Mentors

Luka Dakskobler,

photography mentor

Luka Dakskobler is a documentary photographer and photojournalist. He cooperated with many respected magazines and photo agencies (the Guardian, National Geographic, Xinhua, Polaris), covering various topics (culture, entertainment) turning his focus to social issues, human rights and environmental issues.

Nino Bektashashvili,

photography mentor assistant

Manca Juvan,

photography mentor

Manca Juvan has graduated in photography and is an internationally renowned photographer. She is working as an independent photographer since 2000. Juvan was Photographer of the Year in Slovenia for her reportage work in 2006, 2007 and 2008. She’s been twice commended – in 2005 and 2006 – for her work on Afghanistan by the Slovenian Association of Journalists and a Magnum Foundation Photography and Social Justice Program Fellow in 2011, as well as grantee and contributor to What Works projects in 2012 and 2016. In 2010 she published her first photo-book "Afghanistan: Unordinary Lives" at Sanje publishing house and in 2016 at ZRC Publishing (publishing house of the Research Center of Slovene Academy of Sciences and Arts) another book on the Fascist Internations of Slovenians with the tittle "Guardians of the Spoon". Manca Juvan has published in international publications such are The Guardian, The Times, National Geographic and others. She exhibited in Slovene and foreign galleries in New York, Brussels, Luxemburg, France Iran; she had a solo exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana. Currently she is teaching at the photography department of the High School of Desing and Photography in Ljubljana (SŠOF Ljubljana). For more information visit her page www.mancajuvan.com.

Romana Zajec,

video production mentor

Nino Bektashashvili is very talented Georgian photographer living in Slovenia. She will support the creative process of photography workshops as mentor assistant.

Romana has been working as a radio journalist, video-journalist, documentary filmmaker, scriptwriter and producer of a diverse range of socially engaged exhibitions, films and events. Social themes are the primary focus of her work.
As a programme director, she focuses her work on art and creative practices with positive social impact, to the content development of the Institute, and partnership-building. She develops multimedia educational programs, trainings for youth and work with artists on socially engaged art production.
In 2016 and 2017 she brought Frame Photo Maraton to Slovenia, joining an international network of photo marathon organisers bridging South and North Mediterranean countries. She is experienced in various programs (national and European calls, Erasmus+ projects, AMIF). She was participant and later coordinator of international training initiative for media professionals ESoDoc – European Social Documentary in Slovenia, supported by Creative Europe´s sub-program MEDIA.

Ana Fratnik,

editing mentor

Ali R. Taha,

mobile videography and audio production mentor

She fell in love with video through music, creating her first short videos for Slovene and foreign music groups (Moveknowledgement, Lucky Youth, Golem, Manouche). During her studies, she visited numerous film and video workshops in Slovenia and abroad, and participated as an organizer, mentor and video-maker within the framework of the APIS Institute. Her path continued in television production, where she worked as an editor, content creator and video-editor (Shijaj, Riba na Oko, Ljubezen na Seniku, Paradise Hotel, Our Generation, God forbid to be a TV !, My mother cooks better !, Fate wine). All the years of work on the field of television brought her great experience and made her realize that the projects whose content has an impact on the wider social context, fulfill her the most. In the frame of project Multivizija, implemented by Zavod APIS, she works as a mentor for video-editing within the audiovisual module.

Ali came to Slovenia to study audio engineering and music production. After he finished his studies at SAE Institute he got interested in videomaking. He started discovering the world of cameras and video production, started making video content, and is now focusing on mobile videomaking.

He joined APIS Institute in 2018 as a multimedia technician intern. He works in the field of audio engineering, sounds design, audio and video post-production. He is also developing educational programs on audio production, and workshops on mobile film making.

Samar Zughool,

theatre of oppressed mentor

Iryna Stanković,

dance mentor

Samar is coming from Jordan and she lives in Slovenia more than 5 years. She graduated with Bachelor degree from the University of Jordan, French language and its literature and did her master at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana. She is and experienced non-formal educator and she works with many different vulnerable groups. At here work she use different techniques for empowering and social inclusion.

Samar is a preformative artist and a non-formal educator, she develops and implements non-formal educational tools that are based on dance and movement therapy for inclusion and capacity building. Her work and performances are based on preformative dance and movements. Like “Barzakh” performance that tackles the different aspects of our inner image beyond social expectations, stereotypes and prejudices. She preforms in socio-political events, where she uses dance and movement for Artivisim/activism with art.

Iryna started her dance life in competitive dance already when she was young. Afterwards she has finished high school of character dance and worked as dancer in dance and music group of Ministry of internal affairs in Kiev, in Ukraine. After her studies of culturally artistic creativeness, she led dance school for children in Ukraine. In Slovenia she was leading dance courses for adults in Dance school Urška for many years. She lectures history of dance at Academy for dance. Currently she is finishing her master's degree Help with arts at Faculty of Education in Ljubljana. She believes that dance should include all.

Barbara Šamperl,

dance mentor assistant

Anna Zuykova,

theatre of improvisation mentor

Barbara is former multiple state champion in sport para dance (ballroom and Latin-American dances). She has dance in her soul, nowadays her passion is yoga and she hopes in future yoga will be more accessible also for people with disabilities. Humans/people are her inspiration and laughter is her energy.

Anna was born in Moscow, where she studied sociology, psychology, psychotherapy (Transactional Analysis) and acting (Experiential actor’s studio for adults AKTEM; The Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute). She lives in Slovenia for 6 years. Here she also studied acting improvisation (Iglu Improv Theatre) and performs with the Improv group Improholics.