The former editor-in-chief of Magazine littéraire, Hervé Aubron is a film critic for Cahiers du cinéma. He was a long-time cinema professor at Paris 3-Sorbonne Nouvelle University and is now an instructor and lecturer in theaters and for various institutions (French Cinematheque, Centre Georges-Pompidou…). He has written essays on David Lynch and Pixar studios, as well as two books about Werner Herzog, in collaboration with Emmanuel Burdeau.

Laurence Boyce is UK-born cultural journalist, film critic, and programmer, but has been based in Estonia since 2010 where he has worked as a curator at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival and the festival’s short film section, PÖFF Shorts. He regularly contributes to the Baltic Sea Region film publications Screen International and Cineuropa, and is a member of FIPRESCI, the London Critics Association, the European Film Academy, and BAFTA.

Florian Fernandez coordinates the various industry initiatives elaborated as part of the Short Film Corner | Rendez-vous Industry, a four-day forum dedicated to short films and their creators organised by the Cannes Film Festival. Fernandez is also part of Montreal Festival du Nouveau Cinéma and SXSW Doc Shorts pre-selection committees, and formerly was involved in Encounters Film Festival. He yearly collaborates as part of the European Short Pitch reading committee and The Short Film Lab training program. He also takes care of a handful of shorts per year on the distribution and sales side through Protest Studios.

Anna Grabo works in Sales and Acquisition for the Kurzfilm Agentur Hamburg. In addition, she is a freelance filmmaker, art educator and curator. She has been a member of the collective cinema B-Movie in Hamburg for 10 years and is responsible for film programs and projection. She is currently focussed on analogue techniques and the representation of utopian and dystopian parameters in the moving image and archival film practices. Most recently, she co-curated an exhibition on Hamburg’s cinema, film history and a program exploring the Anthropocene in cinema. Anna Grabo grew up in New York and Chemnitz and studied image and film in Jena, as well as art theory and film at Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg. She has been living in Hamburg since 2013.

Laima Grazdanovica divides her work between theory and practice. Since 2019 she is programme director at Riga International Short Film festival 2ANNAS and has been a curator of short films since 2015. She has graduated from theater and film theory studies in Latvian Academy of Culture, and has an MA in Visual Communication at Latvian Academy of Arts. Lately she is working as a guest lecturer teaching about short film history and video art. Her own work focus is researching personal and collective histories through interconnectivity.

Olga Gusiatynska is a curator and interpreter from Ukraine, temporarily based in Riga. She has worked for multiple film festivals in Ukraine, including Kyiv International Film Festival Molodist and Odesa IFF. Since 2021, she has been a programmer and Head of Translations at Kyiv International Short Film Festival.

Dimitris Kerkinos was born in Athens. He studied Film Studies at the University of Manitoba, Canada and he did his Ph.D dissertation on Society and Cinema in Cuba of the 90s for the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of the Aegean, Greece. He joined the Thessaloniki IFF in 1999, where he is the Head of Tributes and Survey Expanded (ex-Balkan Survey which he curated for 22 years); he has published essays and academic papers on cinema and anthropology and has edited documentary and fiction film monographs, such as, Carol Reed, Goran Paskaljević, Cristian Mungiu, Patricio Guzmán, Peter Wintonick. He lectured Visual Anthropology and Ethnographic Documentary at the Panteion University in Athens (2004-2008). He has served as the Artistic Director of fARAD Documentary Festival in Romania since 2019.

A scientist by training, Frédéric Lavigne has been in charge of the selection of the films at the Angers Premiers Plans Festival from 2000 to 2004. He then became Audiovisual Attaché at the French Embassy in London in charge of promoting French cinema in the UK.

In 2006, he joined the Forum des Images in Paris as Director of Educational Action, before launching and programming the Séries Mania festival in 2010. In 2013, this public event dedicated entirely to TV series from around the world added an Official Competition and a Professional Forum.

In 2018, Frederic Lavigne became full-time Artistic Director of Series Mania, which moved to Lille and grew to 98,000 spectators and 4,200 accredited industry guests by 2024.

For over 20 years, Myklebust has been the director of the Nordic cinema and international co-production market New Nordic Films at the Haugesund Film Festival. It is one of the region’s most important industry events, bringing together professionals from Northern Europe and showcasing the boldest and most acclaimed projects across both auteur cinema and a diverse range of other film genres. Myklebust studied cultural science and film at the Norwegian Film School. She has also worked as a producer, creating the feature-length mystery The Comet (2017) and the award-winning father-son drama As I Fall (2018), which was shown at many international festivals and received four nominations for Norway’s national film awards, the Amanda Awards. Myklebust is a member of both the European Film Academy and the Norwegian Film Academy.

Freddy has been in the film business since 1983, after a bankruptcy as publisher. He started in front of the camera but soon became a producer instead. A lot of low-budget filming followed, in the 80’s they were the Roger Cormans of Sweden. A long parallel life with the Göteborg Film Festival that he joined in 1987. Freeddy served as a chairman of the festival for many years but now has retired to the role of senior programmer. He’s traveling the world, watching films in Central Europe and Asia.

Priimägi is one of Estonia’s leading film critics and journalists, working as the film editor for the cultural and arts weekly Sirp. With a background in film semiotics, Priimägi is recognized as a keen-eyed and witty critic of culture and cinema. For the past two decades, he has written for various publications, reviewing Estonian and Baltic cinema, as well as festival and contemporary cinema. He previously worked at the Estonian Film Institute and founded the Tallinn DocPoint documentary film festival, where he now serves as curator. He has also curated the film programme for the Tallinn Black Nights Festival. Priimägi is the author of the extensive publication 101 Estonian Films (2020) and is a member of both the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) and the European Film Academy.

Alessandro Raja co-founded Festival Scope Pro – the B2B streaming platform for film professionals in 2010. The platform allows programming of selected festivals to be viewed online. Festival Scope Pro partners with a network of more than 120 festivals and markets. In 2016, he also co-founded Festival Scope – streaming platform for film lovers. Since 2012, he programs for the Sarajevo Film Festival’s Kinoscope section, focusing on emerging filmmakers from around the world. His professional experience covers other segments of the film industry, ranging from international sales and acquisitions at Celluloid Dreams (Paris, 2005-2009) and Coproduction Office (Paris, 2004), distribution at Artificial Eye (London, 2000-2003) and exhibition at The Everyman (London, 1999-2000).

Daria Voumard, a Media Management graduate, began her career in communications and journalism, working for several media platforms. She has worked at theLocarno Film Festival’s industry hub Locarno Pro for 7 years, now as Industry Manager. She coordinatesindustry activities and curates the First Look work-in-progress section and the Heritage Online classic films database.

Carla Vulpiani lives in Italy and Ireland. Since 2021 she serves as a Short Film Advisor for Venice International Film Festival’s, Orizzonti Short Film Competition. She is also co-founder of Varicoloured Holistic Film Agency, a distribution agency dedicated to short films and works as a producer for the Dublin-based animation studio and maps and plans. Additionally, Vulpiani is a consultant for different international market and film industry events.

Weghorn has been the Chief of Staff in the executive team of Tricia Tuttle, the new director of the Berlin International Film Festival, since this summer, focusing on strategic development. Having joined the Berlinale team in 2002, he initially worked in the Generation section as a co-director and programmer, later becoming a member of the selection committee also of the Berlinale Competition. For the last ten years, Weghorn managed the Berlinale Talents initiative for emerging film professionals, developing and strengthening a network of around 10,000 alumni. He holds a master’s degree in theatre, film and television sciences in Cologne, with a diploma thesis exploring the visual language of melancholy in film, and is specialised today in cultural policy and the development of sustainable film and festivals organisations.