What are the main tools of a producer? This lecture gives an overview of the financial management tools every producer needs to successfully make a film.
Vanja Jambrović is a renowned producer (Fiume o Morte!, Srbenka), a faculty member at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb, and a frequent guest lecturer and mentor at international documentary workshops. Jambrovič will explain the key elements of project financial management: budget, financing plan, cash-flow plan, and recoupment plan. Drawing on her longstanding experience in international co-production, she will present examples and discuss how to negotiate with co-producers and the essential negotiating points. The audience will gain practical insights into managing documentary productions and a clearer understanding of how complex creative projects are financed and run.
Vanja Jambrović graduated in comparative literature and philosophy at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb and in production at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb. As a producer and co-producer, she stands behind many documentaries and hybrid films produced in the framework of the production company Restart.
Her feature documentary Fiume o Morte! by Igor Bezinović premiered in the Tiger Competition at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2025, where it won both the Tiger Award and the FIPRESCI Prize, and in 2026 won the European Film Award for European Documentary, becoming the first-ever Croatian documentary Oscar candidate and going on to become the most-watched Croatian documentary since the 1990s. The films produced by Vanja have won over 150 awards at international film festivals.
Nebojša Slijepčević’s Srbenka (2018) won twenty-three awards at film festivals, including the Doc Alliance Award from the Association of European Documentary Festivals. Her films won the Heart of Sarajevo for best documentary three times (Valerija 2024, Museum of the Revolution 2022, and Srbenka 2018).
Vanja’s projects were funded by many international institutions and funds, including the Sundance Institute (for Srdjan Keca's MuseumoftheRevolution in 2021).
She has been teaching at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb, and she has been involved as a guest lecturer and mentor at international documentary workshops, Documentary Campus Masterschool, Eurodoc, Ex Oriente, BDC Discoveries, and Circle Women Doc Accelerator.
