Sonja Henrici
Sonja Henrici is co-founder and co-director of SDI Productions Ltd, and Head of Development at Scottish Documentary Institute. She has been part of the core SDI team since the beginning in 2004 and developed SDI with growing success, producing numerous short documentaries including the annual Bridging the Gap series.
She has also published short stories and poetry, and her last screenplay Rewind had its world premiere at Outfest, LA, in 2009. From 1999 to 2003 she worked full time in the administration of Edinburgh International Film Festival. Currently she’s developing a number of features by award-winning Scottish talents. Sonja and Maja met through the production of Ottica Zero, which started the five-year development of FUTURE MY LOVE, Sonja’s first feature documentary.
SDI Productions
SDI Productions Ltd. (Website, Twitter @ScottishDocInst) is one of the leading companies for creative documentary in Scotland. It was set up in 2007 as the production arm of Scottish Documentary Institute based at Edinburgh College of Art. SDI has two Managing Directors, Noe Mendelle and Sonja Henrici. Between them, they combine more than 30 years of experience in broadcast production and documentary film, backed by Creative Scotland (formerly Scottish Screen), Skillset, BBC, Channel 4, and many international broadcasters including STV, RTP, POV, SBS, VPRO, Arte, RAI, RTBF, CFI, TV5, and France 3.
We are in development with Amy Hardie’s next film Hospice The Musical and are preparing two further features by award-winning new talents: Being David Millar by Finlay Pretsell and 16 Years ‘Til Summer by Lou McLoughlan (in co-production with ZikZak Filmworks, Iceland), supported by Creative Scotland.
2013 (since 2003) and now in its 11th year, we produce new talent in SDI’s award-winning annual Bridging the Gap series (5x10’), backed by BBC Scotland and Creative Scotland.
2012 I Am Breathing 72’ by Emma Davie & Morag McKinnon, a documentary about the thin space between life and death. A co-production with Danish Documentary Production, backed by Creative Scotland, Danish Film Institute Channel 4, DR, YLE, Wellcome Trust, MNDA.
2012 Future My Love 93’ by Maja Borg, backed by Creative Scotland, Swedish Film Institute, SVT.
2010 housed and supported the production of Amy Hardie’s acclaimed The Edge of Dreaming 76’
2008 The New Ten Commandments 105’ (directors include Mark Cousins, Tilda Swinton, Douglas Gordon, Irvine Welsh, Kenny Glenaan – in The Guardian’s Top Ten Films of EIFF 2008) in co-production with Lansdowne Productions.
Co-Producer: Lisbet Gabrielsson
Lisbet Gabrielsson was born 1944 in Växjö. She completed a B.A at the University of Lund in 1969, and visited Filmschool/Dramatiska Institutet from 1969 to 1972 (B.A. in production). From 1975 to 1993, she was producer at the Swedish Film Institute for children, animation, short and documentary films. From 1993 to 1996 she was film commissioner for the Greenhouse at the Swedish Film Institute. In 1996 she established Lisbet Gabrielsson Film AB, an independent production and distribution company specialising in children, animation, short and documentary films. She has previously co-produced with Millennium Films on films by Pirjo Honkasalo (Atman, Three Rooms of Melancholia).
