Chabname Zariab (AFG/FR) is a writer and director. She published her first novel, The Afghan Pianist, in 2012. Following that, she wrote and directed three short films: When You Hear The Bells (2017), The Camel Boy (2018) and Hizia (2020), which received French César’s nomination, 2 Oscar qualifications, some sixty awards and were presented in more than 200 festivals. Among them BFI, Interfilm, Clermont-Ferrand FF, Aesthetica FF, Brooklyn FF etc. Her cinema deals with difficult childhoods in the Middle East. Her first feature film is set in contemporary Afghanistan.
Banafshe Hourmazdi (GER) can be seen as an actress both on stage and in television and film. In 2015, she received the Newcomer Award from the City of Vienna for the production MEINE NASE LÄUFT at the city's Theater Drachengasse. The cinema film NO HARD FEELINGS, in which she played the lead, received the Götz George - FIRST STEPS Award and the Award for Best Feature Film. The web series "2 Minuten", in which she also played one of the protagonists, was nominated for the Grimme Award and won the Ensemble Award at the "Seriale" festival. Currently, she can be seen in the ZDFneo series LOVING HER and the tragicomedy IMMER DER NASE NACH, and is shooting a ZDF series in Brüssels at the moment. In 2021, she was a part of Berlinale Talents. (c) Foto_Meltem Kaya, Styling_Merve Celikyurt, HMU_Peimaneh Yaghoobifarah2
Aneta Ozorek (POL), is the Artistic Director of the Kaboom Animation Festival, film curator, and education expert. She has extensive industry experience in the organization of film events, educational workshops, exhibitions, and festivals on the European market. She is a Head of the Short and Feature Section of CEE Animation Pitching Forum, program advisor of Cinema in Sneakers Film Festival in Warsaw, a member of the board of the REX Animation Festival (Sweden) and the Short Film Conference, and a member of the European Children Film Association. She has illustrated seven books for children. Foto © Natalia Kaniak
Randall Halle (USA/GER), filmscolar and author. He is the Klaus W. Jonas Professor of German Film and Cultural Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also Director of the Film and Media Studies Program there. He works primarily on film and visual culture. His books include Visual Alterity: Seeing Difference in Cinema, The Europeanization of Cinema, German Film after Germany, and Queer Social Philosophy: Critical Readings from Kant to Adorno. His essays have appeared in journals such as New German Critique, Screen, Camera Obscura, German Quarterly, and Film-Philosophy and he has received grants from the NEH, the DAAD, and the SSRC.
Hawa Essuman (KEN) is a filmmaker, with experience in writing, directing and producing. She co-directed the documentary feature SILAS, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, directed the multi award winning film SOUL BOY that screened at over 40 film festivals worldwide and contributet a short film to the Tate Modern exhibition for Olafor Eliasson’s Little Sun Project. She’s also the co-founder of Manyatta Screenings - a bi-annual film program showcasing shorts from greater East Africa. She supports the next generation of African filmmakers by running master classes, workshops and panels on filmmaking across the continent. Foto (c) Tom Vandas
FRANSISKA PRIHADI (IDN) is co-founder of the art-house cinema MASH Denpasar in Bali. She is Programme Director of Minikino. She served as guest programmer & jury for various national and international short film festivals, with experience as facilitator and mentor for filmmaking and film critics workshops. She just recently completed her thesis based on a research about Festival and Destination Qualities Influence on Tourist Satisfaction and Revisit Intention: a Case Study of Minikino Film Week in Bali. Foto (c) Syafiudin Vifick
Aliaksei Paluyan (BLR/GER), a film director and writer, was born 1989 in Baranovichi in the Republic of Belarus. In 2012 he moved to Germany and studied film and television directing at the Kunsthochschule Kassel (Academy for the arts).He has become known to audiences as a director of fiction short films and documentaries that have been presented at festivals worldwide. With his unique artistic signature, Aliaksei Paluyan has achieved to transform highly personal stories from his homeland into themes of universal meaning and relevance. In 2019 his short fiction drama "Lake of Happiness" premiered in Clermont-Ferrand, won a numerous awards at international festivals, was a candidate for European Short Film at the 33rd European Film Awards in 2020 and also longlisted for the Oscars 2021. Aliaksei's documentary film debut "Courage" had its world premiere at the 71st Berlin International Film Festival.
Anna Wollner (GER), born in Bonn in 1983, socialised in Potsdam, lives with wife and child in Berlin. Her first film in the cinema was "The Land Before Time", she cut school regularly to attend the "Sehsüchte" international student film festivals secretly, before ending up in college radio by chance while studying communication, media and theatre studies in Leipzig. She has worked for over 15 years as a film and television series critic for diverse stations in the ARD broadcasting network, including Fritz, Radio Eins, Deutschlandfunk Nova, Deutschlandfunk Kultur and MDR. Foto (c) Ben Wolf
Eren Aksu (TUR/GER), born in Istanbul in 1987, studied film and television at Istanbul's Bilgi University and arts and media at the Berlin University of the Arts. His films have been screened at many international film festivals. His most recent film OTHER THAN THAT, I'M FINE won the 3sat Emerging Talent Award at the 66th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and the Award for Best Short Film at the 17th Achtung Berlin Film Festival.
Emma Bading (GER) has appeared as an actress in film comedies like HOW TO BE REALLY BAD and LUCKY LOSER (nominated for a German Acting Award in 2018 in the up-and-coming category), as well as in TV thrillers such as WESTWALL and PLAY. For the latter, she was nominated for an International Emmy Award in the Best Performance by an Actress category, and also received the Bavarian TV Award. In 2020, she made her directorial debut at Hof International Film Festival with the short film OUTRAGEOUS. Foto © Christian Hartmann
Shoko Hara, (JAP/GER) (1988, Okayama, Japan) is a director and motion designer. At the age of ten, her family moved to Lake Constance in Germany. In 2012, she obtained her B.A. in Media Design at the DHBW Ravensburg. With her emphasis on analogue and experimental works in graphic design and art, she moved on to study Motion Design at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg between 2012 and 2016, where she graduated with the animated short WHAT THEY BELIEVE. Her debut film JUST A GUY was awarded with the Golden Dragon at Krakow IFF 2020, Grand Prize at the Animafest Zagreb 2020, Golden Centaur at Message to Man 2020, among many others, was qualified for the Oscars 2021 and nominated for the German Short Film Award 2020. Shoko Hara is currently teaching Motion Graphics at the DHBW Ravensburg and works as a motion designer and animation director for commercial spots, cinema movies and music videos.
Marc Bauder (GER), film director. He initially studied business administration in Cologne, St. Gallen and New York, before later attending the Film University of Babelsberg. In 1999, he founded his own production company, bauderfilm GmbH, initially realising documentary films such as LAST TO KNOW (Berlinale 2006). His award-winning feature-film debut THE SYSTEM followed in 2011. His documentary film MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE won the European Film Award and German Documentary Film Award, among other honours. Together with his brother, in 2014 he realised the art installation LICHTGRENZE for the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. His fiction feature DEAD MAN WORKING won the Grimme Award in 2017. His most recent documentary film WHO WE WERE celebrated its world premiere at the 2021 Berlinale and is currently playing in theatres. Marc is a member of the European and German Film Academies. Foto © Lars Borges
Nadja Ofuatey-Alazard (GER) is a cultural activist, curator, production manager, journalist, moderator and filmmaker. Most recent projects include the event and film series ReMIX. Africa in Translation (2016/17) as well as the book publication Narrating African FutureS (co-editor, Taylor & Francis, 2018). From 2011 to 2017, she co-directed the BIGSAS Festival of African and African-Diasporic Literature at the University of Bayreuth. Since October 2017, she has worked as a project director and co-managing director/artistic director at Each One Teach One (EOTO) e.V. in Berlin, where she is responsible among other things for the art and literature festival AFROLUTION. Since 2020, she has also served as the section head for "In[ter]ventionen" (and thus for discursive and performative formats) within the 5-year joint project »Dekoloniale Erinnerungskultur in der Stadt«. Foto (c) Nicolas Grange