Emilia Productions GmbH was founded in 2013 by Judith Lichtneckert and expanded in 2019 by Liliane Ott as producer. 20 years of experience on set and in production of feature films and documentaries as well as TV series (6 seasons of the SRF hit series THE UNDERTAKER) meet theatre experience, writing skills (screenplay) and a desire to take unorthodox paths when facing productional and artistic challenges.
Whether with up-and-coming or already established talent, we produce feature films and documentaries with commitment and passion and develop series concepts and formats for non-linear storytelling. In our exchange with authors and directors we cultivate intensive collaboration in order to develop stories to maturity in a team. Our focus is on culturally and socially engaged content aware of diversity. Our goal is to touch the audience and to open up new perspectives. We are looking for projects with international appeal and are continuously expanding our network with potential co-production partners.
Judith Lichtneckert
Producer, Director (Documentary)
Born in Basel. Lives and works in Zurich (CH/Hungarian dual citizen).
Judith Lichtneckert studied English, Media Science and Sociology at the University of Basel where she also attended various interdisciplinary film/video seminars. Concurrently she worked as a computer programmer, played bass in a rockband and ran a booking agency for European tours. In 2001 she got a degree as a multi media master and entered the film world by joining point de vue audiovisual productions in Basel dealing with documentaries, commissioned films and AV installations. In 2005 she started to produce documentaries and joined the cooperative.
In 2005 she also entered the realm of fiction films. Since then she has been working on many feature films, tv movies, serials and commercials as a freelance assistant director, production manager and freelance producer.
In 2013 she founded her own production company, the Emilia Productions GmbH in Zurich. In 2016 she released her first film as a director, the feature documentary “Reset Restart”.
In 2018 she joined the Zurich based Snakefilm GmbH as a producer and was in charge of the Swiss-Hungarian coproduction „The Black Spider”. In 2020 she established Perron X GmbH in Basel. Since 2019 she has been on the board of SFP (Swiss Film Producers) and Zurich for Film.
Liliane Ott
Producer, Author, Director
Born 1983 in Zurich and moved to Auckland, New Zealand in 1999 with the aim to study at an English-speaking film school. In January 2001 Liliane Ott began her studies in Directing & Writing for Film and Theatre at UNITEC School of Performing and Screen Arts. After returning to Switzerland in 2004, she worked as an assistant in film and theatre. In 2009, while working at “Das Kollektiv für audiovisuelle Werke GmbH”, she produced the feature film “Soundless Wind Chime”, which was shown at the Berlinale 2009 in the Forum program. In the autumn of 2010, she had the pleasure to celebrate the premiere of her play “BARX*” at the Rote Fabrik. In February 2012 she participated in the Berlinale Talent Campus and realized her short film “In Small Doses” in 2013. She directed “DU/MMES HUHN”, a monologue by Stephan Teuwissen, which was shown in Zurich and Schaffhausen and co-produced the feature film “Stoma” by Kit Hung in collaboration with Xtreme Pictures Ltd, Hong Kong and the Decoy Collective in Bern. “Stoma” was set to premiere at the Hong Kong International Film Festival in 2020and the film was nominated for the Firebird Award (Chinese Language). Liliane Ott is writing her first feature film script “On and On” and is developing the international anthology series “World in a Box”. After years of collaboration with Judith Lichtneckert, Liliane Ott joined Emilia Productions as a shareholder and producer in early 2019.
Leon Ries
Internship Production Assistant
Leon was born in Basel in 1996. Already during his studies of economics at the University of Basel he gained various insights in film production through an internship “assistant to the CEO” at Aviaticfilms GmbH. After graduating in 2021, he worked as a teacher at the secondary school Wasgenring (mathematics, sports, textile – and technical design). At the same time Leon worked as a production assistant and runner / driver / blocker on a freelance basis. He gained his first big set experiences at “AKRIS” and “LA PRAIRIE”. Bigger and longer productions attracted him. In the summer of 2022, he moved from commercials to feature films, working on “ELECTRIC CHILD” by Simon Jaquemet and “LA CHIMERA” by Alice Rohrwacher as a runner / driver / blocker. Since the summer of 2022, he has been working in an internship as a production assistant at Emilia Productions.