Meet The FACTory Assessment Committee & Mentors

With submissions officially open for The FACTory, it’s time to meet the experts tasked with assessing projects for final selection and for pitch training the successful teams.

FACTory Assessment Committee

Robert Y Chang
Co-Producer POV, American Documentary | POV (USA)

Robert Y. Chang is the Co-Producer of POV. He serves as juror, screener, programmer, panelist, and reviewer for a range of film festivals, foundations, and funders of the arts. Robert received his PhD in Cultural Anthropology with research on the intersection of religion and media. As a filmmaker, Robert’s work has screened worldwide and is distributed by Documentary Educational Resources (DER). He is a member of the PGA, the Television Academy, and NLGJA.

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Pamela Martínez
CEO / Sales & Acquisitions, Limonero Films BCN SL (Spain)

Pamela launched Limonero Films in 2016, with the intention to work on projects she feels passionate about, with people she likes. She has degrees in Art History and Journalism, and a master’s in film history and visual Media from Birkbeck University in London. With more than two decades of experience in media sales, she has forged relationships with all the important players in the industry. She enjoys playing the guitar and singing, circus trapeze, cinema and traveling. Some of her favourite titles in the catalogue are Lovesick, the Inside the Storm series, and Azor Producciones´ wildlife titles.

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Dean Gibson
Co-Founder, Producer, Writer & Director, Allstory Pictures (AUS)

Dean Gibson is a filmmaker with over 20 years of experience in writing, directing, editing, and producing content across children’s television, documentary, and drama. His work regularly screens on ABC, SBS, and NITV. In children’s television, Dean directed the Sesame Street film Five Kangaroos, featuring Jessica Mauboy. His recent work, Tjitji Lullaby  and Marringa Lullaby  for ABC Kids, plays Australian toddlers to sleep each night. He also created and co-directed the series Handball Heroes  for ABC3. In documentary, Dean wrote and directed Incarceration Nation  for NITV/SBS, a feature documentary examining systemic racism in Australia’s justice system. The film won the Logie Award for Most Outstanding Factual or Documentary Program (2021–22) and was a finalist for the 2022 Walkley Awards and ATOM Best Feature Documentary. He also wrote and directed Wik vs Queensland, which premiered at the 2018 Sydney Film Festival. Dean directed the six-part science documentary series First Weapons  (ABC, Blackfella Films, Inkey Media) in 2023. He is currently in production for End Game with Tony Armstrong  (ABC, Smashing Films, Barking Mad Productions and Bacon Factory Films) a three-part documentary series for ABC tackling racism in Australian sport, set for release in October 2025. Alongside producer Helen Morrison, Dean is a recipient of Screen Queensland’s Business Enterprise Program and co-founder of Allstory Pictures Pty Ltd, a new production company. Beyond the screen industry, Dean serves on the Board of the Brisbane Lions Football Club and is the Chair of Queensland Theatre.

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Mita Suri
Film Programme Manager, Sheffield DocFest (UK)

Mita supervises the delivery of the Film Programme for Sheffield DocFest. Sheffield DocFest is the UK’s leading documentary festival and one of the world’s most influential markets for documentary projects. She produces the annual Youth Jury programme, is responsible for the external contacts including filmmakers, national film institutes and distributors, managing the submissions process and coordinating DocFest’s year-round screenings and creative programmes outside of the festival.

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Michael Hilliard
Executive Producer, Boardwalk Pictures Australia (AUS)

As Executive Producer at Boardwalk Pictures Australia, in addition to overseeing all Australian projects, Hilliard consults and produces on Boardwalk’s global slate of studio content, originals, line production, and brand storytelling.  Focused on authenticity and collaboration, Boardwalk partners with a diverse community of storytellers, creating mainstream entertainment across a variety of genres, including Welcome to Wrexam, Pepsi’s The Show, The Goop Lab, Val, Last Chance U, and Cheer. Best known for the documentary series Chef’s Table and Robert Redford’s Iconoclasts, Michael’s career began on-tour with The Rolling Stones in 1997, capturing live concerts.  Since then, his work with award-winning actors, musicians, artists, and sports figures often features a bit of rock and roll, a human truth, and something unexpected.  Michael is a member of the International and US Television Academy, the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts, and Screen Producers Australia. 

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Julian Etienne
Climate Story Fund Officer, Doc Society (UK)

Julian is a cultural organizer, film programmer and creative producer dedicated to fostering diversity and independence in media and transformative experiences to audiences. At Doc Society, he is the Climate Story Fund Officer where he supports filmmakers throughout their production and impact journeys. Since 2009 he has been involved in exhibition projects showcasing independent cinema in the United States, Mexico and, most recently, Spain. From 2018 to 2020, Julian served as a programmer and later as programming co-director at Ambulante Documentary Film Festival. He currently sits on its Advisory Board. He is a member of DAE and DOCMA.

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FACTory Mentors

Heather Haynes
Independent Consultant (Canada)

Heather Haynes is an accomplished cultural leader, curator, and the former Director of Programming at Hot Docs. Over nearly two decades — in her roles as Director, Associate Director of Festival Programming, and Senior International Programmer — she championed bold storytelling, global perspectives, and an unwavering belief in the power of independent documentary to spark dialogue, inspire change, and deepen our shared humanity.
Deeply committed to the voices behind the camera, Heather has spent her career fostering meaningful relationships with filmmakers, grounded in trust, care, and mutual respect. Her curatorial approach is informed by a passion for thoughtful, socially engaged cinema and a belief in the vital role of documentary in shaping culture and understanding.
With extensive experience across Latin America and a longstanding focus on human rights and inclusion, she has collaborated with filmmakers around the world through pitch forums, juries,  labs and markets. She has served as a recommender for Chicken & Egg Pictures’ (Egg)celerator Lab and has programmed for the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, imagineNATIVE, and aluCine, among others.
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Inka Achté
Head of Acquisition & Strategy, Raina Film Festival Distribution and Artistic Director, DocPoint Helsinki (Finland)

Inka Achté is a Finnish filmmaker and a former documentary sales agent whose career in the field of documentary film spans 20 years.
Alongside directing non-fiction in short, feature and series formats, Achté currently works as the Artistic Director of DocPoint Helsinki
Documentary Film Festival and as Head of Acquisitions at Raina, an agency focusing on all aspects of festival distribution of documentary films
from all over the world. A frequent mentor and lecturer, she has taught at Aalto University in Helsinki, the Norwegian Film School Lillehammer,
Raindance Film Institute in London, EICTV Cuba, and consulted/tutored professionals at numerous professional industry contexts, for example
at IDFA Consultancies, Cannes Docs, Asian Documentary Clinic, Baltic Sea Docs, Astra Film Doc Tank, Sheffield DocFest and Cinedoc Tbilisi.
She is also the founding member of the no-budget film collective Metku, which uses spontaneity and joy as working methods in creating non-
fiction works.

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Grant Keir
Film Consultant, Owner & Producer, Faction North Ltd (Scotland)

Based in Edinburgh, Scotland, Grant Keir has developed and produced more than 25 feature films, feature documentaries, television programmes and hybrid projects through his company, Faction North, with a range of national and international partners. Grant was Head of Studies on the leading international Rough-Cut-to-Industry-Launch Workshop, Dok Incubator, 2018-2020, and is currently a Tutor / Mentor on the ground-breaking Finnish AVEK mentoring programme, ‘Kehittamo’. Award winning international co-productions include the feature length documentaries Off The Rails (Dir Peter Day), The Artist and the Wall of Death (Dir. Maurice O’Brien), and BAFTA Scotland nominated From Scotland with Love (Dir. Virginia Heath).

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Heejung Oh
Founder & Producer, Seesaw Pictures (South Korea)

Heejung Oh grew up in South Korea and now divides her time between Seoul and Amsterdam. She founded Seesaw Pictures in 2017, a production company behind award-winning films. She has (co-)produced films that premiered at prestigious festivals such as Sundance, Berlinale, Locarno, IDFA, IFFR, Busan, among others. She loves working with filmmakers with strong artistic visions and sensitivity. She is an alumna of EAVE, Eurodoc, Berlinale Talents, Rotterdam Lab, and has served on the selection committees of IDFA Bertha Fund, Purin Pictures Fund, and many more. She is part of EAVE’S Racial Equity Advisory Group and #DocSafe initiative.

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