About Us

Team

Almir Koldzic

Almir Koldzic

Director

Almir Koldzic is Director and Co-Founder of Counterpoints Arts.

The main focus of his work so far has been on developing creative strategies and national networks for arts and refugees; building long term collaborations with leading inter/national arts, cultural, advocacy and philanthropic organisations; and curating and producing a wide range of commissions and programmes relating to displacement, diversity and social justice.

Tom Green

Tom Green

Producer

Tom Green is a Senior Producer working primarily to support artists and organisations including through our Platforma network. He produces the biennial Platforma festival and also helps oversee our international work.

Previously he has worked for organisations including the Refugee Council, where he first began work on Platforma and the Writers’ Guild, where he was first involved in supporting artists.  Tom’s background is in creative writing and his work has been performed in theatres and on BBC Radio 4.

Dijana Rakovic

Dijana Rakovic

Producer

Dijana Rakovic is a Senior Producer at Counterpoints Arts. Her role spans production, curation and participation, with special interest in climate change and environmental justice.

Dijana leads on the production of Counterpoints Arts’ music programme; Refugee Week UK London artistic programme, in collaboration with flagship cultural institutions; and supports the organisation’s  commissioning strand, focusing on place-based and participatory art projects.

Dijana has worked on a number of productions over the years, including Insomnia at Southbank’s Bargehouse; Counterpoint at Rochelle School; Dis/placed at Shoreditch Town Hall; Adopting Britain with Southbank Centre; Everyday on Canalside, a participatory project with residents on a local housing estate; and the multi-platform collaborative programme Who Are We? at Tate Exchange. Currently, she is leading on the ‘Music For Social Change’ PRS Foundation funded project which includes a youth engagement project on hip hop in Kent, South East England; and is a research partner on Picturing Climate, an international networking project which is exploring the role of arts and humanities-based methodologies in developing local and international educational capacity on climate change.

Dijana was a participant in the Creative Europe funded Creative Climate Leadership programme in Slovenia in October 2017, coordinated by Julie’s Bicycle and Slovenian social development organisation PiNA, joining the alumni of creative and cultural people working on climate change related issues and campaigns.

Annie Hall

Operations Manager

Annie Hall is Counterpoints Arts’ Operations Manager. Her background is in the fine art and gallery sector, with a focus on supporting creative teams through systems creation, team management and organisational planning.

She has previously worked in creative and arts spaces, with a focus on increasing operational efficiency and alongside promotion of best practice.

Annie is also a portrait artist, having practiced drawing most of her life. She has a passion for the arts and a strong interest in the role that art plays in our wellbeing.

Lara Deffense

Lara Deffense

Producer

Lara Deffense is Refugee Week UK & Global Coordinator at Counterpoints Arts. She has a background in facilitating large scale community-powered festivals, producing and programming.

She has previously worked for Walthamstow Garden Party, Leytonstone Loves Film, Barbican, Tate, Eden Project, Kew Gardens, London Borough of Culture 2019 Waltham Forest and Time Out among others.
In her work Lara is passionate about relationship-led work, collaboration and the power of networks. More than anything she sees art and stories as radical empathy machines with potential to shift ways of thinking and being. Lara is also passionate about ways we can respond to the climate crisis and culture’s role in this. Lara currently holds a Level 1 Food Growing and Level 2 Practical Horticulture Skills certificate.

Hossam Fazulla

Hossam Fazulla

Digital Producer

Hossam Fazulla is the Digital Producer for Counterpoints Arts. Fazulla’s work merges arts, technology, and social justice, and he previously worked for several international media networks and NGOs.

Prior to joining Counterpoints Arts, Fazulla worked as a Multimedia Producer and a Journalist for The BBC World Service, Digital Manager for Pen International, and a Researcher for Essex University, department of Film, Literature and Theatre. He is also the Co-Founder and Co-Director of Bosla Arts, a platform for art activists from all over the world.

Fazulla’s work is rooted in new media as extensions of the human senses and how the choice of the medium is essential to the message.

Fazulla has an MA in Global Media and Postnational Communication from SOAS, University of London. He believes that arts and media have an essential role in driving social justice and positive change in the world.

Laith Elzubaidi

Laith Elzubaidi

Producer

Laith Elzubaidi is Pop Culture & Social Change Producer at Counterpoints Arts. He is a British-Iraqi drama and comedy screenwriter, director, producer and Arts Facilitator.

His scripts have won awards at The Edinburgh TV Festival and Soho House and he is the founder of the ‘British-Arab Writers Group’. The British-Arab Writers Group hosts and facilitates writers rooms, workshops and events that seek to take their members’ writing to the next level; they have over 100 members across the UK. He is also the co-producer of The British-Arab Writers Group’s variety show at Soho Theatre; ‘Hakaya: A British-Arab Variety Show’.

He also has a sitcom in development with Three Little Birds Pictures called ‘The Weekly Wembley’, a love letter to multicultural London school life- inspired by his own experiences and work he has done with kids from 2nd generation refugee and immigrant backgrounds. He also recently wrote and directed a short film that will be the first Sci-Fi film from an Iraqi filmmaker. He is currently also working part-time in a development capacity at Oscar-nominated, BAFTA winning filmmaker Bassel Ghandour’s newly launched UK-based production company.

Ornella Mutoni

Producer

Ornella Mutoni is a Pop Culture and Social Change Producer at Counterpoints Arts. She is also a documentary director, producer, and cultural worker whose work tenderly explores collective healing and the legacy of trauma through intimate storytelling.

Her directorial debut ‘The Things We Don’t Say’ was distributed by The Guardian Documentaries and also earned her a nomination for the Gaby Rado Award for New Journalist at the 2025 Amnesty Media Awards. She is currently working on her first feature documentary.

Ornella has worked in prime-time broadcast TV and video journalism for 6 years with award-winning production companies making a range of documentaries for UK, Australian, Dutch, and American broadcasters.

As a cultural worker she is passionate about working at the intersections of social justice, liberation movements and DIY culture with film and music. She currently produces a podcast series for the Decolonial Centre and regularly curates film programmes. She previously co-founded Lossless Radio, a community focused radio station in Narrm/Melbourne.

Maren Ellermann

Producer

Maren Ellermann is the Arts, Displacement & Mental Health Producer at Counterpoints Arts. She is a dance artist turned producer, developing and delivering participatory arts projects in partnership with artists, cultural organisations, mental health professionals and activists across the globe.
Maren believes that art has the power to shift social consciousness and is dedicated to empowering communities through art, ensuring that people are not just recipients, but active participants and contributors in the process. Through collaborative art projects and programmes that focus on relationship building, she aims to strengthen the mental health and wellbeing of the communities she works with, increasing self-esteem, confidence, and a re-imagining of one’s identity. She is particularly interested in the role art can play in combatting systemic inequalities.
Maren is also Creative Director of grassroots dance & social change organisation Rain Crew, who aim to build an inclusive community through dance, that helps people proactively celebrate and share their authentic selves. Rain Crew focuses on developing creatives and providing mentorship while bridging the gap between institutions and those who are seldom heard.

Freelancers & Associates

Selam Amare

Producer

Selam is a cultural producer, comedian and advocate for migrant issues based in London. She works with Counterpoints on our No Direction Home comedy programme. Her own projects include Azmari, platforming her native Ethiopian culture by promoting Ethiopian music, styles, artists, food and performance.

Current roles include Facilitator for A New Direction, Project Coordinator for UCL Institute of Making, Community Researcher for The Yard Theatre, Partnerships Manager at Huq That, Assistant Producer/Director for Daedalus Theatre Company, Editor of WOWZINE by Women of the Wick, Writer for Theatre Full Stop and Trustee for Icon Theatre.

Tasnim is developing her first full-length play The Final Trumpet which follows a mother & daughter who have lost their home in a terrible flood. Set in an imaginary Bangladesh the play seeks to raise awareness of internal displacement in countries in the Global South impacted by climate change.

Tomo Ikegami

Associate Researcher

Tomo is a Curator for socially engaged programmes in Japan and an Associate Researcher at Counterpoints Arts.

Tomo has worked for various Japanese contemporary art museums as a Curator and Program Coordinator for the past 5 years. During this period, she was mainly in charge of educational, socially engaged, and artist residency programs. She graduated with a BA in Art History and MA Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths, University of London.

In April 2024, she started a one-year research program at Counterpoints Arts, funded by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan (Bunkacho). The purpose of this research is to explore how arts and cultural projects drive social change and support migrant communities. She believes that taking the ideas from this research in order to launch Refugee Week in Japan will be an effective way to develop and nurture positive perceptions of refugees in Japanese society.

Zeina Ahmed Ismail

Researcher

Zeina is a psychology graduate currently pursuing a Master of Applied Science in Creative Health at University College London.

In her current role at Counterpoints, Zeina is engaged in a dissertation project exploring how commissioned artworks can shift public perceptions of refugees and asylum seekers. Her research aims to influence creative health policy, advocating for greater inclusivity and recognition of underrepresented groups.

Zeina has previous experience as an Art & Marketing Consultant for up and coming musicians, a Marketing and Social Media creator at the Reformation Charity in London and Creative Intern at Thrive Psychology Clinic in Singapore. During her internship at London Arts and Health, Zeina contributed to the Creative Health Connections Map, a resource designed to visualise and enhance creative health infrastructure across London.

She plays an active role in fundraising for social justice initiatives and organising events that harness the power of art to foster understanding and resilience.

Gaby D’Annunzio

Producer

Gaby D’Annunzio is a London-based Creative Producer and Broadcaster. She is currently heading up the Refugee Week on Air programme at Counterpoints.

In this role, she works with radio stations and creative partners around the world to platform stories of migration, solidarity, and cultural exchange, while also contributing to the development of the Refugee Week music programme.

Before joining Counterpoints, Gaby was based in Berlin, where she co-founded the Open Music Lab, a free music production school for marginalised communities, and served as Head of Community Development at Refuge Worldwide, a community radio station and fundraising platform.

As a broadcaster and lifelong record collector, Gaby brings a perspective shaped by years of exploring music scenes and the cultural narratives behind them. Her work is often inspired by themes of migration, identity, and belonging, and celebrates the many ways these stories are expressed and shared through sound.