To celebrate World Day for Audiovisual Heritage this year, we continue with our successful series of the Jane Mercer Memorial Lecture. We are pleased to have Jane Mercer Researcher of the Year 2024 winner Stephen Maier, and Archive Producer Vanessa Christoffers-Trinks discuss their work on the FOCAL Award-winning documentary 'Stasi FC'.

The relationship between the Archive Producer and the production team is essential. In the webinar, we will hear how Stephen and Vanessa worked closely together to seek out and use remarkably rich archive footage that told the unfolding story of Stasi FC. This gripping documentary recounts how, in the late 1970s, East Germany’s secret service attempted to subvert the country's last remaining oasis of free speech – football, with Berliner FC Dynamo winning ten consecutive league titles.

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Guest Speakers:

Stephen Maier is a freelance archival producer and researcher with over a decade of experience in the documentary film industry. Based in Berlin (Germany) he specializes in the research and clearance of archival footage, photographs, and other archival materials for documentaries and various media projects. As a member of the association GRAP, he is among the few professional archival producers in Germany.

Stephen´s work includes projects for ARD, ZDF, ARTE, Netflix, Amazon, and Sky, as well as feature-length documentaries that have seen theatrical releases.

Stephen studied history, communication sciences, and media management in Berlin and Hamburg. In 2015 he participated in the masterclass "Atelier Ludwigsburg-Paris," a year-long training program for European film producers and distributors across renowned film schools including Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, La Fémis, and the NFTS.

In 2024, Stephen won the FOCAL “Researcher of the Year award” for STASI FC.

Vanessa Christoffers-Trinks is located in Cologne/Germany and has been working as a free-lancing archive researcher/producer in Germany and internationally since 2007. Being a director herself, she can approach a topic from the filmmaker's PoV, while maintaining the necessary distance and keep an eye on costs. She sees herself as an interface between directors and production management. Vanessa is a founding member of the German association of Archive Producers GRAP (founded in 2022). Some of the latest productions, she was involved in are:

Everything will change / 2021 / 93 minutes / Archive Producer
Blix not Bombs / 2023 / 83 minutes / Archive Producer
Stasi FC / 2023 / 87 minutes / Archive Produces
Petra Kelly - Act Now / 109 minutes / Archive Producer

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About Jane Mercer

Jane Mercer was passionate about film research and film archives. Throughout her career she inspired and encouraged new entrants to the profession and was an advocator to ensure production see the merit of good film research and by extension how the relationship between researcher and archive brings the best in archive programming.

Jane was Chair of FOCAL International 2000-2005, during which time she championed professional development and training. She received the FOCAL International Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.

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