International Matchmaking

Alex Black

Music producer, CEO of Sonoton

Alex Black is CEO of Sonoton Music and a highly experienced executive in the global production music industry. He previously spent seven years as Global Director at EMI Production Music (Sony Music Publishing), where he worked with management teams worldwide and led the development of renowned brands including KPM, MusicHouse and Juice, as well as overseeing sub-publishing interests.

Prior to joining EMI in 2013, he was Managing Director of Imagem Production Music, where he drove the transition from Boosey & Hawkes Production Music, created its classical library label, and expanded the company’s media catalogue, including work on major productions such as BBC News and Strictly Come Dancing / Dancing with the Stars.

Earlier in his career, Black founded the PR company Rocketscience Media, worked with artists such as Basement Jaxx, Carl Cox and Radiohead, produced music for West One, and collaborated with producer Trevor Horn at Sarm Studios in London.

Barbara Berndorff

Music legal advisor

Her music clients include record labels, publishers, managers, producers, DJs and artists all of whom value the tailored advice she can give across the whole range of music industry contracts and related intellectual property matters. Her film clients include mostly authors and composers etc. Because of her wide experience in music and music law she is often involved in clearing music rights for films national as well as international. She provides composers and musicians of the music for German and international film productions and co-productions, feature films, TV-series and TV-movies with all the necessary legal advice for the film project and the neighbouring fields - like exploiting soundtracks etc. In addition she works for a foundation as a musical advisor and legal representative for music matters, as well as for independent film productions as external legal advice.

She has worked on the music side of productions including the films Pina, Perfect Days, Maria, Anselm, Treasure and the series The Empress and others. In supporting film music composers in contractual and organisational matters, she has supervised the projects September 5, Golda, Sterben, Tatami, Kein Tier so wild, Der Held vom Bahnhof Friedrichstrasse, 22 Bahnen and the series The Swarm, Das Netz among others. She is also a regular representative of composers in various German TV formats such as Tatort and Kleines Fernsehspiel and negotiates contracts with international streamers for series, feature films, TV series and documentaries. She is a member of the World Soundtrack Academy in Gent, Belgium and of the European Filmacademy.

Martin Caraux

Music supervisor

Bande Originale is a French music supervision company specializing in film and television, founded by Martin Caraux in 2010.

The company supports projects from development through post-production, including composer sourcing and selection, creative supervision of original scores, supervision of pre-existing music, rights clearance, and rights structuring. This dual expertise — an ear for creative decisions and a rigorous approach to contractual and budgetary matters — enables Bande Originale to contribute both upstream, in shaping the musical identity of a film or series, and downstream, in securing its legal and financial framework.

Having started in the world of auteur cinema, the company has gradually expanded its scope to encompass a wide range of productions, from independent films to mainstream features, as well as series for leading broadcasters and streaming platforms, including Netflix, Canal+, HBO and Disney+.

Antonio Cárdenas

Artist Manager

HEARTFELT MANAGEMENT was born of Antonio Cárdenas’s desire to help artists tell their stories and realize their respective visions. With a background in music technology, he is a natural connector and weaves both technical and industry knowledge with empathy to amplify and solidify the talent that inspires him. His approach with everyone he chooses to work with is, well, heartfelt.

HEARTFELT MANAGEMENT represents the following artists: Viktor Orri Árnason, Donata, Simon Goff and Benyayer.

Antonio Cárdenas studied physics at the Universidad de los Andes in Mérida, Venezuela, specialising in particle physics with a project done at Paris 11 and CERN. He holds a master degree in Acoustics, Signal Processing and Informatics Applied to Music (ATIAM) from IRCAM and Paris 6. He has worked at ABLETON and NATIVE INSTRUMENTS, and in different projects with artists like Peaches, Jean-Michel Jarre, Max Richter and Austra, among many others.

Antonio has been a Reeperbahn Festival Delegate (2018, 2019, 2020), Berlin Music Ambassador (2022, 2023), and German Music Export Delegate (2023, 2024).

HEARTFELT MANAGEMENT is a member of the BERLIN MUSIC COMISSION (BMC).

Mara Deuschle

Global Sync Manager

Mara Deuschle is the Global Sync Manager for APL Publishing, where she represents the Nordic music publisher's catalogue for all types of visual media on an international level, working closely with broadcasters such as ZDF, SRF and the BBC, ad agencies and production companies. She also applies this knowledge in her role at AIMS, helping the AI music search expand its global reach using her expertise and industry connections.

Based in Copenhagen, Mara has been active in the music industry for over a decade. She started as a concert promoter and artist manager all over Switzerland before shifting her focus to music licensing in 2021 after her bachelor's in St. Gallen and master’s in Management of Creative Industries at Copenhagen Business School.

Valerie Dobbelaere

Publicist, composers agent

Anita Elsani

Film producer

In 2003, Anita Elsani founded the Cologne-based production company elsani film and has since successfully produced national and international film and TV productions. Since 1994, Elsani has worked for various production companies and built up the Cologne headquarters of Wüste Film West, for which she was involved in projects such as "Head-On" and "Solino." In the early 2000s, she participated in the UCLA Producers Program and the IFS International Producing Workshop. Elsani film's first feature film, "VIVERE," screened at the Tribeca Film Festival. This was followed by "Eleanor & Colette" (directed by Bille August) with Helena Bonham Carter and Hilary Swank (world sales: Sony), "Luana's Oath" (Warsaw IFF, German Screenplay Award - Nominated) and the feature film "Operation Napoleon," produced jointly with Splendid Entertainment and starring Iain Glen, among others.In 2025, "American Sweatshop," starring Lili Reinhart, celebrated its world premiere at the SXSW Festival in Austin.The German premiere will follow in May 2025 in the CineCoPro competition at the Munich Film Festival.

Claudia Fabbi

Music Supervisor

Born in 1998, Claudia Fabbi works as a music supervisor for the label and music publisher FM Records. A graduate in Communication and Marketing from Sapienza University of Rome, she developed a passion for music supervision while writing her master’s thesis on music selection processes in TV series. After eight months of experience in the music department at the movie production company FANDANGO, she joined the FM Records team in 2024 as a music supervisor and A&R for production music. In her role, she is responsible for scouting new composers and writers for in-house projects, coordinating international music productions, supporting soundtrack publishing activities, selecting music for creative briefs across film, television, and advertising, handling music clearance for specific projects, managing licensing and digital communication.

Milena Fessmann

Music Supervisor, Radio host, Producer, DJ

Since 1991, Milena Fessmann has worked as a full-time DJ (2001-2014 Radio Eins After Work Lounge, Trompete/Berlin, European Film Awards 2015 etc.) and has worked for various radio stations. Since 1997 she works for Radio Eins/RBB with her own weekly show called "Free Falling".

In 1989 she founded CINESONG and has been working as a music supervisor on more than 500 films and series.

She is moderator of several national events and panels such as the "Cartoon Movie Award"/Postdam 2002-2008, Reeperbahn-Festival 2014-23, c/o pop Cologne 2014-2024 and many more. Milena Fessmann teaches music supervising and copyright clearing at film schools such as DFFB Berlin and is advisory board member of the World Soundtrack Academy and Member of the European Filmacademy.

She founded a film production company called Sugar Town Filmproduction Gmbh & Co.kg in 2011. Its first project was "The Potential of Noise- Conny Plank" by Stephan Plank and Reto Caduff. Fessmann is executive-producer of "When Hitler stole Pink Rabbit", directed by award-winning director Caroline Link, and is co-producer of “Prince of swans”, as well as a few more.
Her newest documentary project “Just do it- She-punks from 1977 until now” about female punk and the new wave in german speaking territory from 1979-89 is currently in pre-production.

Magdalena Frau

Film producer

Magdalena Frau is an Italian media professional who grew up in Germany. Her degree in Applied Cultural Studies at the University of Lüneburg, along with an internship at the Italian broadcaster RAI, paved the way for her career in the German television industry. She has worked for RTL2, MME and SAT.1, amongst others – in editorial, programme acquisition and international co-productions, as well as a reporter and film journalist. She later took over as head of the Berlin studio at S&L Medienproduktion.

Following further training as a dramaturg and script editor, she joined Producers at Work Film in Berlin as a producer in 2020. There, she oversees fictional projects from development through to broadcast, including the series *Wir sind jetzt* (season 3), the series *Nächste Ausfahrt Glück* (seasons 1–6), *Die geschenkte Familie* and *Der Club der starken Frauen*.

Since 2018, she has been volunteering with WIFT Germany, serving as a board member from 2020 to 2025. She is particularly committed to networking, visibility and the advancement of women in the film and media industry.

Marco Gilles

Film Producer

Marco Gilles is a German producer specialising in fiction for cinema and television. His focus lies in developing narrative formats that combine emotional resonance, artistic precision and wide audience accessibility – from auteur-driven cinema to distinctive serial storytelling.

At the Cologne-based production company eitelsonnenschein, Gilles is responsible for the development and production of feature films and series. Recent credits include REMBETIS (dir. Sophie Averkamp, ZDFneo), AUFGEPUTSCHT! and LEBENSLÄNGLICH ERLEMANN (RTL+), as well as HYPE (dir. Esra & Patrick Phul, ARD Mediathek) and CLUB DER DINOSAURIER (ZDFneo). He also produced the feature film DER PFAU (THE PEACOCK), based on Isabel Bogdan’s bestselling novel, and the hybrid television feature ANDERE ELTERN – 1. KLASSE (OTHER PARENTS – 1st Grade) for ZDF.

Among his serial productions are two seasons of ANDERE ELTERN (OTHER PARENTS, Warner TV), the award-winning mockumentary DRINNEN – IM INTERNET SIND ALLE GLEICH (ZDFneo), the science-driven infotainment format WORLD OF WOLFRAM (funk), and the WDR series ENDLICH DEUTSCH! – all directed by Lutz Heineking jr., with whom Gilles maintains a long-standing creative collaboration.

His current children’s feature film JUKLI is now in production in Germany and France, co-produced with Saarländischer Rundfunk and Bayerischer Rundfunk, with OneGate Media handling world sales and Little Dream Pictures releasing the film theatrically in Germany.

In cinema, Gilles co-produced the psychological thriller ZAZY (dir. M.X. Oberg) with MMC Movies, in partnership with WDR (Andrea Hanke) and RBB (Cooky Ziesche), starring Ruby O. Fee.

An early career highlight was the two-part television drama GO WEST – FREIHEIT UM JEDEN PREIS (dir. Andreas Linke, written by Matthias Pacht), developed in collaboration with teamWorx and produced for ProSieben. The project received a nomination for the German Television Award in the category Best Mini-Series.

Gilles was also involved in the acclaimed Hungarian feature film BIBLIOTHEQUE PASCAL, written and directed by Szabolcs Hajdu, which won the Grand Prix Golden Reel, Hungary’s most prestigious film award. The film premiered internationally at the Berlinale’s International Forum of New Cinema and was Hungary’s official submission for the Academy Awards in the category Best Foreign Language Film.

As an external producer for MMC Movies, the production arm of the Cologne-based MMC studio group, Gilles has contributed to a number of international co-productions. Among them is CHÉRI, directed by Stephen Frears, written by Christopher Hampton, and starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Rupert Friend, which celebrated its world premiere in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Marco Gilles is a member of the European Film Academy and teaches international co-production practices as a guest lecturer at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg.

Sonia Gonzalez

Film director

Born in Toulouse in 1980, Sonia Gonzalez lives in Bordeaux. Between various stays of varying lengths in Paris, following her studies in German and French-English journalism, she spent several years abroad: Trier, Bristol, Berlin, and New York. There, she participated for a year in a documentary arts residency based in Brooklyn, Union Docs, and directed her first short film, Desperately Seeking Stagg Girls, a highly subjective investigation in the South Williamsburg neighborhood, following the imagined trail of a girl gang active in the 1980s.

Passionate about feminist issues and alternative cultures, she co-wrote the film Princesses, Pop Stars, and Girl Power (directed by Cécile Denjean, ARTE) and directed a documentary on the feminist punk movement Riot Grrrl, Riot Grrrl: When Girls Took Power (ARTE). She also directed a web series on the role of girls in video games, Les filles aux Manettes (Arte Creative). In 2022, her film Des femmes face aux missiles traces the history of the all-female Greenham Common Peace Camp in Thatcher’s England. Selected for several festivals (FIPADOC, Femmes en résistance) and broadcast in France (ARTE), Switzerland, Belgium, and Japan, it notably won the Terre(s) d’Histoire Award at Figra 2022 and the Special History Award at the Luchon TV Festival in 2023.

In 2024, she co-directed with Christine Tournadre International Adoption: A Global Scandal, which aired in France (ARTE), Switzerland, and Belgium—an investigative documentary exposing the systemic nature of fraud in international adoption.
In her latest film, Il suffit d’écouter les femmes (FRANCE 5), produced by the INA as part of a major archival project on clandestine abortion, she gives a voice to women who had abortions before the Veil Law. The film won the Autrement Vu Award at Figra 2026.
Returning to the realm of music documentaries, she has just directed Kate Bush, a timeless genius for ARTE.

Martin Häne

Music Producer

Martin Häne is a publisher of currently 8 different music production labels for both major distributors as well as independents.

Before becoming a music publisher, Häne worked for 10+ years as composer for both production music as well as bespoke music.

His credits as a composer include "Fack ju Göhte 2", "Melrose Place", "Bring it on" (Universal), various Lion's Gate Films (Warrior, Frankenhood) as well as Commercials and TV Series on networks such as ABC, NBC, CW TV, among others.

As a Publisher, his mission is simple: To create Production Music with character, and helping media creators to tell their story.

You may find out more here: www.martytone.com

Irene Höfer

Film producer

Höfer is a producer of successful film portraits, including those of Michael Caine, Nan Goldin, Emma Thompson, Paul Auster, and Siri Hustvedt. As managing director of Medea Film Factory, she develops documentary, fictional, and serial projects using innovative narrative and cross-media storytelling forms. Irene Höfer is a member of the German, Austrian, and European Film Academies, chair of AG DOK, and a member of PROG. In 2026, she was awarded the German Film Prize (LOLA) for Best Documentary Film.

Medea Film Factory produces national and international film and TV productions. Current projects include Siri Hustvedt - Dance Around the Self (directed by Sabine Lidl, Berlinale 2026), Henry Fonda for President (directed by Alexander Horwath, Berlinale 2024, Special Jury Prize at BAFICI, Diagonale Editing Award 2025), the VR production ROAMance (directed by Ibrahim Quraishi & Stanislaw Liguzinski), and the feature film Reif (directed by Paula Romy Riemann).

Other productions include Rebellinnen – Fotografie Underground Ddr (RBB/ARTE), America – Land of The Freeks (Berlinale Special 2018), the multi-award-winning documentary Endstation Bataclan – From Bus Driver To Attacker, and the artist portrait Nan Goldin – I Remember Your Face, which has been shown at festivals including CPH:DOX, the Zurich Film Festival, Art Basel Miami, and the Festival of German Films New York.

Andrea Lässig

Music Supervisor, Musician

Andrea Lässig has studied music tuition and french horn in Munich, followed by music journalism at the National Academy for Music and Theater.

She has been working in music consulting at Bayerischer Rundfunk for 14 years and has been part of the Sync & Licensing team at SONOTON Music - the world’s largest independent production music library - since November 2025.

Catherine Lieser

Managing director of bvft

Catherine Lieser is the managing director of the German Association for Filmsound Professionals (Berufsvereinigung Filmton e. V, bvft) that is representing the interests of Filmsound Professionel towards clients and politics.

She studied at the University of Television and Film and is a member of the board of Women in Film and Television.

Jonas List-Lenzhölzer

Musician, Repertoire Manager

Jonas List-Lenzhölzer is a German musician and Repertoire Manager at the production music company MUSIC SCULPTOR.

He studied Musicology and Sound Studies at the Universities of Bonn and Cologne. After gaining his first experience with production music while working in music cataloging at Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), he joined Music Sculptor nearly five years ago.

What he enjoys most about his work is the creative collaboration with composers.

Sebastian Parche

Composer, co-ceo of MUSIC SCULPTOR

Sebastian Parche is a German composer with a passion for creating captivating music that enhances storytelling. He studied "Composing for Film and Theatre" at the ArtEZ University of Arts in Arnhem, Netherlands.

Quickly, he discovered the joy of composing for nature documentaries and recording orchestras, which has significantly shaped his artistic path.

In 2015, he expanded his horizons by entering the world of production music.

Sebastian is co-founder and co-ceo of the production music company MUSIC SCULPTOR. With years of experiences in the media industry, the logical consequence was to build up a music catalogue for storytellers, including repertoire of renowned authors worldwide.

Charlotte Rolfes

Film director

Charlotte Rolfes was born feet first in Witten-Herdecke in April 1987. She studied directing at the International Film School Cologne from 2008 to 2012 and at the Hamburg Media School from 2014 to 2016.

Her short films have been screened at festivals worldwide, including the Max-Ophüls Festival, the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival, the Short Film Tiger of the Cannes Film Festival, as well as at the Hofer Filmtage.

Since 2017 she has been working as a director. She has been a mentee at Into The Wild, a mentoring programme for young female filmmakers, and is particularly interested in non-conformist female characters, subtle humour, and a look behind the facade. The six-part ARD series WER WIR SIND celebrated great success in the press and with viewers in the autumn of 2023. Charlotte Rolfes' Tatort: Pyramide premiered at the Filmfest Cologne and was broadcast in early 2024. Her Tatort Köln - Colonius had premiere at the Film Festival Cologne on October 20, 2024. At the moment she is working on the Netflix series: Liebe und Chaos.

Charlotte Stricker

Music supervisor

Charlotte Stricker has worked throughout different aspects of the music industry, with a detour through book publishing, always keeping interest in music in moving media and music rights. Working as rights manager at CNR Music & Overamstel Uitgevers she later became Head of Sync at CTM Publishing, where she was responsible for the exploitation of their commercial and production music catalogue, through moving media.

In the beginning of 2024, she joined the Bell Music Supervision team as music supervisor for films and series, she has worked on different projects such as Joe Speedboot, Treat Her Like A Lady, Onze Jongens 3, Bad Boa’s, Boomers and series (all seasons of) Haantjes (Roosters), Voetbalouders (Football Parents) and Bodem (Messed Up).

Andreas Suttner

Cellist, music manager, music consultant for TV, founder of music label Klangidee

Andreas Suttner has studied Violoncello and music tuition and has been awarded as a cellist at several well-known contests. After completing his MA in Arts Management at City University of London he has turned his attention to music management.

From 2004 he is also working as a music consultant for the film department of Bavarian Television.

In 2007 Andreas Suttner founded the production music label KLANGIDEE and since then is focusing on his work as a composer and producer for filmmusic in TV, radio and web.

Nina Tanneberger

Film producer

After studying theater, film, and television studies, Romance languages, and psychology, Nina initially worked for over 10 years as a dramaturg and director in theater, including at the Stadttheater Nordhausen, the Volksbühne Berlin, the Schauspiel Bonn, and Berlin’s independent theater scene.

Beginning in 2003, she began to focus more on developing film projects. After stints at ZDF, TEAMWORX/UFA, the DFFB, and a casting and acting agency, Nina joined NETWORK MOVIE Film & TV Production Hamburg in 2004. There, as a producer, she developed and produced numerous series, miniseries, and TV movies for ZDF. In 2021, she also began working as a producer for STUDIO ZENTRAL BERLIN. Her more recent works include, for example, the sitcom Jugend by Stefan Stuckmann for ZDFneo, and the con artist comedy Fang mich doch! by Elke Rössler (screenplay) and Ester Amrami (director), which premiered at the Hamburg Film Festival in 2025.

She is currently working on, among other projects, another TV movie of the week by Elke Rössler and Carolin Würfel (screenplay), directed by Janin Halisch. Nina lives in the Bergisches Land region near Cologne and has a 17-year-old son.

Sophie Urquhart

Creative Director

Sophie founded Tin Drum Music in October 2011 following a previous 8 years experience in music supervision. Starting out as Creative Director of Huge Music in 2003, an in house music consultancy for WCRS/ Engine, Sophie supervised countless high profile advertising campaigns including Sky, BMW and 3 Mobile.

Sophie then joined Chrysalis Music as Creative Director of synchronisation and subsequently joined Spirit Music Group as Senior Director of Creative Services.

Tin Drum Music is an independent, full-service music consultancy specialising in creative search, negotiation and licensing across all media. They have sourced and licensed commercial music and bespoke composition for a number of award winning advertising campaigns including E.ON + Gorillaz; A Solar Collaboration, the coveted 2020 Amazon Christmas campaign ‘The Show Must Go On’ directed by Melina Matsoukas and ‘Just For The Taste Of It’ with Grammy award winning artist Thundercat.

Feature films include Stone Roses: Made Of Stone (Shane Meadows), Backstreet Boys ‘Show ‘Em What You’re Made Of’ (Stephen Kijak) and Get Duked! (Ninian Doff). Their latest feature ‘Last Swim’ (Sasha Nathwani) had it’s world premiere at Berlinale Film Festival in February 2024 and it won the coveted Crystal Bear Award for Best Film.

Tin Drum have also supervised two TV series, the multi award winning Lost Boys & Fairies which aired on BBC1 and Dreamers for Channel 4 (Duck Soup Films).

James Varghese

Music supervisor and music consultant at Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF)

After completing his MA in Jazz studies at the Zurich school of fine arts (ZHdK) James Varghese toured in various bands and projects through Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Italy, United Kingdom, Israel, China, India and Japan. He also produced different artists of various genres anywhere between pop, jazz, experimental and electronic.

In 2018 he founded Quiet Love Records with an adjacent publishing edition and has released artists with international acclaim such as Rosa Anschütz, Robot Koch and Egopusher among others.

Since 2023 James Varghese is part of the music supervision team at the Swiss national radio and television corporation SRF, consulting and curating all things music for various formats on radio, TV and online.

Linda Verweyen

Film director

Linda Verweyen is a director of docu-fictional films, specializing in social change processes driven by art. She developed the production concept of “Participatory Docufiction,” through which she raises questions as who tells the stories about marginalized communities in the film industry. Through this format, she actively facilitates the political and artistic participation of stigmatized individuals within a professional cinematic framework. She received filmawards internationally for her short films Jonna & Louis and Halima – How to Stay Strong.

Sarah Winkenstette

Film director, journalist

Sarah Winkenstette, born in 1980, studied directing at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne and had previously completed training in journalism. She wrote her thesis on "Directing Children in Film." She was also a participant in the first cohort of "Into the Wild"—an initiative for young female filmmakers.

Her second feature film, Greetings from Mars, about a boy on the autism spectrum, screened at over 80 international festivals and won numerous awards, including the 2026 Grimme Prize. Her first feature film, Too Far Away, which was released in theaters in March 2020, three days before the first COVID-19 lockdown, enjoyed a similarly successful festival run.

In addition to feature films for children and families, Sarah Winkenstette has already directed several commissioned TV productions, including both crime dramas and comedies.

Filmografie

Behringer and the Dead – Rivus | TV-Reihe | Redseven Entertainment | RTL | 2025
Behringer and the Dead – Schatzraub | TV-Reihe | Redseven Entertainment | RTL | 2025
Friesland – Geisterstunde | TV-Reihe | Warner Bros. | ZDF | 2024
Friesland – Schiffe schrotten | TV-Reihe | Warner Bros. | ZDF | 2024
Greetings from Mars | Kinofilm | Leitwolf Filmproduktion | 2024
Rückkehr nach Rimini | TV-Film | Lieblingsfilm | ARD Degeto | 2021
Großstadtrevier | Serie | Letterbox | ARD | 2021 + 2022
Soko Köln | Serie | Network Movie | ZDF | 2020
Ein Sommer an der Moldau | TV-Film | Schiwago Film | ZDF | 2019
Too Far Away | Kinofilm | Weydemann Bros. | 2019
Schloss Einstein | Serie | Saxonia Media | MDR | 2019
Willkommen bei Familie Clown | Slapstik-Serie ohne Worte | Lieblingsfilm | 2019