Born in the Southern Italian town of Taranto, Alessandro holds a Degree in Communication Studies (MA in Film and Television studies) from the LUMSA University of Rome.
In Italy, he started his career by promoting shorts and documentaries for Italia Cinema, a government agency responsible for supporting and encouraging film and cinema culture. He also worked as a promo producer for Mediaset, Italy's most influential private broadcasters. After spending one month in the USA where he attended a documentary filmmaking course he worked as a producer/director filming, producing and editing for several production companies.
Among his work as a filmmaker, Alessandro has produced and directed a range of human interest and issues documentaries, including “I Am From Bardhaj” shot in Albania for the Italian NGO CeLIM and “The Revolution of the Microcredit.” He has been a producer/director for the Prix Italia nominated documentary series “Muhammad Yunus: My Nobel Prize to the Women” RAI television. His film, “The Big Race” (on the trials and challenges facing immigrants in Western Europe) won the 2006 Homo Migrans prize, the humanitarian award for documentary, as well a round of festival prize nominations.
In 2007 he moved to London where he produced current affair stories for the Italian news channel La Repubblica. Later that year he joined Performance Films as assistant producer. As AP he was also responsible for the production and distribution of the BBC documentary “Shroud of Turin - Material Evidence”. He teaches the “funding & marketing the documentary” workshop at the Maine Media Workshops, Rockport, ME USA.
Suvi Andrea Helminen is a documentary director, editor, photographer and teacher born and based in Copenhagen, Denmark.
She graduated from The National Film School of Denmark, as a documentary director, in 2003. Films include: 2009, “Turf war in No Man’s Land” (68 min.) – documentary produced by Nordlys Film about an expedition to the North Pole and territorial conflicts. 2009, “Theresienstadt – Danish children in Nazi Captivity”, produced by Minerva Film and DIIS. 2007, ”On the way to Paradise” (58 min) – award-winning documentary, produced by Magic Hour Films. About an elderly Danish couple moving out of their house. Shown on Danish TV DR2, Swedish SVT. 2006, "Love and Broken Glass" (35 min) – award-winning documentary, produced by Nordlys Film, filmed in Kyrgyzstan. 2003, "Land of Mist" (27 min) – award-winning documentary, filmed in a Danish refugee center.
