Born in Dossor village in western Kazakhstan, she dreamed since childhood of working in filmmaking. After graduating from school, she entered the University of Turan to study film and TV directing, and graduated in 2017. Since the first year she has been working on film sets as a first assistant director and production designer. Since 2022, she has also worked as a producer, and at the same time she continues to shoot short films and develop a script for a feature film for which she will begin to seek funding in 2024.

A native of Puglia, Italy, with studies at the Faculty of Cultural Heritage, University of Lecce, has lived in London and Rome where he completed a two-year course in Directing at the Rosebud Academy, film and television , directing, production, photography, editing, screenwriting, camera operator and all aspects of cinema. Author and screenwriter of his own works, he is dedicated to a cinema with a taste for the aesthetics of the image and poetics that lie outside the boundaries of conventional cinema, at times unreal and dreamlike, or improbable and grotesque

Lisa “Tiny” Gray-Garcia is the founder of Poor Magazine, Decolonize Academy and now Homefulness, a project to build homes for the unhoused in Oakland, CA. She is a formerly homeless person herself.

Animator, set designer, arts professor at the Federal University of Southern Bahia. She has sought to make animated shorts in community educational processes, immersion and experience in traditional black and indigenous communities. Among her main works are the short films Partir (2012), Òpárá de Òsùn: When Everything is Born (2018), Oríkì (2020), Porto e Raiz (2021) and Ewé de Òsányìn: The Secret of the Leaves (2021).

Interdisciplinary Artist with a background in metalsmithing, engineering, and fine art. 2019-20 Iowa Arts Council Fellow. Her current focus is the Manibus Project in which dance is translated into abstract painted works of art. Her work utilizes scientific and aesthetic processes to exploring themes of authorship, social identity, legacy, and the role of technology in social interaction and culture. “I am an Interdisciplinary Artist using both scientific and aesthetic processes. I create work that explores movement, our relationship to technology, and the understanding of what it means to be human including the ways in which "humanness" can be altered or limited. I use custom-designed technology, traditional mediums, and social interactions to foster connection. My work encourages audiences to think critically about their relationship to one another in a vast and ubiquitous digital world.”

Meri Dishnica is a screenwriter and director with a background in psychology. Since 2019 she is engaged in search of new intersections between image and sound, movement and space, on the way to visualize her ideas,until altogether they become a scene.

Her artworks which include video art, cinematic poems, and experimental films have gained recognition in several international independent film festivals. In 2020 she pursues a career as a freelance writer and script reader. In 2023 she wrote and directed her first short film “BUBBLES”. Her artworks are copyrighted by The U.S Copyright Office. She is the author of two books: THE BEGINNINGS. Poetry, 2009 / MINIMAL NOTES. Pop Journalism, 2023

A German/American filmmaker from vibrant Phoenix, Arizona and Arizona State University alumnus. His senior thesis film, Ménage, earned international recognition and clinched four awards at the AFA Film Festival, including Best Picture. Today, Andris is based in Berlin, Germany and stands as a prominent force in Arizona's burgeoning film industry. He contributes his creative prowess on-set on TV shows, films, and commercials, while actively engaged in conception and execution of independent projects with his peers. Bird of Paradise has been celebrated in the global arena, garnering the Horizon Award at the International Sound and Film Music Festival in Samobor, Croatia.

A Beijing Film Academy graduate, she directed the short film Gui Zhu, a selection at the Beijing International Film Festival.

Flóra Anna Buda graduated as an animation film director at MOME in Budapest. She is deeply interested in dreams and science, but she likes to feed her stories with personal content. In 2018, she directed the short film Entropia selected in many festivals (including the competition at the Berlinale).

Graduate in Graphic Design (First generation UNITEC–2008) With specialty in 2D/3D Animation and more than 10 years of experience in digital and traditional animation. Creator of short films awarded at the Ícaro Festival in Central America such as: “Alberto Solo” (2010) and “Lúminous” (2012). Also national awards with the animated short films, “Porque Eso es Felicidad” (2013) at the Diario El Heraldo Short Film Festival and “Sé mia, seed” (2018) at the Acción Verde Festival, Extra Awards and multiple honorable mentions and selections officers; among other projects; Recently he made the short film “Long live independence” in commemoration of the bicentennial of Honduras and for which he has received several awards.

Malibu Taetz is an award-winning writer and director based in Vancouver, Canada. His short films, of both live-action and animation, have screened in a variety of festivals around the world, including OXIFF and the Cannes Film Festival. He is a graduate of the Bachelor of Motion Picture Arts program at Capilano University and the University of Hertfordshire. In addition to film work, Malibu is also a composer and aspires to create stories with a unique blend of visuals and music.

Anna Grigorian is an experimental artist from Armenia, whose art practice is currently based between Canada and Armenia. With a background in sculpture, literature, and photography, her current chosen medium is moving image.

Tom Gatley. (Safe, Peace). In 2009 Tom wrote and directed a short docu-drama about a Scottish headmaster with Hindu beliefs living in Nepal, (Best Documentary at the Royal Television Society Awards and Best UK Graduate film at the Ffresh film Awards). In 2010, he wrote and directed Cardiff Love Story, a short Cardiff- based Bollywood film that won the Welsh Royal Television Society Award for Best Entertainment in February, shortlisted in the final three at the national Royal Television Society Awards and won Ffresh Best UK Graduate Fiction Award. In 2012, he wrote and directed End (Best UK Fiction award at Manchester Film Festival and Cardiff Mini Film Festival). His third short film, The Reading, made it to the Short Film Corner at Festival de Cannes and shortlisted for Best Narrative Short at the Cardiff Mini Film Festival., the International Film Festival of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles and selected for the Spring Showcase of the first American Online Film Festival. In 2014, he completed One and The MP, official selections at LA Cinefest 2016 and Sydney Lift-Off Film Festival. His last short film Laura was shortlisted at Los Angeles Cinefest 2017, Cardiff Mini Film Festival 2017 and Short Film Corner 2018 at Festival de Cannes. He went on to write, produce, direct and edit Expiry, selected at Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival and Lebanese International Film Festival and at ISFMF in Croatia where it was nominated for a Horizon award for music. Expiry also won a Global Music Award and is now being released by Cinedigm. His most recent micro-short Safe has been selected at the European Cinematography Awards, ISFMF, and won Best Micro-Short at Discovery Independent Film Festival in Australia. He continues seeking to create challenging drama and science fiction that reflects the world we live in, as well as give a voice to unheard and overlooked people and events.

A graduate of the Beijing Film Academy. Her short film Trace of the Butterfly was selected by The Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film (ITFS), Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival Semi-Finalist, Spark Animation. Li Hua Qi, a Beijing Film Academy graduate, directed the short film Gui Zhu, a selection at the Beijing International Film Festival.

Arlette Zimmermann is a young director with a creative vision. She brings a fresh perspective to filmmaking, constantly seeking innovative ways to tell her compelling stories. After various positions in the film world, Arlette is making her short film debut with Intrusive (2023).

 Born in Yokohama, Japan.
Professor, Seian University of Art and Design. Sakurai’s work can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada and J. Paul Getty Trust. Sakurai won awards at the 35th Asolo Art Film Festival (2016), Italy, 39th Tokyo Video Festival, 18th FILE 2017, São Paulo (2017) and 56th Ann Arbor Film Festival (2018). Exhibitions include 4th Sydney Biennale (1982),62nd Melbourne International Film Festival(2013),58th San Francisco International Film Festival (2015) and 24th Rhode Island International Film Festival(2020).

A graduate of University of the Arts London in 2019 with a BA in Animation, Sophie has directed music videos like Binker & Moses’s Village of the Sun, with a portfolio including Gearbox Records and Universal Studios. Telsche is her first professional film. Ala Nunu, a director and illustrator specializing in 2d animation, has directed and art directed TV series, social campaigns, music videos, and short films. Her portfolio includes Universal Studios, Frank Sinatra Estate, The Atlantic, and OnBeing. Her short film Ahead screened at festivals such as Animafest Zagreb and Bucheon International Animation Festival. She recently worked on the Oscar-shortlisted Ice Merchants and Slow Light.

Actor and director from Rio de Janeiro. He began his career as a child model and debuted as an actor on Rede Globo in 2000, in the program Gente Inocente. His first major work with which he won several awards was as a child actor playing the character Raí in the soap opera Da Cor do Pecado, shown by Rede Globo in 2004. Later he also became well known for his work in the soap opera Os Mutantes, shown in 2008 on Rede Record. He has an extensive curriculum of acting in important soap operas of the main Brazilian broadcasters, and stood out for playing the role of Wilbert in three seasons of the series Impuros, shown on Fox since 2018. He debuted as a director in the clips O Bom é Que Passa and Rebola, by Sophia Abrahão (2017I. Cornered (2022) is the first short film he has directed.

Lei Lei, born in Ganzhou in 1994, graduated from China Academy of Art with a Masters’ Degree in 2022. Her first film has been selected and screened at many international film festivals including Annecy, ASFF, and Raindance, and awarded The Best Animation Film at Porto Femme International Film Festival, China Independent Animation Forum Special Award. Her work is part of the collection of the China Contemporary Animation Archives.

This interdisciplinary art group works with video, sound, animation, photography and locative media. Members Jennida Chase and Hassan Pitts crossed paths in 2007 as graduate students at Virginia Commonwealth University, and have been creating collaborative work since 2008. Their works have been exhibited and screened internationally in festivals, galleries and museums including Hong Kong Art Fair, Pekin Fine Arts, DAS Weekend and the Freies Museum in Berlin. In 2014 they were finalists for the MacArthur Grant in Documentary Film, in 2015 won the William A. Minor Grant and in 2016 the Pollination Seed Grant.

Producer of LA CHANA, documentary winner of 14 awards, winner of the Grand Prix from the 37th FIFA in Montreal, Deirdre has created many dance film shorts shown in festivals around the world. A writer for The Dance Enthusiast, she produced Dance on Camera Festival co-produced with Film at Lincoln Center (1994-2012) and taught flamenco history for Maria Benitez Institute of Spanish Arts’ summer workshops 1992-1997. A choreographer and director, she created Dancing with Bulls inspired by the children’s story FERDINAND.

A Digital Media PhD candidate at Georgia Tech and a Fulbright Scholar, ntricately merges human-computer interaction with cultural anthropology. Drawing on his bilingual fieldwork in Honduras studying violence prevention, gangs, and hip-hop communities, he scrutinizes AI's societal impacts, particularly its creative application and the delicate interplay of creativity, control, and interaction rituals. He translates technical jargon into engaging stories, ensuring AI's intricacies resonate from avid youngsters to wise elders.