filmmakers
Alex Sardà
Alex Sardà (Barcelona, 1989) collaborates mainly with the production companies 15L Films and Nanouk Films. His documentary feature debut "Hafreiat" represents a further step in his exploration of contemporary masculinities, already initiated in his fiction short films. Sardà also composed the soundtrack for the films "The longest road to return home" by Sergi Perez and "A perro flaco” by Laura Ferres. He is currently developing his second feature film together with 15L Films and Boogaloo Films.
Alexandru Solomon
After a debut as an operator on fiction films in the 1990s and several collaborations on experimental films, he migrated to documentary film. He has made feature films such as: "The Great Communist Robbery", "Kapitalism - Our Secret Recipe" and "Tarzan's Eggs". In 2016 he published the monograph "Representations of Memory in Documentary Film". He has been teaching at UNArte since 2010 and is the president of One World Romania Association.
Andrei Schwartz
Andrei Schwartz was born in 1955, in Bucharest. In 1973 he emigrates to the former West Germany and begins his studies at the Hamburg School of Arts. Schwartz becomes a documentary film director and, in 1997, at IDFA, he wins the Joris Ivens award for “Auf der Kippe.”
Anna Shishova- Bogoliubova
Anna Shishova is a documentary filmmaker based in Tel Aviv. She graduated from the Moscow State University with a degree in Modern Russian History (2008) and from VGIK, in Documentary Filmmaking (2013). Between 2012 and 2013 she participated in an exchange program between VGIK and SADA (Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts). In 2016 she took part in the American Film Showcase International Documentary workshop organized by the U.S. Department of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the USC School of Cinematic Arts (San Francisco).
Botond Püsök
Romanian-born Botond Püsök’s fiction films and documentaries have been screened at multiple international film festivals. In 2016 he won the Best Director Award at the Astra International Film Festival and DocuArt Film Festival for his documentary ”Angela.” Botond has a Master’s Degree in Documentary Film Directing from the University of Theatre and Film Arts, SZFE Budapest.
Cem Kaya
Cem Kaya (1976, Schweinfurt) studied Communication Design at the Merz Academy in Stuttgart (1999–2005). He initially worked as a producer, editor, and director for commercials and music videos. Later on, together with film producer Jochen Laube, he made his first two feature-length documentaries: “Arabeks” (2010, co-directed with Gökhan Bulut) and “Remake, Remix, Rip-Off” (2014). In his work Cem Kaya uses extensive found footage and archive material of various kinds. This colourful mix of materials and his own documentary observations are the ingredients for his extremely insightful, sometimes bizarre and often hilarious docu-essays.
Csongor Gáspár
For Csongor Gáspár the student years spent at the University of Art Bucharest and FAV resulted in several experimental works awarded at various festivals in Europe. With this spiritual charge, the road has taken him to various fields over the past 20 years. From running a retail-design company to organising children's festivals, creativity has remained at the forefront of his mind.
Călin Boto
Călin Boto este critic de film și curator. A participat la ateliere internaționale de critică de film în Varșovia, Sarajevo, Locarno și Pordenone (2019-2022). Lucrează ca redactor pentru publicația online All About Romanian Cinema. Timp de doi ani (2020-2023) a ținut rubrica lunară „Note de subsol” la Films in Frame, despre istorii ale cinemaului românesc, timp în care a scris și pentru Revista Arta, Revista Film, Teletext, Scena9 ș.a. Este curatorul de film al proiectelor intermedia produse de asociația Image and Sound (cinema românesc mut + muzică experimentală) și curator asociat al Festivalului de Film Experimental din București și al Festivalului de Film Queer ART200.
Cătălina Tesăr
Cătălina Tesăr teaches Anthropology at the University of Bucharest and works as a researcher at the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant in Bucharest. She has a PhD in Anthropology from the University College London, consisting in a thesis about the economic, sexual, and political dimensions of marital alliances among the Cortorari Transylvanian Roma. This documentary is based on her PhD research.
Dana Bunescu
Dana Bunescu is a well-known Romanian editor and sound designer who recently co-directed several documentaries. She authored the editing and the sound design of the most representative fiction films of the New Romanian Wave (“The Death of Mr Lazarescu” by Cristi Puiu, “4 Month, 3 Weeks, 2 Days” by Cristian Mungiu, among others), as well as of several important Romanian documentaries (for instance “The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceaușescu” by Andrei Ujică). In 2017 she was awarded the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution in Editing.
Diana El Jeiroudi
A director and screenwriter, Diana seeks to encapsulate socio-political tensions and contradictions in her films. Her efforts in supporting and advancing the documentary culture, notably through establishing DOX BOX as Syria's first documentary film festival, and then as the Berlin-based documentary film support organization, have earned her various awards, including the ECN Award, The Katrin Cartlidge Award, and The Heart of Sarajevo. She is a member of the American Academy of Motion Pictures, the Deutsche Filmakademie, and the Asia Pacific Screen Academy. She served on several committees and juries, at Cannes Film Festival Golden Eye Documentary Award, Sundance Documentary Program, IDFA, AFAC, and APSA Awards, among others.
Joseph Mangat
Joseph Mangat is a Filipino filmmaker that shuttles back and forth from New York and Manila. Mentored by professor and filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin at the University of California, San Diego, he holds an MA in TV, Film, and New Media from San Diego State University, where he graduated with honors, receiving the Student Emmy Award, Kathleen Kennedy Fellowship, Fotekem Scholarship, and Focal Press Best Student Film Award. He worked for numerous non-profit groups including Pacarts as a film programmer and film instructor, and at the Tribeca Film Institute producing and directing video content for their programs and events. “Divine Factory” is his first feature length film.
Marilena Preda Sânc
Marilena Preda Sanc is an interdisciplinary visual artist. From 1980 her work has been presented internationally at museums, video-festivals, conferences, symposium, broadcast venues and galleries.
Integrating the traditional forms of art and the new media arts, her art works visualizes and investigates the body/mind/soul/behavior in relation to nature and social/political and representational space. Her art work explores the feminism problematic as gender / ageism and woman as leader in an eco-feminism key.
She is the author of art writings focused on Feminism, New Media and Public Art.
Marius Șopterean
Marius Șopterean este regizor, specializat în regie teatru și regie film (ficțiune și documentar).
Masterat cu lucrarea Manipularea prin știrile de televiziune (1998).
Doctorat în estetica și istoria filmului universal obținut la UNATC I.L.Caragiale, București, cu lucrarea Tradiție și modernitate în opera filmică a lui Krzysztof Kieslowski (2002).
Abilitare pentru școala doctorală cu lucrarea Stilistica faptului regizoral (2018).
Dezvoltă proiecte şi activează în învățământul universitar de regie film, teatru, televiziune la nivel de licență, masteral și doctoral.
Predă cursuri de film documentar la UNATC I.L.Caragiale (București) și Universitatea Babeș Bolyai (Cluj Napoca).
Între 1999-2015 a fost directorul departamentului de regie și producție de film la Universitatea Națională de Artă Teatrală și Cinematografică I.L.Caragiale.
Este inițiatorul Școlii de Film din Cluj Napoca (Universitatea Babeș Bolyai)
Este director competiții și selecționer al festivalului internațional de film CINEMAIUBIT.
În 2018 TIFF deschide festivalul prin prezentarea documentarului Păpușa, realizat de Marius Șopterean, produs de Fundația Arte Vizuale.
Este membru onorific al Asociației catolice pentru comunicare audiovizuală SIGNIS (între 2000-2010 a fost vicepreședintele acestei asociații).
Este membru al Uniunii Cineaștilor din România.
Este membru al Asociației Creatorilor de Ficțiune din România.
Printre publicațiile sale se numără: Utopie și Film (ed.UNATC PRESS București, 2007, ) – Premiul UCIN pentru cea mai bună carte de film –, Memorie și Film (ed.Clusium, Cluj-Napoca, 2008) , 7+1 povești despre film, (ed.UCIN, 2014 București), Filmul documentar între pre și post existență, (ed.UNATC PRESS, București, 2017)
În 1992 debutează în teatru cu spectacolul Cristofor Columb la Teatrul Național din Cluj Napoca. În 1995 debutează în filmul de ficțiune cu lungmetrajul Confesiune.
În 2008 primește premiul de regie al Uniunii Cineaștilor din România pentru filmul Marea Integrare.
Filmele sale (ficțiune și documentar) au fost selecționate la mai multe festivaluri internaționale (Montpellier, Malecorto, NewBrandenburg, Lyon, Paris, Budapesta etc).
A făcut parte din juriile internaționale de film de la Berlin, Veneția, Łódź, Beijing.
Mathilde Rouxel
Mathilde Rouxel holds a PhD in Film History, specialising in Arab cinema. She is currently the co-artistic director of the Aflam festival in Marseilles and an independent researcher and curator. She worked with Jocelyne Saab from 2013, both as a researcher and an collaborator, and started with her a process of archiving her work, which she continues since Saab's death within the Jocelyne Saab Association that she co-founded in 2019. Since 2015, she has published three books on Jocelyne Saab's cinema, two of which she co-edited, and is now leading the collaborative project to restore her films and publish them.
Mona Nicoară
Filmmaker and activist MONA NICOARĂ was born in Communist Romania and, until 1989, dedicated her early years to becoming a poet in a small, largely underground community of young writers. She started working in film in 1997 as an Associate Producer for Children Underground (Special Jury Prize at Sundance 2001; nominated for an Oscar). She went on to make Our School (Tribeca 2011), which went on to over 70 festivals worldwide; andThe Distance Between Me and Me (Trieste 2019), which won the audience award at Films de Cannes à Bucarest and a Gopo award for best feature documentary. Mona Nicoară continued to write and publish in The Guardian, Dilema Veche and Decât o Revistă, among others.
Nataša Urban
Nataša Urban is a documentary film director and editor. Her films, such as “Journey of a Red Fridge” and “Big Sister Punam”, have been screened at over 100 international film festivals and have received 40 awards. They have aired on major TV networks worldwide, including ARTE, RAI, ZDF, DR2, YLE, ORF, RSI, and PBS, and are part of various international educational programs, from Ghana to Mongolia. Urban holds a Master’s Degree in Photography, and took part in ESoDoc 2006, IDFAcademy 2007, IDFA Summer School 2014, Berlinale Talents 2015, and Werner Herzog Rogue Film School 2016. She’s been with Medieperatørene since 2011, working both as a director and editor.
Neil Coltofeanu
Otilia Babara
Otilia Babara is a documentary filmmaker from Moldova currently based in Brussels. She directed and produced several short films, namely “Irene” (2015), selected at several international film festivals, and “Women on Canvas” (2009), which received various awards at Astra Film Festival and Cronograf Film Festival. Her subjects are often invisible people: those who have something valuable to share, but whose voice is rarely heard. Whether by chance or unconsciously, her protagonists always end up being women.
Radu Igazsag
Radu Muntean
Radu Muntean (1971) is a Romanian film director and screenwriter based in Bucharest, Romania. He graduated from the Romanian Theatre and Film Academy – the Film Directing section in 1994, and soon became one of the central figures of the so-called ”Romanian New Wave”. He directed and wrote 7 features and 2 feature docs. His films premiered in Quinzaine des Realisateurs, Locarno International Film Festival and Un Certain Regard - Cannes Film Festival, while receiving raving reviews in Variety, Hollywood Reporter, The New York Times , Le Monde, Le Figaro, and many more.
In 2016 he was a jury member of the Cinéfondation & Courts Metrages at Cannes Film Festival.
Valentin Suciu
Regizor
Vali Hotea
Absolvent al ATF (UNATC) in 1994, sectia regie.
Filmul sau de diploma, "Marea aventura", a primit Premiul pentru cel mai bun regizor la Festivalul de film de la Costinesti si Premiul Arte TV la Festivalul filmelor de diploma Henri Langlois - Franta.
Pana la debutul in lungmetraj cu "Roxanne" (premiera mondiala la Festivalul de film de la Locarno, 2013), a regizat spoturi, videoclipuri, filme si seriale tv, iar la Fundatia Arte Vizuale documentarele ”Maya” si ”Lucy Castle-Hotea” (Premiul Alter-Native 5).
Al doilea sau lungmetraj, comedia ”Lebensdorf”, se afla in prezent pe platforma Netflix.
Vitaly Mansky
Vivi Drăgan Vasile
Vasile (Vivi) Drăgan, known as Vivi Drăgan Vasile, (b. 28 August 1947, Bucharest, Romania) is a film cameraman and cinematographer. He has signed the image for such landmark films of Romanian cinema as Drumul oselor (1980), Sword Swallower (1982), On the Left Bank of the Blue Danube (1983), Horea (1984), Moromeții (1987), Hornet's Nest (1987), The Secret of the Gun... secrets! (1989), State of Fact (1995), Fury (2001), Philanthropy (2002), Occident (2002), The Other Irina (2008), The Silent Wedding (2008), The Cinematic Caravan (2009), About People and Snails (2011), I'm a Communist Old Woman (2012), Morometii 2 (2018).
He graduated from the Institute of Theatrical and Cinematographic Arts in Bucharest, film operator class, in 1973. He taught as a visiting professor at the Academy of Theatre and Film from 1990-1994.
He founded the Visual Arts Foundation in 1992 and is its executive director.
Vlad Petri
Vlad Petri is a filmmaker, screenwriter, and cinematographer born in Bistriţa, Romania, in 1979. He studied cinematography as well as visual and media anthropology. His films have been shown and won awards at various international film festivals.
Yevhen Titarenko
Zlatina Teneva
Zlatina Teneva graduated in Journalism from Sofia University, Bulgaria, in 2018. Since then, she has worked as a director, line producer and researcher on numerous film projects for ARTE and Deutsche Welle. “A Provincial Hospital” is her feature directorial debut.
Želimir Žilnik
Zelimir Zilnik (b.1942, Yugoslavia) is an artist-filmmaker from Novi Sad, Serbia. In his highly prolific career, Zilnik has made over 50 feature and short films, which have been exhibited internationally at film festivals including Berlin, Toronto, Rotterdam, Moscow and Oberhausen. From the late 60s, his socially engaged films in former Yugoslavia earned him accolades, but also censorship in the 70s and the 90s for his unflinching criticism of the government apparatus. His power to observe and unleash compelling narratives out of the lives of ordinary people is the common thread throughout his work.
Recently, Zilnik has been the subject of major career retrospectives at Kunsthalle Wien, 2020/21; Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2019; Cinemateca Argentina, 2018; Mar del Plata Int. Film Festival, 2017; Anthology Film Archive, New York & Harvard Film Archive, 2017 etc.
His work has been featured in programs of art galleries, museums and art institutes around the world (Documenta, Kassel, Germany; Venice Biennale, Italy; ICA London, UK; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA; MUMOK, Vienna, Austria; MACBA, Spain; Museo Universitario Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City, Mexico, etc.)
