Filmmakers

Toang

Rizky Maulana

Rizky Maulana Yanuar is a Leiden University graduate with a specialization in Visual Ethnography. He used to work as a producer for VICE Asia Pacific. One of his short documentaries for VICE APAC, "Burying the Dead in a City Running Out of Space - The Gravediggers of Bandung", received an honorable mention by the judges in the 2020 SOPA (Society of Publishers in Asia) Awards for the Regional Excellence in Video Reporting category. Toang is his first take on ethnographic research and filmmaking.

With my Thoughts on the Sea

Fabiana Fragale

Fabiana Fragale is an Italian-Swiss filmmaker and was born in Zurich in 1994. Since 2014 she has pursued various activities in the Zurich film scene. Residing in Cologne since October 2015, Fabiana is currently a student at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. Her artistic and cinematic works deal predominantly with anti-capitalist and intersectional feminist themes. In 2023 her first feature documentary film “Vergiss Meyn Nicht – Nur dein Leben steht dagegen“ premiered at Berlinale.

Year After Year

Shuting Li

Shuting Li is a Ph.D. student in Anthropology at New York University, concurrently pursuing a certificate in Culture and Media. Her doctoral research project delves into the realm of post-reform China, focusing on the intergenerational perceptions and imaginations of utilizing robots in elderly care. Her research interests bring together the study of aging, science and technology studies, and the family.

Ten by Ten

Jami L. Bennett

Jami L. Bennet pursued anthropology to better understand the stories and people of her Appalachian community. Today, she is working as a documentary filmmaker, photographer and ethnographic researcher. Graduating from the University of Manchester in 2021, Jami's MA in Visual Anthropology led her to produce "Ten by Ten,", a film that earned her the Best Student Documentary prize at the 2022 Grierson British Documentary Awards, among other international honors. Drawn to narratives about outsiders, identity, and belonging, Jami employs a collaborative, intimate, and humorous filmmaking style to engage diverse audiences both within and beyond academia.

Oh These Beloved Hands

Rachel Runesson

Rachel Runesson, a Swedish-Canadian visual anthropologist and artist, is currently situated in Copenhagen, Denmark, where she is working in a local chicken shop and focusing on her art. She completed her masters in Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester in 2022. In August, she will be starting a Marie Curie PhD at the University of Gothenburg concerning processes of heritagization, and working with film and media to explore new ways to communicate coastal stone age heritage to diverse audiences across Europe.

As Long As There's Us

Guanyizhuo Yao

Guanyizhuo Yao hails from a snowy oil city in northeast China. With degrees in Journalism and Film Studies, she worked as a documentary film editor in Beijing for years. Now an incoming Ph.D. student in USC's Department of Anthropology, she's dedicated to experimental ethnography and visual anthropology, with a focus on global energy issues and feminist labor. Yizhuo recently obtained an MFA in Documentary Media from Northwestern University. Passionate about documentary and experimental films, she is focusing on post-industrialism in China's northeastern plain.

A Letter To Lanka

Ilakkiya Mariya Simon

Ilakkiya Mariya Simon has recently completed her Master of Visual Anthropology at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. She holds a BA in Social Anthropology from the University of Bergen, where she founded The Ethnographic Film Club. Before getting into anthropology, she was a teacher and movement practitioner from different disciplines and arts. Her experiences with movement and her Sri Lankan ancestry are what underpins her anthropological interest in exploring existential themes of home, belonging, identity, and the environment. Ilakkiya is passionate about her intimate and fragmented relationship to Sri Lanka.

Water Notebook

Felipe Rodriguez Cerda

Felipe Rodríguez Cerda, an anthropologist, filmmaker, and writer, earned his anthropology degree and a Master's in Design of Sustainable Environments from the Universidad Austral de Chile. Interested in aspects of the material culture and memories of traditional communities in southern Chile, he searches for border textual forms between literature, ethnography and cinema. In 2018, he published the poetry book "Estelas de Cóndores Fosforescentes, followed by three non-fiction shorts: "Los Vecinos del Abuelo" (2019), "Incidents in the Laboratory" (2020), and "Water Notebook" (2022). Currently, he practices traditional forging in artisanal blacksmith shops, reflecting on the life of materials, their artisans, and the historical and emotional relationships between the blacksmith and the iron.

The Last Gap

Sofia Leikam

Sofia Leikam is a Visual Anthropologist and a young Filmmaker, interested in delving into complex social and political topics and rendering them visually and emotionally accessible through personal narratives. Following her graduation in art history and anthropology, Sofia Leikam obtained her M.A Degree in Visual Anthropology at the University of Göttingen with a documentary film centered on forced labor in Nazi Germany.

Ashes Living in Cracks and Hollows

Haruka Fukao

Haruka Fukao earned her MA in Fine Art from Bergen University. At UiT The Arctic University of Norway she studied Visual Anthropology and crafted her master's film, "Ashes Living in Cracks and Hollows." Inspired by Taoism, Mono-ha, and Zen Buddhism, Haruka delves into the concept of Substance - an original identity constructed before social identities such as nationality, gender, and function. Through her work, she seeks to reveal the Substance of people and objects by finding new identities for herself or the objects she encounters.

Ruins of a Childhood Memory

Ignacio Rodriguez

Ignacio Rodríguez, born in Antofagasta, Chile in 1989, graduated in film and dramatic arts. His film school thesis and debut feature, "La Chupilca del Diablo," premiered in 2013 at Cinélatino Rencontres Cinémas d'Amérique Latine de Toulouse, France, where it was honored with the FIPRESCI Award. In 2015, he co-directed the short film "El Llano de la Paciencia" as part of “Chile Factory,” which had its world premiere at the Director’s Fortnight, Cannes. Currently based in Berlin, he is pursuing a MA in Visual Anthropology at the University of Münster, Germany, while concurrently developing his second feature film and making music with his band 69 Deluxe.

Such Madwomen!

Payal Chauhan

Payal Chauhan is a student at the National Institute of Design in India, studying Film and Video Communication. Hailing from a village in Uttar Pradesh, India, she holds a profound belief in the transformative power of storytelling and self-expression. Payal perceives film, poetry, and human connection as ways to share stories with the world. Understanding both the privileges and responsibilities entailed, she has started to explore the realm of filmmaking. Her projects, deeply personal and frequently drawing inspiration from her own life experiences, revolve around themes concerning women, children, and spaces.

Everything Seems Illuminated

Kumar Mayank

Kumar Mayank, a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Varanasi, transitioned from engineering to filmmaking and has since then alternated between assisting on TV commercials and feature films in Mumbai and working as a freelancer. Currently, he is pursuing a Master's degree in filmmaking from UT Austin. His short films have garnered international recognition, screening at esteemed festivals such as the Split Film Festival, Carmarthen Bay Film Festival, and Santa Fe Film Festival, among others, and have been awarded at Festival International Signes De Nuit and Bare Bones International Film & Music Festival.

Fire Under the Ashes

Pauline-Sophie Prückner, Louis Seibert

Pauline-Sophie Prückner, born in 1996, is currently completing her Master's degree in Ethnology and Visual Anthropology in Munich. An activist and practitioner of the Theater of the Oppressed, her work focuses on the intersection of politics and aesthetics, migrant and refugee narratives, and socio-ecological movements—a landscape she navigates both as an ethnologist and a freelance filmmaker. Louis Seibert, born in 1997, studied ethnology in Munich and Paris. His film and ethnographic projects explore the intersection of youth, protest, and pop culture, taking him from Thuringia to Madrid and Uganda. Additionally, he works as a freelance photographer and journalist, documenting subcultural scenes in his hometown of Munich.

One of Us Now

Maya Steinberg

Maya Steinberg, a Tel Aviv-born film director and editor based in Berlin, began her career as a print producer. After studying film at Tel Aviv University, she premiered her short film "Never coming back to America" on Israeli channel 8 in 2018. Later, she moved to Berlin to complete a Master's in Visual and Media Anthropology at Freie University Berlin, where she developed her film "One of Us Now," premiering at Dok Leipzig 2022. Maya was involved in various projects, including "Miss Holocaust Survivor" and "A Body Like Mine". Currently, she teaches in the same program she studied in, while her feature documentary "What if Left?" is in pre-production.

Couple More Shovels for a Few More Levs

Pauline Shongov

Pauline Shongov is a PhD student in Film and Visual Studies at Harvard University, pursuing a secondary field in Critical Media Practice. Through media archaeology and visual ethnography, her work centers on the material, oral, and affective histories of place. She is particularly interested in ruination studies and landscape theory on the Balkan space as well as world cinema, experimental film, and spatial practices in silent film and new media art. Her work has been supported by the Harvard Film Study Center, Harvard Presidential Scholars, and the Cornell Council of the Arts.

Lullaby of Waves

Ayon Pratim Saikia

Ayon Pratim Saikia, a filmmaking student pursuing a master’s in design from NID Ahmedabad, holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Tezpur Central University, Assam. Hailing from Sadiya, at the border of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, he is deeply connected and dependent on his roots, drawing inspiration from the rivers and land. Leaving home to chase distant dreams is essential to him, shaping both his identity and his work. Starting with painting brushes in his youth, he transitioned to exploring art through his camera, driven by a vision to create with empathy and kindness, seeking deeper understanding as he evolves.

Estuary / Artery

Liv Kisby

Liv Kisby is an audiovisual practitioner, socio-cultural researcher and musician, based in London. Their practice explores place-making, psychogeography and sensory experience through experimental non-fiction, using multimedia with a focus on sound. They are interested in developing a community-oriented approach to researching and producing stories about in-between places, speculating about the future through collaborative and experimental methods. Liv holds a Distinction in MA Visual Anthropology from the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology (2022-23).

Human Factors

Anna Dobos

Anna Dobos is a founding member of Somewhere Films, a female driven collective/agency based in London and Los Angeles. With a background in photography and post production she is building skills in research & visual culture, and is a graduate of the MA in Visual Anthropology at Goldsmiths University. Her work blends the real and the surreal, through documentary, fashion and music. She was the 2022-23 Filmmaker in Residence at Somerset House Trust and part of Livity’s In Future List for 2022. Along with Somewhere Films founding member Susannah Kala Limbu, she is part of directing duo K+K.

Sisyphuses

Donghyeok Yi

Donghyeok Yi was born in Seoul, Korea, in 1998 and relocated to China at the age of nine. Upon graduating from Tsinghua University with a degree in Journalism and Communication, he returned to Korea, where he is currently pursuing his graduate studies in anthropology at Seoul National University. His experiences of unintended immigration and cultural conflict sparked an interest in Fate and Life, themes he explores in his work "Sisyphuses."

Land in Sight?

Mattia Petullà, Giulia Angrisani

Giulia Angrisani is a visual anthropologist specializing in human phenomena of the mental and affective mechanism. With a background in sociology and anthropology, she conducted research in Lisbon with a focus on the Anthropology of Emotions. Giulia obtained a Master in Plastic, Visual and Space Arts at the Ecole Supérieure des Art in Brussels in 2018. Mattia Petullá, a graduate in Communication Sciences, initiated his career with digital video cameras in 2001. His debut short reportage on an airport sheltering illegal immigrants earned him finalist recognition for the Ilaria Alpi journalism award. Co-founding a production company in Bologna, he directs fiction films featuring non-professional actors, advocating for collective, participatory cinema and audiovisual communication in stark contrast to industrial cinema productions.

Game Over

Saeed Mayahy, Miriam Carlsen

Saeed Mayahy, an Iranian film director, graduated from Bushehr Film School in 2013. His debut documentary "The Camera" (2012) marked the beginning of a prolific career. "Don't worry, be happy" was bought by NRK TV station, while his other works have been featured at numerous international festivals.

Miriam Carlsen has a background in Social Anthropology and worked as a international television reporter in recent years. However, missing the more personal story telling she recently transitioned to documentary filmmaking. Raised in a globetrotting family, Miriam is passionate about human narratives and their impact on cultural bridge building. Her work with RAMP in Norway deepened her interest in the MENA region and Afghan affairs. Learning Arabic and living in the Middle East enriched her experiences.

On the Edge of Gold

Sandro Kakabadze

Sandro Kakabadze is a documentary filmmaker originally from Georgia (ex-USSR), who has been based in São Paulo, Brazil, for the past 10 years. With an MA in Documentary Filmmaking from Goldsmiths University of London and a BA in Journalism from Moscow State University, Sandro previously worked as a TV reporter for major Georgian TV channels, producing over 500 news segments worldwide. Upon relocating to Brazil, he completed a DoP course with Carlos Ebert and focused on camerawork and documentary filmmaking. "On the Edge of Gold" marks Sandro's debut feature film.

The Amazon Messengers

Munduruku Collective, Beka Munduruku, Rilcelia Akai, Aldira Akai, Joana Moncau

Aldira Akai Muduruku, Beka Saw Munduruku and Rilcelia Akai Munduruku, three young women from the Munduruku Indigenous group in the Brazilian Amazon, run an audiovisual collective that raises awareness of the Munduruku people's reality and the illegal invasions of their territory. The Coletivo Audiovisual Munduruku Daje Kapap Eypi recorded the latest inspections of the Munduruku Sawré Muybu Indigenous Land, exposing illegal logging and mining activities and highlighting the community's resistance. The feature film 'Amazônia Sociedade Anônima' directed by Estevão Ciavatta was produced in partnership with the Coletivo and was the winner of the One World Media Awards (2019). Joana Moncau, an independent journalist and documentary filmmaker, co-directed the feature film "Tampoco" and the short documentary "Tan Lejos," both on Venezuelan immigration to Brazil and co-produced by Repórter Brasil and the National Geographic Society (2021). She also co-directed the short film “Monocultura da Fé” (2018), a finalist for the 2018 Dig Awards and nominee for the 2019 Gabriel García Márquez award, shedding light on the violence faced by Guarani-Kaiowá shamans from evangelical groups. She is currently part of the Cooperative Audiovisual Zungu Producciones and produces material for media such as Repórter Brasil, Agência Pública, Le Monde Diplomatique Brasil, AJ+, Doha Debates among others.

Just Beneath the Surface

Jimmy John Thaiday, Keiran James

Jimmy John Thiaday of the Kuz and Peiudu clans, lives and works on the island of Erub, also known as Darnley Island. Located within the Eastern group of the Torres Strait near the coast of Papua New Guinea, Erub is accessible only by small propeller planes. Jimmy has been known internationally for his work with 'Ghost Net', discarded commercial fishing nets adrift in the oceans. Through his sculptures depicting sea creatures, he aims to raise awareness about this issue and its significant impacts. "Just Beneath the Surface" is a film collaboration between Jimmy and Keiran James. Their past collaborations secured the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award in multimedia for both 2022 and 2023. As a two-man production, they navigate the stunning waters of Erub aboard Jimmy’s dinghy, crafting stories to share with the world about this unique and special part of Australia.

Keiran James is a commercial broadcast professional with over 20 years of experience in the television industry. He has worked in the camera and post-production departments for many of television’s biggest programs. These days he has moved away from larger broadcast work to focus on smaller independent productions, where my diverse skillset is a sought-after resource for small and medium-sized corporates and documentaries.

End of the Road

Ivana Todorovic

Ivana Todorovic, a filmmaker and lecturer from Belgrade, Serbia, directs socially engaged short documentaries and fiction films in Belgrade and New York City, exploring trauma and recovery through the work of empathy. Her recent short documentary, "End of the Road," premiered at the 2022 Palm Springs International ShortFest, while "When I'm at Home" (2020), her recent fiction film, screened worldwide and won multiple awards, featuring at The New York Foundation for the Arts Gallery. With over 200 international festival screenings, her films have earned 40+ awards. Currently, Todorovic is working on a new short documentary entitled "Woman of People's Front" as well as a new short fiction film entitled "First Time I Saw the Night".

Memories of Stone Faces

Andrea Bordoli

Andrea Bordoli, holding degrees in Visual Anthropology, Visual Arts – Cinema, Anthropology, and Philosophy, conducts research at the intersection of anthropology, film, and visual art. Currently pursuing a practice-led PhD in Media Anthropology at the University of Bern, he's part of the project "Mediating the Ecological Imperative." Since January 2022 he is a visiting artist-researcher at the anthropology department of McGill University. His works have been presented in academic settings and exhibited in film festivals and art spaces nationally and internationally. In parallel to his personal research he collaborated with various research groups and institutions such as EASA CH, Université de Neuchâtel, Université de Berne, Locarno Film Festival and Cinémathèque Suisse.

Baigal Nuur - Lake Baikal

Alisi Telengut

Alisi Telengut is a Canadian artist of Mongolian roots, living between Berlin and Tiohtià:ke/ Montréal, Canada. Her work involves creating animation frame by frame under the camera using mixed media to generate movement and explore hand-made and painterly visuals. Telengut is among the 71 artists participating in the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 2024. Her work received multiple awards and nominations and has been screened and exhibited internationally such as at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures (USA), Sundance Film Festival (USA), TIFF (Canada), and others. Alisi is currently a PhD candidate in Scientific-Artistic Research at the Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf. Additionally, she has recently joined the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University of Canada as a tenure-track assistant professor in Film Animation.

Lydia

Christian Becker

Christian Becker is a German filmmaker, producer and editor. He studied at the Acadamy of Media Arts in Cologne and spent six months at the Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión (Eictv) in Cuba. In 2007, Christian co-founded the film production company field recordings filmproduktion together with Oliver Schwabe, which mainly produces documentaries. In addition to other teaching activities, he was a substitute professor for film montage at the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts in 2022/23.

Where Zebus Speak French

Nantenaina Lova

Nantenaina Lova, born in 1977, is a Franco-Malagasy film director. He studied filmmaking at the École Supérieure d'Audiovisuel in Toulouse, France, earning his master’s degree with honors. His debut feature-length documentary, “Ady Gasy / The Malagasy Way” (2014), achieved success at festivals and in cinemas. "Aza Kivy / Etoile du matin" (2020), his second feature, premiered in international competition at IDFA (Amsterdam). Endemika Films, his production company, is managed by Eva Lova and Candy Radifera.

Ayda, Lioness among Free Lions

Metje Postma

Metje Postma, born in 1958, is an anthropologist and documentary filmmaker. For over three decades, she served as a lecturer in Visual Ethnography at Leiden University's Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology. In addition to "Ayda, Lioness among Free Lions" (2023), she has produced and collaborated on numerous ethnographic documentaries, including "Por que se van?" (1985), "Of Men and Mares" (1998), and "Voices in the Desert, the Rashaida and Fuzum" (2005). Writing several articles on Visual Ethnography as a research-method, her main interest has always been to contribute to the understanding of ethnographic cinema as both an extension and application of ethnographic knowledge.

The Chalice. Of Sons and Daughters

Catalina Tesar, Dana Bunescu

Cătălina Tesăr teaches Anthropology at the University of Bucharest and works as a researcher at the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant. Holding a PhD from University College London, she draws from 15 years of fieldwork in Roma communities, with extensive publications on topics including marriage, begging, housing, and migration among the Roma. Cătălina was awarded the Fejos Postodoctoral Fellowship by the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research US for her film production.

Dana Bunescu, a well-known Romanian film editor and sound designer, has contributed her expertise to numerous documentaries, earning several nominations and wins at the Gopo Awards for Best Editing and Sound Design. She won the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at the 2017 Berlinale for Călin Peter Netzer’s film “Ana, mon amour” and co-directed with Mona Nicoară the feature documentary “The Distance Between Me and Me” (2018).

Wani

Nicolas Pradal, Kerth Agouinti

Kerth Ziggy Agouinti is 28 years old and lives in Maripasoula, French Guiana. His passion for photography and video led him to enter the audiovisual world in 2015 through various courses. “Wani” is his first documentary film, co-directed with Nicolas Pradal, whom he met while filming a mourning session in Papaïchton. He hopes to continue directing, in particular to talk more about his culture and the very rich and complex Aluku traditions that have tended to be lost little by little over the years.

Nicolas Pradal pursued Sociology and Anthropology studies before attending ENSAV (École publique de cinéma). His graduation film, "Dreams and the Law," depicted the difficult situation of Australia's Aboriginal people, leaving him with questions to pursue in his future work. In 2009, he began a documentary in French Guiana on Amerindian territory, realizing the importance of collaborative filmmaking in this sensitive context. His ten years' experience of the territory resulted in multiple films and introduced him to the Bushinengué community, which in turn led him to make the documentary “Wani”.

Japanese Buddhism

Kazuya Ashizawa

Kazuya Ashizawa, born in 1957, is an award-winning documentary filmmaker based in Fukushima, Japan. Raised just 70 km from the nuclear power plant that experienced a meltdown in 2011, he remains deeply rooted in his hometown, capturing the lives of its inhabitants and sharing their stories with the world. In addition to "Japanese Buddhism" (2023), notable works include the documentaries "My Theatre" (2017), "Pray" (2020), and "Pianist" (2021).

The Souls Of Bossales

Francois Perlier

François Perlier earned his Documentary Film Making Master from Creadoc in 2006. He directed several independent and television documentary films, including “Voukoum” (2012), which has garnered numerous awards and been featured in festivals worldwide. His expertise includes teaching History and documentary cinema techniques at Poitiers University and Creadoc from 2012 to 2015, coordinating the Festival Filmer le Travail for three years, and leading cinema workshops for both children and adults. His works range from revolted women portraits like "Le souffle de Martha" (2020) and "La dame du pays rouge" (2017), to life stories of persons in exile such as "La vie recommencée" (2023) and social strikes in Caribbean culture.

The Ballads of the Forest

Yaduvanshi Sachin

Sachin was born in a village in Rajasthan (India). In 2019, he directed his first short documentary, which premiered in IDFA, Amsterdam. In 2021, he was awarded the Erasmus Mundus Scholarship to study at three institutions in Portugal, Hungary, and Belgium as part of the European Joint Masters Program DocNomads. Sachin uses cinema to understand the world around him and to express his ideas with an experimental approach. He is interested in Indigenous and tribal customs and expresses himself through documentary arts that link to various sociological and ecological contexts.

Chronicle of a Digital Funeral

Sophia Harb

Sophia Harb is a filmmaker with extensive experience in the film industry, working between Palestine and Europe. Her recent production work includes "Killing Eve" by HBO, "200 Meters" by Ameen Nayfeh (winner of Audience Award at 2020 Venice Film Festival), and "It Must Be Heaven" by Elia Suleiman (winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival). Additionally, she served as script advisor and production manager for the first online drama series in Palestine, "Dandara," produced by BBC Media Action. Recently completing her MA in Visual and Media Anthropology at the University of Applied Science in Berlin, Sophia debuted her first short film, "Chronicle of a Digital Funeral."

Operation Namibia

Martin Paret

Martin Paret is a media artist and filmmaker based in Cologne, where he studied documentary film at the Academy of Media Arts. In his artistic work, he questions, among other things, the depictability of reality and memory. His films move between archive and media archaeology, between essay and documentary. For his graduation film “Operation Namibia”, he received the Carte blanche Newcomer Award at the Duisburger Filmwoche in 2023.

The Empty Sign

Kathryn Ramey

Kathryn Ramey is a filmmaker and anthropologist whose work operates at the intersection of experimental film processes and ethnographic research. Her award winning and strongly personal films are characterized by manipulation of the celluloid including hand-processing, optical printing, and various direct animation techniques. Most recently she has been focused on creating an anti-colonial film practice with collaborators in Puerto Rico and researching environmentally friendly photochemical processes utilizing indigenous flora. She is deeply committed to sharing her knowledge of alternative analogue technologies through workshops and publications.

The Corner

Christa Pfafferott

Christa Pfafferott is a writer and director. She held a postdoctoral fellowship at Bauhaus University Weimar and completed an artistic-scientific PhD at HFBK Hamburg. She was a graduate of film directing at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg and studied writing at the Henri Nannen School of Journalism. Christa works for publishing houses and newspapers such as Süddeutsche-Zeitung magazine, DIE ZEIT. Since January 2022, she has been a main lecturer of the department for experimental film and the Screenplay Department as well as 3rd year content development and documentary film at the Filmakademie-Baden-Württemberg. Her film "Die Ecke" premiered at DOK Festival Leipzig 2022 and is broadcasted on arte and MDR after a theatrical tour.

The Dugout Canoe (VR)

Germán Fidel Villalobos, Andrew Simon Tucker

Germán Villalobos, an extended reality content creator, holds degrees in industrial engineering and Online Communication and Marketing. He contributed to the creation and production of a digital proposal that led to Medellín being selected as the host city for the 2010 IX South American Games and has collaborated on digital immersion projects across Colombia, Chile, and Brazil. Germán assists entrepreneurs and filmmakers in exploring narratives, technologies and hybridization across various formats. Currently, he supervises the expanded reality component of the transmedia project "La Piragua".

Andrew Simon Tucker, an expanded reality artist and documentary filmmaker, currently serves as an associate professor at the University of Magdalena, Colombia, specializing in documentary film. Holding an MA in Visual Anthropology and a PhD in Arts, Culture, and Media, he has directed over 20 documentaries, including the award-winning feature "The Accordion's Voyage" (2013). Andrew's research focuses on collaborative expanded reality nonfiction, indigenous filmmaking, and hybrid forms of documentary film, particularly in Colombia's Caribbean coast where he has worked with different indigenous and farming communities on media sovereignty projects.

Surfacing (VR)

Rosella Schillaci

Rossella Schillaci holds a Master's in Visual Anthropology from the University of Manchester (UK) and completed in Digital Media in September 2023, with practice-based research in new media and visual anthropology. She is part of the Colab international research program, involving Portuguese universities and the University of Texas at Austin. Rossella co-founded Azul, an independent production company, directing documentaries for ARTE, RAI, Sky, and Al Jazeera. Her recent works garnered acclaim at international film festivals. "Affiorare" (Surfacing), her latest VR experimental doc, earned over 30 festival selections and the BAFTSS Best Practice Research Award in 2023.

Seven Ridges

Antonio Coello

Antonio Coello is a Mexican and Colombian filmmaker and visual anthropologist who collaborates as curator with the Dreamspeakers International Film Festival. His short films involve indigenous communities, with whom he creates collective cinematic stories. They have been showcased at various festivals and museums, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York and ImagineNATIVE in Toronto, garnering awards across numerous countries. As a teacher he has taught workshops and courses on screenplay writing and filmmaking in Mexico, Canada, U.S.A., India and Nepal. In his creative work he has benefited from grants from government and private institutions from different countries. Sietefilos (Seven Ridges) is his first full-lenght feature film.

Amen

Augustine Moukodi

Augustine Moukodi is a Cameroonian writer, director and producer. An independent researcher in colonial history, she is General Secretary of the Cameroon branch of the World Association of Cultural Actresses, which promotes the role of women in the world of culture. Born on 14 September 1976 in Douala, she graduated in management from the High Technology of Information Institute in Douala in 2007, and studied cinema with the Association of Cinema Professionals in Douala.

Adam and Eve

Reza Daneshpazhouh

Reza Daneshpazhouh, born in 1979 in Iran, studied directing at the Indian Film and Television Institute, drama literature at Tehran Azad University, and filmmaking at the Iranian Youth Cinema Society. Throughout his career, he has directed numerous documentary and fiction short films. Since 2015, he has served as the manager of Negar Film Dena, a film production company, and has produced several documentaries, which have received awards from Iranian film festivals. In 2022, he published the book "Cherry Tree", a collection of short stories. Reza writes about Iranian cinema, while simultaneously pursuing his work as an independent filmmaker in Iran.

Mamma Makhmal

Amir Hussein Khalilzadeh

Amir Hussein KhalilZadeh, born in 1984 in the city of Saveh, Iran, is a member of the Iranian Society of Film Critics & Writers and the Association of Iranian Documentary Producers. He graduated in Filmmaking from the Iranian Youth Cinema Society and completed professional script writing workshops at Hozeh Honari. Additionally, he earned a degree in Filmmaking from the University of Applied Sciences and a degree in Software Engineering from Shahid Shamsi Pour University. Since 1998, he has worked as a freelance writer and critic.

Ophir

Alexandre Berman, Olivier Pollet

Olivier Pollet is a multi award-winning documentary filmmaker, producer, researcher, investigative journalist and impact/archive producer. Over the past decade his films have focused on corporate accountability, human rights, environmental issues and colonial legacies. They have screened at film festivals and been broadcast around the world.

Alexandre Berman is a French documentary filmmaker and editor, based in Paris, France. He co-directs the documentary “The Panguna Syndrome” with Olivier Pollet and the film is a finalist for Albert Londres Prize 2017, the most prestigious journalism award in France. Ophir is their latest award-winning production. As an extension and complement to the feature film, Olivier created with leading academics a multimedia educational platform on colonialism entitled The Colonial Syndrome (2022), which features over 30 short films and many unique archives.

The Real Land of Opportunity

Andrey Ananin

Andrey Ananin was born in Tomsk, Siberia, in 1993. After successfully enrolling at the Faculty of Law at Lomonosov State University in Moscow, he continued to work creatively and produce videos. In 2013, he enrolled at the S. A. Gerasimov All-Russian University of Cinematography, where he graduated from the Faculty of Directing in the workshop of Sergei Miroshnichenko and Svetlana Musychenko in 2018. Andrey is a Laurel Branch Award Laureate winner and participant in many international film festivals. In 2019, he co-founded the STAYA.DOC Film Studio.

Missing Time

Simon Jäggi

Simon Jäggi, born in 1985, is a journalist for Swiss radio and television and has been working on the topics of refugees and asylum for many years. He has uncovered various abuses within the Swiss asylum system and conducts international research on the subject of migration. "Missing Time" (2023) is his first documentary film. Jäggi lives and works in Basel, Switzerland.

The Hill

Denis Gheerbrant, Lina Tsrimova

Denis Gheerbrant, born in 1948 in Paris, is the author of a dozen documentary films that are part of the continuity of Cinéma direct, initiating an approach and aesthetic that has influenced Documentary Film. “Et la vie” (1991), “La vie est immense et pleine de dangers” (1994) and “La République Marseille” (2009) have received particular acclaim. Denis co-founded the Association des cinéastes documentaristes (ADDOC) in 1992 and occasionally teaches, notably at Fémis.

Lina Tsrimova was born in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia, where she attended secondary school. She earned her first Master's degree in journalism in Moscow before pursuing an additional Master’s and Doctorate degree in history at EHESS, Paris. During her PhD studies, Lina co-wrote the film “Avant que le ciel n’apparaisse” (2021) with Denis Gheerbrant. In 2022, her feature film "La colline" (The Hill), co-directed with Denis, was programmed at ACID Cannes.

The Lowland

Aidin Halalzadeh, Sepideh Salarvand

Sepideh Salarvand, born in 1991 in Tehran, Iran, holds an MA in cultural studies. During her studies, she taught Afghan immigrant children, unable to attend public school due to their nationality, at a renowned NGO in Tehran. Concurrently, she regularly visited a nearby dumpsite, conducting ethnographic research on the working children.

Over five years, Sepideh and Aidin Halalzadeh spent every weekend there. Sepideh's master's thesis on the subject was later published in 2020 as "I Could Not Speak." During this time, they also directed their debut documentary, "The Lowland." Currently, Sepideh works as a manager at an NGO in Tehran while also conducting research on working children in Farsi literature.

Sweet Osmanthus Flowering Late

Shuai Li

Shuai Li is a Chinese filmmaker and anthropologist, born in Wuhan and raised in Hainan Island. He pursued his education abroad in England, studying anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and obtaining his PhD in anthropology from Queens’ College, University of Cambridge. His doctoral thesis focused on antiquarian activism and political imagination in modern China. Dr. Shuai Li has a standing cinematic interest in alterity and cultural change, exploring their material and performative manifestations.

Inhabiting Beirut

Michel Tabet

Michel Tabet is an anthropologist and filmmaker. His work focuses on the way people construct and inhabit real and imaginary worlds. He has developed projects and collaborations in many Arab countries (Lebanon, Tunisia, Algeria, Iraq) on themes related to religious rituals, cultural performances, and the dynamics of civil societies. In his films, he brings together arts and social sciences. He also participates in and organizes numerous events and workshops on visual anthropology in France and in the Mena region, such as the Aswat Festival and the Festival Jean Rouch.

Maize Daughters

Alfonso Gastiaburo

Alfonso Gastiaburo, born in 1980 in Rosario, Argentina, is a writer and director. He studied filmmaking at EPCTV and literature at UNR in Rosario. In 1998, he founded 'La Conjura TV', an alternative audiovisual media collective. He has been involved in numerous counterinformation projects, some of which have been used as evidence of human rights violations in trials against the state. Throughout his career, he has directed award-winning series, documentaries, and short films.

Mom

Xun Sero

Xun Sero was born in 1988 in Chiapas, Mexico. He built his experience in the workshops of “Ambulante Más Allá” and “CCC con Patas”, and in the Documentary Film School of San Cristóbal de las Casas. He currently works as a cinematographer in documentary film productions. His most recent works include "Negra" (2020) by Medhin Tewolde and "Kuxlejal/Vida" (2020) by Elke Franke. Xun Sero is deeply interested in narratives depicting life struggles. Most of his stories delve into the essence of indigenous people. He tries to develop the real cultural heritage of his characters while steering clear of clichés about indigenous people. “Mom” is his first film as a director.

Vaychiletik

Juan Javier Pérez

Juan Javier Pérez was born in 1989 in Chiapas, Mexico, in the Tsotsil Mayan village of Zinacantán. Immersed in his community's ceremonies since childhood, he learned the Zinacanteco drum, guided by his father, a renowned traditional musician. After earning a degree in Intercultural Communication from the Intercultural University of Chiapas, he explored cinema through documentary workshops and attended the San Cristóbal de las Casas Documentary Film School. Juan directed the short documentary "Nichimal Son" (2018), and his first documentary feature film "Vaychiletik" won an award at the "Docs MX" film festival in Mexico City in 2017, leading to its participation in the Tribeca Film Institute Network in New York and subsequent support from the Gabriel García Márquez Fund and the Foprocine Fund of the Mexican Film Institute.

Azmari - The Fest of Voices

Itsushi Kawase

Itsushi Kawase is an associate professor at Japan's National Museum of Ethnology and the Graduate University for Advanced Studies with wide-ranging expertise in ethnographic filmmaking, poetry, fictional writing and performance. Since 2001, he has researched hereditary singers in northern Ethiopia and the religious practices of the Ethiopian Diaspora in Tokyo since 2018, while also producing documentary films such as 'When Spirits Ride Their Horses' (2012) and the award-winning 'Room 11, Ethiopia Hotel' (2007). Itsushi has explored conveying anthropological knowledge through on-screen communication and occasional debates through his films. Additionally, he has recently received awards for his writing and has taught as a visitor at various universities. Since 2019, he has been co-editing the multimodal journal TRAJECTORIA.

Memories of a Party

Anyelin Rodriguez Gomez

Anyelin María Rodríguez Gómez hails from Plato Magdalena in Colombia. Inspired by her fascination with the stories she heard in her village from childhood on, she decided to pursue Film and Audiovisual studies at the University of Magdalena. Since her early academic years, she has been passionate about documentary filmmaking while simultaneously working as a Data Manager and assistant editor on various projects, like the feature documentary “La Marcha del Hambre” produced by OjoAgua Cine, the transmedia project “La Piragua”, of the Universidad del Magdalena in alliance with the Universidad del Cesar and several short films. Her documentary “Memories of a fiesta” was awarded a meritorious thesis by the University of Magdalena.

Va’d’da. Toll-houses

Nikita Dobrynin

Nikita Dobrynin was born in 1987 in Irkutsk, Siberia. He pursued his education in journalism at the Irkutsk State University. For seven years, he worked on local television, focusing primarily on social problems and sports. Since 2019, Nikita has been a student in Alexander Sokurov’s workshop at the St. Petersburg State University of Film & TV. His directorial filmography includes the archival film “The Winner” (2020) and the shorts “Signals” (2021), “Sasha” (2021), “Stars Shine but Not Warm” (2021), and “It’s All Wind” (2022). “Vad’d’a. Toll-Houses” is his first feature-length documentary.

Light Upon Light

Christian Suhr, Muhammad Mustapha

Christian Suhr is a filmmaker and professor at the Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University, Denmark. During fieldwork in Egypt, Denmark and Papua New Guinea, he has explored experiences of spirit possession, psychiatric illnesses, religious healing, and how film can be used to approach unseen dimensions of human life. He is the author and director of the award-winning film and book “Descending with angels” (2019), which delves into the realms of possession, psychiatry, and Islamic exorcism. “Light upon light” is the first film in a planned trilogy with the Cairo-based film collective Hassala Films. The second film examines the experience and cultivation of love and is now in pre-production.

Muhammad Mustapha is a filmmaker based in Cairo. Since 2011 he has taken a multidisciplinary approach towards filmmaking working as a scriptwriter, editor and director. His work focuses mainly on themes of masculinity, manliness and the male – such as in male power dynamics and male dominated spaces; in a hybrid form between fiction and documentary.

I Am Not

Tomer Heymann

Tomer Heymann is an Israeli award-winning documentary filmmaker whose career has spanned over two decades and includes some of the most successful films in the history of Israeli documentary cinema. His critically-acclaimed films have screened in festivals worldwide and have received several prizes. "Mr. Gaga" (2015) was shortlisted for the European Academy Awards, theatrically released in 17 countries, and is considered the most viewed Israeli documentary in the country’s history. Tomer has been previously voted as one of "The Top Ten Most Influential People in Israeli Art" and was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Monterey International Film Festival in Mexico. His recent film "I Am Not' (2021) had its world-premiere at Docaviv and received several awards.

Through Hands of Mine

Kostana Banovic

Koštana Banović, born in 1960 in Sarajevo, former Yugoslavia, is a multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Holding an MA in Fine Arts, her cinematic practice addresses the interaction between experimental and cinéma vérité documentary styles, and includes a reflexivity belonging to the category of essay-film. Her films have been numerously awarded and screened at film festivals internationally, such as the IFFR in Rotterdam and Ji.hlava IDFF in Jihlava. Her work is part of the permanent collection of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Currently, she is the director of the Eastern Neighbours Film Festival in the Netherlands.