitzgerald: Something to Live For, Love Cecil, Bringing Tibet Home, Body of War, A Touch of Greatness, The Tiger Next Door, The Buffalo War, A Whale of a Tale. Colish’s films have been selected by Sundance, Toronto, Berlin, Telluride, SXSW, and her work has won numerous awards, including nominations for a News and Documentary Emmy, and a Critics Choice Award.
David Steinberg - Composer
A prolific and versatile composer, Steinberg’s credits include HBO’s multi Emmy-nominated documentary, Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures, the Emmy Award-winning The Last Beekeeper and Out of Iraq, and the HBO documentaries Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Wishful Drinking, Liberty: Mother of Exiles, Every Brilliant Thing, as well as the two HBO mini-series, Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes and Small Town News. Other works include the critically acclaimed documentaries Inside Deep Throat, Children of God and the scripted Menendez: Blood Brothers. David continues to compose for the multi Emmy-award winning RuPaul’s Drag Race.
James Carman - Cinematographer
A cinematographer of documentary and narrative films for the past 30 years, Carman’s films have been screened at Sundance, Cannes, Berlin, Toronto. He has worked extensively with Canadian filmmaker Bruce LaBruce, including on LA Zombie, Otto, Up with Dead People, The Raspberry Reich, Gerontophilia, and The Misandrists, which were shown at the recent MoMA retrospective of the director. He shot the narrative feature Unintended by Anja Murmann, and artist Shu Lea Cheang’s 3x3x3, a compilation of ten films about sexual predators, which were the centerpiece of the Taiwan Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale.
Sabine Krayenbühl - Story Consultant
Award-winning director and editor Sabine Krayenbühl is an expert in historical films and working with archival materials. She recently directed and edited the documentary Obsessed with Light about dancer Loie Fuller and Letters from Baghdad. She is the editor of the Academy and Independent Spirit Award-nominated My Architect, and the Emmy-winning The Hunt for Planet B. Additional credits include the Emmy-nominated The Price of Everything, Mad Hot Ballroom, The Bridge, and Picasso and Braque go to the Movies, produced by Martin Scorsese. Sabine is a member of AMPAS.
Steven Raphael - Publicity
The founder of Required Viewing, Stephen Raphael has been bringing films to the marketplace as a publicist for over 30 years. Most recently he worked on Joyland, Poor Things, Anatomy of a Fall, The Quiet Girl, American Fiction, Perfect Days and Triangle of Sadness. Previous titles include Absolute Wilson, Monsoon Wedding, Far from Heaven, Eight Women, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Priscilla Queen of The Desert, Fargo, The Usual Suspects, The Big Lebowski among many others. Steven is a member of AMPAS.