Indian-Tibetan filmmakers Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam have been working together for more than 30 years. They have made award-winning documentaries, video installations and two feature films. Their documentary, The Sun Behind the Clouds (2009), won the Vaclav Havel Award at the One World Film Festival in Prague. Their feature films, Dreaming Lhasa (2005) and The Sweet Requiem (2018) both premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Ritu and Tenzing are also the directors of the Dharamshala International Film Festival, which they founded in 2012 and is now one of India’s leading independent film festivals.    

Ali Vatansever was born in Istanbul in 1981. After studying Industrial Product Design and Film and TV in Istanbul, he completed his MFA degree in Film Production at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. In 2003, Ali started his film career by directing short films. He is currently pursuing his directing career with Terminal Film, a production company he co-founded. His debut feature, El Yazısı (One Day or Another, 2012) has been screened in various international festivals and distributed in movie theatres throughout Turkey. Aside from filmmaking, Ali teaches film at Koç University and works closely with NGOs on local democracy and governance.

Floriane Devigne was born in Lausanne, in Switzerland. She studied both at the INSAS and at the Fémis film school in Paris. Soon after she directed Les Mots Claire which was selected at the festival Traces de Vies in Clermont Ferrand (France) and La Boit à Tartines which was awarded in many festivals such as DOK Leizig, RIDM (Montréal). Her film feature film La Clé de la Chambre à Lessive, co-directed with Fred Florey, won the SSR-SRG prize at the Vision du Réel festival and the diversity prize at Traces de Vies among others. It also was selected to more than 20 festivals such as Busan International Film Festival in South Korea, Doc Buenos Aires (Argentine) and at the RIDM Montréal. Then she directed Dayana Mini Market for the TV channel Arte. The got the SCAM award in 2014 and was also awarded at the festival Filmer le travail (Poitier, France). She has also directed several short films for Arte and France 2.

Bing Liu moved from China to Alabama to California to Rockford, Illinois with his mother all before he was 8 years old. He honed his cinematography and editing skills making DIY skateboarding films as a teenager. When he was 19 he moved to Chicago and began freelancing as a grip while attaining his B.A. in literature from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude. At age 23 he joined the International Cinematographers Guild, working in the camera department on fiction films and episodic television series. In 2014 he began collaborating with Kartemquin Films on his first feature, Minding the Gap, a co-production of POV and ITVS. Bing is also a Story Director and DP for the upcoming Steve James mini-series, America to Me. Bing is a 2017 Film Independent Fellow and Garrett Scott Development Grant recipient.

Assia Boundaoui is an Algerian-American journalist and filmmaker based in Chicago. She has reported for BBC, NPR, Al Jazeera, VICE, and CNN and was the recipient of a first place Mark of Excellence Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting in Yemen. She directed a short film on hijabi hair salons for the HBO Lenny docu-series, which premiered as an official selection of the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Assia has a Masters degree in journalism from New York University and is fluent in Arabic. The Feeling of Being Watched is her directorial debut.

Born in Caracas, Tuki Jencquel holds a bachelor’s degree in Film and TV from NYU, Tisch School of the Arts and an MBA from IESA, Venezuela. He is director of two short films and one medium-length documentary, Sin Ti Contigo, which won the “Premio Feisal“ at Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara in 2011. He worked as 1st AD on Secrets of the Tribe by Jose Padilha, and for many years worked as Assistant Director in film and advertising. His first feature documentary Está Todo Bien premiered at Sheffield Doc/Fest and was part of IDFA Best of Fests section in 2018. He’s currently working on his next documentary, an intimate portrait of his mother, who is famous in France for her fight to legalize assisted suicide.

Mo Scarpelli is an Italian-American director and cinematographer of nonfiction cinema. Her debut feature-length documentary FRAME BY FRAME screened at SXSW 2015, Hot Docs (Audience Top Ten), BFI London Film Festival and 100+ other festivals, garnering 15+ jury and audience awards as well as a Cinema Eye Honors nomination. Mo is a selection of Berlinale Talents 2018, twice a recipient of Catapult Film Fund support, and has received the Speranza Female Filmmaker Award. Her documentary short work includes directing El Hara (NYJFF 2018) and Surviving Kensington (Vimeo Staff Pick 2017), and serving as cinematographer on films including Speaking is Difficult (Sundance 2016).

Rehad Desai is a South African producer and director who runs his own film and TV production company Uhuru Productions. Following his return from exile in the UK, Rehad worked as a trade union organiser, a health and safety/media officer for a chemical workers union and a director of a HIV prevention NGO. In 1997 he completed his Masters Degree in Social History at the University of the Witwatersrand. Rehad entered the TV and film industry as a current affairs journalist, and has since focused his energy on documentary productions with historical and socio –political topics, much of which has received critical acclaim. In 2000 he completed a postgraduate degree in TV and film producing through AVEA. In 2009 he completed a postgraduate diploma in documentary production through Eurodoc. He is leading activist and spokesperson of the Marikana Support Campaign.

Hans Pool is an award winning director and cinematographer, who combines a journalistic approach with intellectual depth. He masterfully conveys topics that are difficult to grasp with a cinematic language that is understood by all. Previous films include Putin's Olympic Dream and Looking for an Icon.