About
Counterpoints Productions exists to shift narratives.
We champion stories by and about migrants, refugees and displaced people – working with filmmakers to create powerful cinema that moves audiences, challenges perceptions, and drives cultural and systemic change.
We seek to develop ethical frameworks that influence the wider film industries through championing Protocols of Care and better representation at every stage of the filmmaking process.
We support the sector through screenings, networking and learning events, building an ecosystem that supports organisations and creatives. Our noteable collaborators include BAFTA, Netflix, Apple and Channel 4.
We are committed to environmental sustainability and accessibility in all our work.
Counterpoints Productions is part of Counterpoints Arts, a leading international organisation in the field of arts, migration and cultural change.
Our Team
Almir Koldzic
Almir Koldzic is Creative Director of Counterpoints Productions, where he focuses on developing creative ideas, strategies, and partnerships with filmmakers, funders, and production companies.
Creative Director-
He has co-initiated the Climate Spring Development Fund and consultancy programme for people with lived experience of displacement (including work for Netflix), and has supported a range of feature and documentary film projects, including Rest in Kaos and Papers by Hassan Akkad.
Tom Green
Tom works on strategy and partnership development for Counterpoints Productions across the UK and internationally, with a particular focus on distribution and impact. He was part of the founding team of Counterpoints Arts, and previously worked at the Writers' Guild of Great Britain.
Senior Producer
Ornella Mutoni
ProducerOrnella Mutoni is a documentary director, producer, and impact producer at Counterpoints Productions with over 9 years' experience working with award-winning teams in film and TV.
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She produced Counterpoints Productions' debut short documentary Rendered in Light (2025, dir. Maria Marrone), co-produced Allies in Exile (2026, dir. Hasan Kattan) and oversees the production of our commissions from development to distribution.
Her directing film work explores collective healing and the legacy of trauma through intimate storytelling. Her directorial debut, The Things We Don't Say, premiered at Aesthetica Short Film Festival, was selected for the New York African Film Festival, and was distributed by The Guardian. The film also earned her a nomination
for the Gaby Rado Award for New Journalist at the
2025 Amnesty Media Awards. She is currently in development of her first feature film, produced by Counterpoints Productions and Story Compound.
Ornella is also the Pop Culture and Social Change
Producer at Counterpoints Arts, where she advocates for stronger migrant and refugee narratives that centre lived experience voices in the creative process and curates film programmes.
Lara Deffense
ProducerLara Deffense is a producer at Counterpoints Productions, specialising in impact-driven distribution, community engagement and grassroots exhibition models. She is also the Refugee Week UK & Global Coordinator at Counterpoints Arts.
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Lara has produced community-powered film initiatives such as the Refugee Week Free Film Festival which saw over 350 free screenings worldwide, and Our Shared Futures, a new community climate and migration film festival, with
150 UK screenings.
She is a co-producer on Hasan Kattan's short documentary Allies in Exile, awarded Cate Blanchett's inaugural Displacement Film Fund and produced by Orlando von Einsiedel from Grain Media.
Lara's background spans producing and programming large-scale, community-powered festivals, including Refugee Week, Walthamstow Garden Party and Leytonstone Loves Film. She has previously worked with organisations including the Barbican, Tate, Time Out, Kew Gardens, Eden Project and London Borough of Culture 2019 (Waltham Forest).
Across her work, Lara is driven by relationship-led practice, movement-building, collaboration and the power of stories as radical empathy machines
- capable of shifting narratives, building collective agency and responding to urgent social and climate challenges.
Supported by
