Kim Lêa Sakkal
Beirut, Lebanon, 1994
Kim Lêa Sakkal is a writer, director and producer based in Germany. After growing up in Lebanon, Germany and Spain, she graduated from the Academy of Media Art in Cologne. Her works have been screened at festivals such as Filmfestival Max-Ophüls Prize, Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen and IndieLisboa. She is currently developing her first feature „A Paradise Lost“ funded by the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW.
FILMOGRAPHY
Immaculata (2024) / Intermezzo (2021)
Dovydas Drakšas
Lithuania, 1997
Dovydas Drakšas is a Lithuanian writer and director who currently resides and works in Berlin. He has a degree in natural sciences from the University of Cambridge and a master’s in filmmaking from the London Film School. He is attracted to stories that explore how elements like memories and upbringing, location and society play an important role in shaping personal identity. “Praeis” is his second short film and a graduation project from the London Film School.
FILMOGRAPHY
Praeis (2024) / Happy Graduation (2023) / Elena (2022)
Alba Bresolí
Muntanyola, Spain, 1995
Alba Bresolí is a catalan film director and programmer. She studied cinema in Barcelona and Media & Art at the Bauhaus University. She holds a master’s in Creative Documentary Filmmaking from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona.
“When the Mountain Rumbles” (2022) received local and international recognition and has been shown at many festivals, including IDFA, IndieLisboa, Sheffield, FIPADOC, GoShort, and Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. It won several awards, including Best European Short Documentary at GoShort. Her latest short film, “The Good Omen” (2024), had its international premiere at IndieLisboa.
Since 2021, she has been a film programmer at DocsBarcelona while also conducting experimental cinema workshops at Cinema en curs, an international film education program for public schools.
FILMOGRAPHY
El bon auguri (2024) / When the mountain rumbles (2022)
Tommaso Santambrogio
Milan, Italy, 1992
Director, writer, photographer and video artist. He studied at “Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia”, the “Civic School of Cinema Luchino Visconti”, the “Raindance Institute” and “EICTV”. He collaborated with Werner Herzog, under whose supervision he shot Escena Final “(2018) in Peru and was selected in the section of the Venice Film Festival” I LOVE GAI “(2019). He also collaborated with Pupi Avati and Lav Diaz, with whom he collaborated for “Los Océanos Son Los Verdaderos Continentes” presented at the “International Critics’ Week” of the Venice Film Festival in 2019.
FILMOGRAPHY
La porta di casa (2021) / Los océanos son los verdaderos continentes (2019) / Escena Final (2019) / D’istanti lontani (2017)
Sara Rajaei
The Netherlands
Sara Rajaei is an Iranian-Dutch video artist and filmmaker based in The Netherlands. In her work, she studies the notion of time by reflecting on the absence of image, memory psychology, oral history, narrative techniques, and physical/psychological space. Her artistic oeuvre consists of short films and video installations, which remain in-between storytelling and imagery. After her graduation from the Royal Academy of Art The Hague in 2002, Rajaei attended a 2-year residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten Amsterdam. In 2009, she was shortlisted for the Prix de Rome. She is currently developing her first feature film with support of the funding scheme The Imagination (De Verbeelding) of Netherlands Film Fund.
FILMOGRAPHY
City of Poets (2024), Yet another leap year (2022), A composition in blue, red and other colours (2017), The slightest trace of something (in collaboration with n. Lukic) (2017), In the gaze of panoptes (2016)
Saurav Ghimire
Nepal
Nepalese filmmaker, Saurav Ghimire has a Masters in Film Direction. His works are focused on creating audio-visual images for the screen with fiction and docu-fiction styles.
Professionally, he has five years of work experience in short and feature film projects. In addition to this, he attended training programs at Locarno Basecamp Academy, Odense Talent Camp, and Fantastic Film School BIFAN.
FILMOGRAPHY
Songs of Love and Hate (2024)
Coralie H. Gourdon
French Polynesia, 1990
Coralie H. Gourdon is a documentary director and editor from French Polynesia. After earning degrees in literature, social anthropology, and filmmaking from the Paris Sorbonne University, she developed her skills by focusing on representation and actors through theater in her short film Towards the Sun in India. she was selected to participate in the 2021 Werner Herzog Accelerator in Lanzarote, where she directed her short documentary film Animal Planet under Herzog’s guidance. As a filmmaker, she endeavors to allow her subjects to express their own images, fantasies, and mental representations, exploring subjective approaches to reality and the grey areas between genres.
FILMOGRAPHY
Time Sensitive Characters (2024) / We Better Not Follow Instructions (2023) / Perhaps Life Is an Ankle Breaker (2023) / A magnès (2023) / Up the River (2022) / Hierro Candente (2022) / Layla (2021) / Towards the Sun (2020)
Andrea Gatopoulos
Pescara, Italy, 1994
Born in Pescara (Abruzzo, Italy) in 1994. He is the founder of the production company Il Varco, with which he has produced 11 shorts and 2 feature films. He’s the art director of Il Varco – International Short Film Festival, chosen by Filmfreeway among the Top 100 festivals in the world, and he’s also the creator of Short Days and New Abruzzi Cinema. His productions were featured in more than 100 festivals around the world.
FILMOGRAPHY
Eschaton Ad (2023) / Happy New Year, Jim (2022) / Flores del Precipicio (2022) / Polepole (2021) / Letters to Herzog (2020) / Materia Celeste (2019) / Spettri (2017) / Onyricon (2015)
Zsófia Paczolay
Budapest, Hungary
Zsófia Paczolay is a freelance art worker based in Europe with a background in architecture and filmmaking. She is working on documentary films in different corners of the world – now mainly with a small Hungarian collective – with the intention of showing them in cinemas, community houses, and other, inappropriate locations. As a space/idea/film-maker she’s collaborating with the Moha performance group in diverse projects which are engaging with different groups of people, neighbourhoods on the peripheries and public space mainly in the Netherlands, and in Germany. She is interested in boundaries, how to connect to people and reduce harm.
FILMOGRAPHY
Budapest Silo (2022)
Gabriele Biasi
Italy, 1994
Gabriele Biasi graduated with honors at RUFA (Rome University of Fine Arts).
He is an alumnus of Innsbruck Film Campus 2021. His documentary LE CRISALIDI won an honorable mention at Visioni Italiane 2022 and was screened at 22nd International Film School Festival (Uruguay) and AricaDoc (Chile).
His second work is the experimental documentary “AI ORACLE: Lithium”, funded by Goethe Institut Australia. The documentary was conceived as a continuum of the art installation AI ORACLE and was screened at PhEST – See Beyond the Sea (Italy).
He is one of the founders of the digital museum “Souls’ Archive” (Archivio D’Anime) funded by Regione Lazio. He’s one of the selected in the “In Progress” development lab created by Milano Film Network with the feature film “Alex, I Am Nothing”.
FILMOGRAPHY
La Linea del Terminatore (2023) / Le Crisalidi (2022)
Antonio La Camera
Castrovillari, Italy, 1990
Graduated in Cinema and Visual Arts with a grade of 110 and honors from the Roma Tre University, he attended courses in directing and screenwriting at the “Sentieri Selvaggi” film school. His short films have been screened in over 100 international and national festivals. Antonio is the artistic director of the “Castrovillari Film Festival” and was one of the founders of Gargantua Film Distribution.
FILMOGRAPHY
Las Memorias Perdidas de los Árboles (2023) / Nel ritrovo del silenzio (2018) / Houses (2018) / Prima del dittico (2017) / Il sogno del vecchio (2016) / Carne e Polvere (2015)
Célia Caroubi
France, 1998
Célia Caroubi is a French filmmaker. After graduating with a degree in cinema and management from the University Panthéon Sorbonne, she began studying filmmaking at the Institut National Supérieur des Arts du Spectacle (INSAS) in Belgium. She is interested in the mechanisms of identity construction, particularly in relation to digital and virtual worlds.
FILMOGRAPHY
Playground (2024)
Lukas Ignaz Halder
Tyrol, Austria, 1994
Lukas Ignaz Halder was born in 1994 in Tyrol, Austria. He completed his bachelor’s degree in Multimedia Art at the University of Applied Sciences Salzburg. Since his youth, he has been writing and directing numerous short films. He worked as an editor for ORF (Austrian Broadcasting Corporation) and as a director’s assistant in theater. As of August 2023, Lukas Ignaz has been pursuing his master’s degree in Film Studies at the University of Gothenburg.
FILMOGRAPHY
Mutilated (2023) / Sweet chick (2022) / Two cans (2022) / During the Lesson (2022) / Oil on canvas (2021)
Lesia Diak
Ukraine, 1988
Lesia Diak is a Ukrainian documentary film director and producer. Having previously received a Master’s degree in Communications, Lesia also graduated from the Serhiy Bukovsky Film Program in 2017. In 2022, she completed her studies at DocNomads, an international documentary film directing Master’s program. Lesia is the author of several short documentaries selected for several international film festivals and primarily dedicated to trauma and healing experience. Her work-in-progress feature-length documentary debut Dad’s Lullabyhas received the award for best documentary film in post-production at Sarajevo Talents from the East and the post-production grant from IDFA Bertha Fund. In 2023 she founded DramaFree filmproduction company.
FILMOGRAPHY
Wounds (2024) / Under the wing of a night (2023) / Joszef in Autumn (2022) / Butterfly with a transplant heart (2019)
Eneos Çarka
Tirana, Albania, 1996
Eneos Çarka is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker. He graduated from DocNomads Masters on Creative Documentary and he is currently a PhD student and Annenberg Fellow in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Southern California. His films have screened at numerous festivals, galleries, and cultural events such as IDFA, Festival dei Popoli, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin in Musée du Louvre, DokuFest, among many others. They often focus on character studies and deal with memory, identity, and family relations, paying particular attention to issues of representation and experimenting with various approaches to cinema.
FILMOGRAPHY
The Silence of the Banana Trees (2022) / City of Walls (2016)
Juraj Janiš
Slovakia
Juraj Janiš graduated in filmmaking from De Montfort University in the UK and in photography from Salesian University in Opava, Czech Republic. He is an award-winning director of commercials, having been repeatedly awarded at national creative competitions, as well as the international Epica Awards, Art Director’s Club of Europe Awards, and The Golden Drum Awards, among others. His work has been featured on prestigious international platforms such as directorslibrary.com, shots.net, lbbonline.com, and adsoftheworld.com. Prior to directing adverts, Juraj gained experience as a camera operator, assistant director, and producer on numerous commercial and film productions.
“Gritty Eyes” is Juraj’s first step into directing longer-format narrative films. He is currently developing the screenplay for his feature film debut, “The Rookie”.
FILMOGRAPHY
Gritty Eyes (2023)
Rossella Inglese
Paestum, Italy, 1989
Born in Paestum in 1989, she is a director, screenwriter and editor. Her films focus on female characters grappling with the exploration of sexuality, and have been presented at festivals such as the Venice Film Festival and those of the Oscar Qualifying circuit. You are developing your first feature film “The origin of the world”.
FILMOGRAPHY
Eva (2021) / Denise (2018) / Sara (2017) / Vanilla (2016)
Mino Capuano
Marcianise, 1994
Mino Capuano was born on 09/02/1994 in Marcianise (CE). He moved to Rome to study cinema at RUFA – Rome University of fine Arts, continuing his studies in directing at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia.
In 2016, he participated as cinematographer in the short film ADAVEDE selected at the Venice International Film Critics’ Week. In 2019 he made the short film WHAT ARE THE ODDZ? in competition at Visioni Italiane. In the same year, he filmed the backstage of FAVOLACCE by the D’Innocenzo Brothers. In 2021 he participated as assistant director in the documentary L’OCCHIO DELLA GALLINA by Antonietta de Lillo. In the same year, he presented his independent film QUANNO CHIOVE as the only world premiere, at the Bimbi Belli, festival hosted by Nanni Moretti.
FILMOGRAPHY
Sciaraballa (2022) / Quanno Chiove (2021) / La Vedova più bella del Paese (2020) / What are the Oddz (2019) / CoEsistenza di Adriano Cecchi (2018) / We Are the Only One (2017)
Lorenzo Fabbro
1991
Lorenzo Fabbro (1991) graduated in Cinema Engineering in Turin and later moved to Sarajevo, where he participated on the BFA program at Béla Tarr’s film.factory. His first short Nestajanje was presented at the 2018 Sarajevo Film Festival. He has been working as an assistant director in numerous international productions.
FILMOGRAPHY
Puiet (2022) / Nestajanje (2018)
Bronte Stahl
1993
Bronte Stahl (1993) is a filmmaker from Westerly, RI, USA. He graduated from the European itinerant MFA program DocNomads and is an alumnus of the Flaherty Seminar Fellowship, IDFA Project Space, Eurodoc and Points North Institute. The films he directs including Terril (2019) and Lungs (2017) have screened at festivals such as Rotterdam, DocLisboa, Pravo Ljudski, Leuven, Uppsala, and won prizes at Minsk and Porto Post/Doc. As a producer, he is compelled to elevate emerging international voices in non-fiction cinema. This work has been supported by the Sundance Documentary Fund, DocSociety US, British Film Institute, and LEF Foundation, among others. Currently he holds a Fulbright scholarship to Romania in the field of filmmaking.
FILMOGRAPHY
Puiet (2022) / Terril (2019) / Lungs (2017)
Davide Palella
Milan, Italy, 1996
Davide Palella (born in Italy in 1996) graduated in Media Design and Multimedia Arts at NABA (Milan) in 2019. In the same year, after a series of shorts and academic works, he directed his first medium-length film, Sirio, which screened at festivals like Filmmaker (Milan), Slow Film Festival (Mayfield) and Fuorinorma (Rome). In April 2021, he took part in the In Progress development workshop, mentored by Michelangelo Frammartino. In October of that year, he received a development grant for his new project, Shura. Sonnenstube, his latest short film, was realized during the 2022 Locarno Spring Academy. He’s an editor for Filmidee magazine.
FILMOGRAPHY
Sirio (2019), Sonnenstube (2022)
Gregorio Sassoli
Bologna, Italy, 1989
Born and raised in Bologna, Italy, Gregorio moved to NYC to study film at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. After graduating he alternated his time between personal projects and working as an assistant on film sets for directors such as Paolo Sorrentino, Woody Allen e Roger Spottiswoode. His first feature film, The Wisdom Tooth, premiered at the Oaxaca IFF and won the Best Feature award at the Derby Film Festival.
FILMOGRAPHY
The Wisdom Tooth (2019), Il Provino (2022), San Damiano (2023)
Alejandro Cifuentes
Italy
Alejandro collaborated with the tv production Stand by Me where he first approached storytelling. He then collaborated as an author for various online newspapers such as Fondazione Leonardo – civiltà delle macchine. From 2018 to 2021 he worked for the production Corima as a junior author on Forum, one of the most successful programs on Italian TV.
FILMOGRAPHY
San Damiano (2023)
Jonas Smulders
Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1994
Jonas Smulders (1994) is considered one of the most promising Dutch acting talents of his generation. He has worked on a large variety of both national and international films. Most recently, he has starred in the first Dutch Netflix Original Forever Rich and in the Croatian debut of Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic Murina, which premiered at the Quinzaine of Cannes 2021. In the meantime, Jonas has initiated a career as a writer/director. This path first led him to write a short Bestaan is Gaan (2017) and in the same year his first director’s debut short film Tex, which premiered in Warsaw International Film Festival. Obesk is his second short film, but the first that was funded by the Dutch film fund.
FILMOGRAPHY
Tex (2017), Obesk (2022)
Jan Prazak
Vienna, Austria, 1991
Jan Prazak, born on September 21, 1991, grew up in Vienna. After graduating from high school, he studied German philology at the Main University in Vienna. In 2013 he began studying directing at the Vienna Film Academy under the lead of Michael Haneke. In 2021, he graduated from the bachelor’s program and has since been studying in the master’s program with Jessica Hausner. His films have been screened at numerous international film festivals, such as the Tribeca Film Festival, and have won several awards.
FILMOGRAPHY
Fixing Things (2022) / Another life (2019) / The Motion of Stars (2028) / Treetrunks in the Snow (2016) / Wahn (2013)
Lorenzo Pallotta
Teramo, Italy, 1992
Lorenzo Pallotta, born in 1992, is a young Italian director. In 2012 he enrolled at the SAE Institute in Milan. In the following years he worked for both university-related and independent film productions. He has collaborated in the creation of documentaries, commercials, video clips, short films and web series. He worked as assistant director in the film “Loro” and in the short film “Piccole Avventure Romane”, both directed by Paolo Sorrentino. Since 2016 he has been part of the “Limbo Film” production company. His latest short film “Luis” (2019) was selected at the 35. Brest European Short Film Festival, 9. Figari Film Fest, 26. Visioni Italiane (Cineteca di Bologna). In 2021 his first feature film “Children of the sleeping giant” premiered at Alice nella Città.
FILMOGRAPHY
Balma (2015) / Inumanamente (2016) / Ossa (2019) / Luis (2019) / Las Hadas (2020) / Children of the sleeping giant (2021)
Mohammad Reza Khavari
Iran, 1992
Mohammad Reza Khavari was Born in 1992. He is an Iranian screenwriter, editor, director, and producer. At the age of 19, he started film making by making no-budget films. Participating in The Oscar Winner Iranian Director; Asghar Farhadi’s directing master class, motivated him to make his first short film “SABA”.
FILMOGRAPHY
SABA (2020) Unjustified (2022)
Sebastian Petri
Sarzana, Italy, 1998
Graduated in Media Design & Multimedia Arts at NABA (Milan) in 2021.
During his university years, he worked as a videomaker and art director, starting with events and shows in the fields of Fashion, Web Series and academic short films. The diploma short film “By the sea” investigates the unresolved impulses and requests for the affection of a generation that is transforming and (de) forming and is currently being distributed. In the present, he is working on the script of the new film project by director Davide Palella with whom he is also collaborating on other projects. Before becoming interested in cinema he was part of a Street Art collective, a world that he wants to tell in a feature film currently being written called “Bare Ass”.
FILMOGRAPHY
By the Sea (2021)
Fabio Serpa
Paola, Italy, 1991
Fabio Serpa was born in Paola (CS), on May 17, 1991. After graduating in Film Directing in 2012 in Cinecittà at NUCT- International School of Cinema and Television (now Roma Film Academy), he directed 2016 “El Duelo Weird!”, a short western/sci-fi filmed in Bereguardo (PV) with an independent crew. The work was selected for 30 international festivals, winning in Monza, Rome, Tokyo, Berlin, and Arizona.
In 2019 he produced and directed “Cracolice,” a sci-fi documentary focusing on the disaster of the poison ships in the Tyrrhenian Sea, Calabria. Distributed by Gargantua Distribution, it is selected for 35 International Festivals (including the “Montpellier Film Festival,” the most important after Cannes), chosen among the ten most representative works of 2020 by the National Short Film Center of Turin in the section “10 Shorts Around the World,” included in a thesis by a student from Milan’s IULM University and interviewed on “Linea Verde Domenica” on Rai Uno in October 2021.
The film gained international recognition and won awards at several prestigious European festivals.
FILMOGRAPHY
Cracolice (2020) / El Duelo Weird (2016)
Giulia Grandinetti
Italy, 1989
She is a multifaceted artist, interested in research and experimentation. In 2008 she moved to Rome and studied acting with M. Margotta, A. Piccardi, M. Abraham, F. Pardeillhan, D. Antonelli, P. Buglioni. In 2012 he studied at the OdinTeatret in Holstebro and did research in the world of Pina Bausch’s dance and physical theater. Graduated in Literature and Philosophy from the University of Roma Tre, with a Masters in Cinema following a degree in Theater. In 2014 she started working on his debut film, “Alice and the land that wonders”. She won the III Edition of Shortlab in Rome with a theatrical project performed with M. Schermi and M. Russo. In 2019 she made the short film ”Guinea Pig”, co-directed with Andrea Benjamin Manenti. In 2020 she made the short film ” Greenwater”, produced by Nikada Film.
FILMOGRAPHY
Alice and the land that wonders (2021) / Greenwater (2020) / Guinea Pig (2020)
Andrea Benjamin Manenti
Italy, 1991
He studies directing and digital filmmaking at the Sae Institute in Milan with Mirko Locatelli. After moving to Rome, he was selected at the Experimental Center of Cinematography, where he studied photography with Giuseppe Lanci AIC. He founded Fedra Film with the director Rossella Inglese: together they made the short film “Vanilla”, in official selection at the 73rd Venice Film Festival and “Denise”, awarded at numerous festivals. He works as director of photography in numerous short films selected in more than 100 festivals around the world (St. Louis Int’l Film Festival, Calgary Film Festival, Nastri d’ argento, Globi d’oro, Rome Film Festival). In 2018 he began his collaboration with director Giulia Grandinetti, co-directing the short film “Guinea Pig”, and he started working on the long-term photographic project “Odissea Sentimentale”.
FILMOGRAPHY
Guinea Pig (2020)
Stelios Moraitidis
Atene, Grecia
He studied Film Theory in Paris 1 La Sorbonne. In 2014 he finished his first short film, “Thavma – Miracle”, a film essay on life in Athens with which he participated in the 6th film Balkans Beyond Borders Festival. In 2016 he concluded the documentary “Deconstructing Interruption“, which presents the life of the actors in the set of Yorgos Zois, “Interruption”, was screened at the 18th Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival. “Dakar” is his first fiction film, completed in 2020 and already awarded a Special Mention at the 43rd International Drama Short Film Festival and screened at the 26th Athens International Film Festival.
FILMOGRAPHY
Dakar (2020) / Deconstructing Interruption (2016) / Thavma – Miracle (2015)
Emanuele Cantò
Pescara, Italy, 1997
Emanuele Cantò (1997) was born in Pescara and currently studies and works in Milan.
He works mainly with video and photography, investigating the relationship between man and the natural, domestic and cultural environment.
He is currently studying in the two-year specialist course in Visual Arts in Naba, conducting research on the limits of the documentary and on the role of video art in the contemporary cinema system.
FILMOGRAPHY
Io mi fermo qui (2020) / L’acqua che non piove (2020) / Sold Out (2021) / Sant’Andrea (w.i.p.)
Max Marklund & Anders Jacobsson
Stoccolma, Svezia
Max Marklund & Anders Jacobsson are a duo of writers and directors from two different generations. They were both born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden. Max Marklund began his career as a digital effects artist, but his passion for directing and storytelling led him to focus on film. Anders Jacobsson is a cinematographer who didn’t just want to look through the viewfinder, but also wanted to tell his own stories. The motto is: if we can get it back with the camera, we’ll get it back with the camera.
FILMOGRAPHY
Fabrizio Condino
Paola, Italy, 1990
He graduated from the “ACT Multimedia” and “Sentieri Selvaggi” film schools and attended the preparatory seminar for the directing course at the “Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia”. He is the author of the short films “La Vita Sospesa” (2017), “Notturno” (2018), “Apnea” (2019), “Il Rito” (2020). His works have been mentioned in the column dedicated to cinema and entertainment on TG1 “DoReCiakGulp”, edited by the critic Vincenzo Mollica.
FILMOGRAPHY
Antonio Romagnoli
Castrovillari, Italy, 1992
After studying Literature and Philosophy in classical high schools, he graduated in Literature and Performance Sciences at Sapienza University of Rome. From 2013 to 2016 he worked as a film critic with “icinemaniaci”, awarded as the best film critic website in 2014. He works at Il Varco cinema as editorial supervisor and has published works of poetry and fiction with their publishing house. In 2016 he shot “Memories of a traveler”. His first feature film “Polvere” is on the way. In 2019 he made his second short film, “Inutile al mondo”.
FILMOGRAPHY
Inutile al mondo (2019) / Memorie di un viaggiatore (2016)
Matteo Delai
Gavardo, Italy, 1991
Director, Artistic Director of the Desenzano Film Festival, co-founder of Gargantua Distribution and partner of Fivizzano27. Graduated in Film Art from RUFA and in Communication from the University of Padua. His latest short film “Il Cane” was presented at Alice nella Città, the parallel section of the Rome Film Fest in 2018.
FILMOGRAPHY
Ballata dei miseri (2021) / Il Cane (2017) / Bongiùr (2017)