GABY BABIĆ
Gaby Babić was born in 1976 in Frankfurt, Germany. She studied in Frankfurt and Paris and holds an M.A. in Theater, Film and Media Studies, Political Science and German Literature. From 2005 to 2007 she worked at the Goethe Institute Sarajevo as a Programme Coordinator, 2007/2008 at the University Konstanz in the research project “Visual Cultures in Serbia”. Since 2008, she is curator and cultural manager for several film festival and cultural institutions. She is member of the collective “reel to real”, presenting experimental and documentary film in Frankfurt. Since September 2010 she is the director of goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film, Wiesbaden.
HUSSAIN CURRIMBHOY
Hussain studied film at Curtin University, in Perth, Australia, and at the Victorian College of Art in Melbourne. He has directed several short films and has worked in programming for several international film festivals before becoming Film Programmer at the Sheffield Doc/Fest. Hussain lives and works in Sheffield, England.
ELENA DANILKO
Elena Danilko is an anthropologist and filmmaker. She explores the Old Believers and the cultures of the peoples of the Ural-Volga region. She is Doctor Habilitatis, Senior Research Associate of the Institute of the Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Science (Moscow). Executive director of the Moscow International Festival for Visual Anthropology «Mediating Camera».
PAWEL KLOC
Pawel Kloc is the winner of Astra Film Grand Prize in 2012 with his first feature length documentary "Phnom Penh Lullaby" . The film was shown in over 70 international festivals. He studied Law at the Warsaw University. Paweł worked for HBO and At Entertainment Ltd as a producer and director. He directed commercials, music videos, TV programs and worked as a director's assistant. In 2010 Pawel founded his production company Parallax. He is also an EAVE graduate. Directing has always been Paweł's ultimate creative desire. He is now developing his next documentary film and a feature film. He resides in Warsaw, Poland.
GRIT LEMKE
Grit Lemke is Head of Documentary Programme at DOK Leipzig. She studied cultural anthropology, literature and ethnology. PhD in European ethnology., and has worked for several film festivals (Leipzig, Sheffield, Cottbus, Wiesbaden) since 1991. Grit curated numerous film programmes in Germany and abroad. She is a freelance curator, journalist and film critic, and takes teaching assignments for visual anthropology and documentary. She contributed as an author to several TV documentaries and published on documentary film.
PETR LOM
Petr Lom was born in Prague in 1968, and grew up in Canada. A former academic with a Ph.D. in political philosophy from Harvard, he gave up his university career in 2003 to become a fulltime documentary director and producer specializing in human rights subjects (he thinks it the best decision he ever made). His award-winning films have been broadcast in over thirty countries and screened at the most prestigious international film festivals (Sundance, Berlinale, Rotterdam).
VINTILA MIHĂILESCU
Absolvent al Facultăţii de Psihologie din Bucureşti, Vintilă Mihăilescu s-a specializat în antropologie şi este în prezent profesor la SNSPA. Din 2011 conduce şi un program doctoral dedicat politicilor publice referitoare la comunităţile de romi şi are în pregătire un volum de „etnografii rome” ce grupează o serie de cercetări de teren în comunităţi de romi din România. A fost membru al juriului la Astra Film Festival 2004 și a susținut masterclass-ul Roma Stories la Astra Film Festival 2012.
LESEDI OLUKO MOCHE
Lesedi Moche was born in Germany and raised in Zambia, Iraq, Canada and South Africa. Her multi-national and cross-cultural upbringing laid the foundation for her entrance into the world of story-telling. After completing her studies in Media and Broadcasting she worked on a number of documentaries with award-winning directors and television programs as production manager, producer, researcher and script supervisor. Lesedi has served on the Jury of Arts Programming for the International Emmy® Awards as well as the South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs). She is currently the Festival Director for the Encounters South African International Documentary Festival, now in its 16th year and the longest running festival solely dedicated to the documentary genre in Sub-Saharan Africa.
CRISTIAN NIȚULESCU
Member of CA SRTV and management advisor at TVR3. Former executive producer for the News Department of the Romanian Television. Editor in chief of the TVR News Department, coordinator at TVR Bucharest, producer of documentary films such as The Gold Story – a series of nine documentary films – selected for the Documentary Film Market at Cannes 2010. He studied linguistics , TV Management and Cultural Anthropology. He produced and directed a series of programmes on cultural anthropology topics for the Romanian Television, and is the author of linguistic research studies and books.
CRISTI PUIU
Director, screenwriter and producer, Cristi Puiu shows a keen interest for documentary cinema that transpares in his films. His debut feature Stuff And Dough (2001) is considered to have started the Romanian New Wave in cinema. Cristi Puiu won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale 2004 for the best short film Cigarettes And Coffee. The Death Or Mr. Lăzărescu (2005) won the Award Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival and numerous awards at other international film festivals, and has been included by Empire in the Top 500 Greatest Movies Of All Time. After Aurora (2010), a film written and directed by Puiu who also plays the leading role, he is currently working at two projects: Sierra Nevada (Acasă/Home Sweet Home, to be released in 2014) and The Mansion (to be released in 2015).
MICHAEL STEWART
A distinguished anthropologist working in Eastern Europe as well as a film Producer in independent production companies and the BBC. Currently Director of Open City Docs Fest, London; working at UCL; Ph.D. in Social Anthropology; He has been, variously a fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study, Budapest (Collegium Budapest), a Rubin Research Fellow at School of Public Policy, UCL; a Leverhulme Research Fellow, Dept. of Anthropology, London School of Economics.