English

Daniel Lambo is a filmmaker from Belgium. He started his career as a writer for theater, television and cinema. As a director, Lambo shifted his attention towards social themes. His renewed approach to filmmaking—both intuitive and socially engaged—inspired him to start his own production company, Lambo Films.

Fredrik Gertten is an award-winning Swedish director and journalist. In 1994, Gertten founded the production company, WG Film. He had previously worked as a foreign correspondent and columnist for radio, TV and press in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe. Today he combines filmmaking with a role as creative producer at WG Film. In October 2017, Gertten was named Honorary Doctor at Malmö University’s Faculty of Culture and Society for his work as a documentary filmmaker.

Deeyah Khan is an Emmy and Peabody award-winning documentary film director. In 2016, she became the first UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for artistic freedom and creativity. Her documentary, Banaz: A Love Story (2012), chronicles the life and death of a young, British Kurdish woman murdered by her family in a so-called honor killing. Khan's second film, Jihad, involved two years of filming with Islamic extremists, convicted terrorists and former jihadis. Khan has also produced a number of critically-acclaimed albums, including Listen to the Banned, a compilation that brought together musicians from around the world who have been subject to persecution, censorship and imprisonment.

Alexander Nanau is a German-Romanian filmmaker, born in Romania, who studied directing at the Academy of Film and Television in Berlin. His documentary film, The World According to Ion B, won an Emmy Award in 2010. His feature documentary film, Toto and His Sisters, was nominated for an Academy Award in 2015. Nanau worked as Director of Photography for the French-German documentary, Nothingwood (Sonia Kronlund), that was shot in Afghanistan, and which premiered in Cannes in 2017.

Deeyah Khan is an Emmy and Peabody award-winning documentary film director. In 2016, she became the first UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for artistic freedom and creativity. Her documentary, Banaz: A Love Story (2012), chronicles the life and death of a young, British Kurdish woman murdered by her family in a so-called honor killing. Khan's second film, Jihad, involved two years of filming with Islamic extremists, convicted terrorists and former jihadis. Khan has also produced a number of critically-acclaimed albums, including Listen to the Banned, a compilation that brought together musicians from around the world who have been subject to persecution, censorship and imprisonment.

Marianna Economou studied anthropology, photojournalism and film production in London. Since 2000, she has directed and produced documentary series and independent films, in co-production with European broadcasters such as the BBC, ARTE and YLE.

Fredrik Gertten is an award-winning Swedish director and journalist. In 1994, Gertten founded the production company, WG Film. He had previously worked as a foreign correspondent and columnist for radio, TV and press in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe. Today he combines filmmaking with a role as creative producer at WG Film. In October 2017, Gertten was named Honorary Doctor at Malmö University’s Faculty of Culture and Society for his work as a documentary filmmaker.

Youngest ever Resident of the prestigious Canadian Film Centre Directors Lab, Slater Jewell-Kemker has been making films since she was six. An award-winning filmmaker and climate activist, Slater has been featured by Forbes twice: once for her ten year documentary feature on the rise of the global youth climate movement Youth Unstoppable, and another for her CFC short film Still which explores domestic violence and infatuation. Slater is also an accomplished speaker and frequently is invited to speak on film and climate change panels to represent the voice of youth, in addition to giving filmmaking workshops to teenagers.

Jonas Mekas was born in 1922, in the farming village of Semeniškiai, Lithuania. He and his brother Adolfas were taken by the Nazis in 1944 to a forced labor camp in Elmshorn, Germany. After the war he studied philosophy at the University of Mainz. At the end of 1949, the UN Refugee Organization brought Jonas and Adolfas to New York City, where they settled in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Two months after his arrival in New York, he borrowed money to buy his first Bolex camera and began to record brief moments of his life. He soon became deeply involved in the American Avant-Garde film movement. In 1954, together with his brother, he started Film Culture magazine, which soon became the most important film publication in the US. In 1958 he started his legendary “Movie Journal” column for the Village Voice. He founded the Film-Makers' Cooperative in 1962, and two years later, in 1964, the Film-Makers' Cinematheque, which eventually grew into Anthology Film Archives—one of the world's largest and most important repositories of avant-garde cinema. During this time he continued to write poetry and make films. He published more than 20 books of prose and poetry, which have been translated into over a dozen languages. His Lithuanian poetry is now considered classic Lithuanian literature, and his films can be found in leading museums around the world. He is largely credited for developing the diarist form of cinema. Mekas has also been active as an academic, teaching at the New School for Social Research, the International Center for Photography, Cooper Union, New York University and MIT.

Stefano Liberti is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker. He is a contributor to many European magazines, such as Internazionale, Le monde diplomatique, El Pais, and Al Jazeera English. As a filmmaker, he has directed many movies, as well as many features for TV and radio.