CTAA Mriia Mentors ← Back to CTAA
Free Mentorship Program · Barcelona & Online

Mriia
Mentors

A free mentorship initiative connecting Ukrainian film and theatre artists with working international professionals — actors, directors, casting professionals, and producers from the US, UK, Spain, Germany and beyond.

Two Tracks
🎭
For Actors
Acting · Casting · Markets · Career
🎬
International Filmmakers
Production Mentorship · Pitching · Development

"The people who can change the direction of your career are often outside your current circle. This program exists to close that gap."

Real conversations.
Real people. Real careers.

Ukrainian creative talent is serious, trained, and hungry for international work. What's often missing isn't ability — it's access. Access to the people who can explain how markets actually work, what casting directors really look for, how to walk into a room in Berlin or London or Los Angeles and be taken seriously.

Mriia Mentors exists to close that gap. Not with theory, not with generic advice — but with live sessions where Ukrainian actors, directors, and filmmakers sit down with working professionals and ask the questions that actually matter to their career right now.

Every session is free. Every recording is shared with all program members.


Choose your path

🎭

For Actors

Acting · Casting · Market Strategy

Live Q&A sessions with international actors, casting professionals, and directors. Each guest comes from a specific market and shares what they know from the inside — how casting works there, what a competitive showreel looks like, how to get on the radar of the right people.

  • Self-tape technique and setup
  • Showreel building for international markets
  • Platform strategy (Filmmakers.de, Spotlight, IMDB Pro)
  • Agent outreach and representation paths
  • Audition culture across different markets
  • Mindset and sustaining a long career
🎬

International Filmmakers

Production Mentorship · Pitching · Development

Sessions for directors and filmmakers who want to bring their projects to international markets. Guests from production companies and development teams share honest insight into how projects get selected and what makes a pitch land.

  • Pitch deck structure and presentation
  • How producers and development executives read projects
  • What the international market is buying right now
  • Approaching production companies cold
  • Co-production opportunities and funding paths
  • Getting Ukrainian stories to international screens

The industry runs on relationships

The people who can change the direction of your career are often outside your current circle — in a different city, working in a different language, inside an industry you haven't had a way into yet.

💬

Direct access to working professionals

Not a course, not a recorded lecture. A live conversation where you can ask the question that's actually relevant to your career right now.

🌍

Expand beyond your local scene

Every session puts you in the same room as someone who has built the kind of career you're working towards — across different markets and different perspectives.

🔑

Learn how other markets actually work

What casting directors in Germany expect. How a UK development executive reads a pitch. Knowledge that's genuinely hard to find unless you know someone on the inside.

👁

Become visible

Showing up, asking good questions, being present — that's how people start to know you exist. The ones who move internationally are often the ones who found themselves in the right conversation at the right time.

Who we've had
in the room

Daniel Chamorro
Daniel Chamorro
Actor & Director · Spain

Started directing his own short films because nobody would cast him. Used festival prize money to fund the next film, then the next — building 175 awards and 700+ selections before his first professional acting role. Now one of Spain's most versatile screen actors.

  • Netflix Criminal — Spain's first Netflix original series
  • El Buen Patrón — with Javier Bardem
  • La Boda — lead role, 40 cinema screens
For Actors
Jörg Vicent Malotki
Jörg Vicent Malotki
Actor · Germany

30+ years navigating the German film industry, first from behind the camera then in front of it. Trained at HB Studio in New York when German state schools said he was too old. Creator and lead of The Bee, a 34-episode comedy series.

  • The Bee — 34-episode comedy series (creator & lead)
  • Trained at HB Studio, New York (Uta Hagen technique)
  • Cologne / Berlin — 30+ years in the industry
For Actors
Joshua Bitton
Joshua Bitton
Actor · USA

New York and Los Angeles based actor with an MFA from Rutgers. Has worked across major US drama and prestige television, including a Spielberg/Hanks HBO production and recent work opposite Colin Farrell.

  • The Pacific — HBO (Spielberg / Tom Hanks)
  • The Penguin — with Colin Farrell
  • The Night Of — HBO
For Actors
Simon Kunz
Simon Kunz
Actor · United Kingdom

British actor with deep roots in both stage and screen. Stage credits at the National Theatre and RSC sit alongside a screen career spanning 30 years — from 90s British film classics to recent BBC/Netflix productions.

  • Four Weddings and a Funeral
  • GoldenEye · Captain America
  • The Last Kingdom — BBC / Netflix
For Actors
Musanna Ahmed
Musanna Ahmed
Development · Pure Fiction Television · UK

Works on the development side at Pure Fiction Television, one of the UK's leading independent drama companies. Brings a producer's perspective to the question every filmmaker eventually has to answer: how do you make someone on the other side of a desk say yes?

  • Pure Fiction Television — Rivers of London (in development)
  • Baztan Trilogy adaptation (in development)
  • Previously: Big Talk Productions
Production Mentorship
Lucy Shuttleworth
Lucy Shuttleworth
Screenwriter, Script Editor & Educator · Brighton, UK

Started at Miramax London reading The Usual Suspects. Worked on The Merchant of Venice with Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons and Joseph Fiennes. Wrote and associate produced The Secret of Moonacre (2008). Head of Development at a Brighton production company. Teaches screenwriting at university level.

  • The Secret of Moonacre (2008) — writer & associate producer
  • The Merchant of Venice — Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes
  • Miramax London — script reader & editor
Screenwriting
Barbara Jane Mackie
Barbara Jane Mackie
Screenwriter & Script Editor · BBC · Isle of Wight, UK

Devised Dangerfield, script edited Dalziel & Pascoe (up to 10 million viewers), and developed Cowboy Girls with Anthony Minghella. Started her career managing Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson's early shows. One of British television's most experienced screenwriting voices, with four feature screenplays and two musicals in development.

  • Dangerfield — BBC One (series creator & script editor)
  • Dalziel & Pascoe — BBC (script editor, 10M+ viewers)
  • Cowboy Girls — developed with Anthony Minghella / Mirage Enterprises
Screenwriting
Emma Millions
Emma Millions
Writer, Development Producer & Educator · UK

Over 30 years in UK film and television as writer, development producer and screenwriting educator. BBC One factual producer. Teaches at the London Screenwriters Festival, Met Film School and John Yorke Story. Multi-genre career spanning kids' TV, drama and factual.

  • BBC One — factual producer
  • London Screenwriters Festival — educator
  • Met Film School & John Yorke Story — screenwriting tutor
Development & Pitching
Sasha Syzonenko
Sasha Syzonenko
Actress · Ukraine → UK · London

Left Ukraine the week before the full-scale invasion, arrived in the UK with no contacts, emailed 300 agents on day two, and signed with one of Britain's top agencies. Performed at the National Theatre under Stephen Daldry — playing seven roles and covering a lead opposite Juliet Stevenson.

  • The Land of the Living — National Theatre (dir. Stephen Daldry)
  • Donbas — Theatre503 (cast by Chandra Reck)
  • Represented by the agency of Benedict Cumberbatch & Helena Bonham Carter
For Actors

Simple by design

01

Apply once

One application gives you access to all sessions — past, present, and future.

02

Join live

Sessions run online, roughly 90 minutes. Ask questions directly in the room.

03

Access recordings

Every session is recorded and shared. Miss the live event — watch it when you can.

04

No cost

The program is entirely free for participants. Always has been.


If this sounds like you,
you're in the right place

🎭

Actors at any stage

Serious about working internationally. Willing to do the work. Not necessarily experienced yet — just committed.

🎬

Filmmakers with projects

Directors and writers who want to bring their work to international markets and need a clearer picture of how to get there.

🎪

Theatre artists moving to screen

Stage performers building the tools for screen — self-tape, showreel, the different demands of the camera versus the audience.

Ready to join?

Apply once and get access to all sessions, all recordings, and the program community. Free, always.