​​Reis Çelik was born in 1961 in Ardahan. After studying music at the Istanbul Municipality Conservatory, he went on to study International Economics. He worked in the journalism and TV sector for many years. He was involved in the founding of a number of private TV stations and served as an executive editor. Alongside making numerous commercials and documentary films, he held many photography exhibitions worldwide. He tended towards cinema in 1995 with his first feature Lights Out. Standing out as the scriptwriter and director of the films Goodbye Tomorrow, Tales of Intransigence, Refugee, Night of Silence and Food For a Funeral, Çelik won the Crystal Bear award with his film Night of Silence that had its world premiere at the 62nd Berlin Film Festival Generation 14+ Section. Çelik won numerous awards in national and international film festivals and has been the president of the Turkish Film Directors’ Association since 2012.

Çiğdem Vitrinel graduated from Anadolu University Cinema-TV department. She started her career as assistant director in Mehmet Eryılmaz’s documentary series Figures of Turkish Music from Past to Future and Turkish Music in the Republican Era. She worked as assistant director and production coordinator in Ahmet Uluçay and Yeşim Ustaoğlu’s films. In 2011 her first film What Remains won the Best Director and Best Actress awards at the 48th Antalya Film Festival. After her second feature But Muzeyyen That’s The Deepest Desire, she is currently working on her third film titled Nasıl Yapmalı?.

Erdem Tepegöz was born in 1982. He graduated from Dokuz Eylül University Economics department and studied cinema in Prague. He worked on documentaries related to social issues for a long time. His national and internationally awarded first film Particle was screened in thirty countries. His independent science-fiction second film In The Shadows won the Special Jury Prize at Moscow Film Festival. The acclaimed film was one of the most talked about in science-fiction festivals. Tepegöz is continuing his master’s degree in Anthropology at Yeditepe University with scholarship. Besides his new film projects, he works on Visual Anthropology and Anatolian Myths.

Gökhan Atılmış was born in 1969. He graduated from Dokuz Eylül University Faculty of Fine Arts Cinema-TV department. His first experience as director of photography was in the film A Madonna In Laleli directed by Kudret Sabancı in 1998. He was the director of photography in more than thirty films including Ali Baba And The Seven Dwarfs, Coming Soon, The Shadowless and The International. He won the Best Cinematography awards at the International Adana Film Festival, Ankara Film Festival and Turkish Film Critics Association with his film Fog And Night in 2007. He continues working as director of photography in cinema, commercials and series.

Vildan Atasever began her acting career in Kutluğ Ataman’s film 2 Girls, making her the winner of the Best Actress award at the 42nd Antalya Film Festival. Mostly preferring to be involved in films d’auteur, she won the Best Actress award at the 18th Ankara Film Festival with the film Destiny directed by Zeki Demirkubuz. She won the Best Supporting Actress award at the 20th Sadri Alışık Theatre and Cinema Awards with her role in Erden Kıral’s film Night and the Turkish Ministry of Culture World Press Federation Best Actress award with her role in The Mute directed by Murat Pay.

Cafer Özgül was born in 1964 in Aksaray. He started working at TRT in 1986. After working in numerous television shows and series, he left his job at TRT in 2011 to start working in the cinema sector. In 2013, he shot Time of The Lake and in 2017, he shot House of Serenity. The series The People of Captive Cities won the Special Jury Prize at Sedat Simavi Awards For Television. House of Serenity won the Special Jury Prize at Indian Cine Film Festival and the Best Screenplay award at NOIDA Film Festival along with main actor Melih Selçuk winning the Best Actor award at the Indian World Film Festival. He has a children’s book called Su Kuzusu.

Seyid Çolak was born in Istanbul. He graduated from Beykent University Cinema-TV department. He won numerous awards in national and international film festivals for his short films The Game, Black Snow, Cold and Serender. After visiting nearly ten countries in Africa, he held a photography exhibition called My Africa. His first feature Trap, supported by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism General Directorate of Cinema and co-produced by TRT, won numerous awards including the Best Film and Best Director in many national and international festivals. His second feature The Sinkholes was given Production Support by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism General Directorate of Cinema. Çolak is currently working on the documentaries Ataların Uykusu and Ernesto’nun Barınağı.

Yiğit Nalçacı was born in 1978 in Kocaeli. After working in various cinema and documentary film projects, he carried out two of his short film projects Mevrud and Çorba. He is the producer of the film Sol Şerit shot in 2015, supported by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism General Directorate of Cinema. Nalçacı served as a jury member in national and international documentary competitions and worked as project manager and producer in numerous television programs produced by TRT. He worked as a scriptwriter for fifty episodes in the second season of the 2D animation film Nedir? Nasıl Oynanır? airing on TRT Sports. In 2012 he became a member of the Film Producers’ Professional Association and has been a board member of the same organisation since 2017.

Atalay Taşdiken was born in 1964 in Konya. After graduating from Selçuk University Physics department, he worked in the advertising sector for many years as dark room technician, script writer and creative director. He has directed numerous commercial films. In 2008 he founded At Yapım Film and Production company. In 2009 he completed his film Mommo The Bogeyman, which was selected for the 59th Berlin Film Festival Generation section. In 2013, Taşdiken returned to directing with the film Meryem, and produced and directed television series alongside motion pictures. He produced the series Küçük Hanımefendi in 2011 and Böyle Bitmesin in 2012. He wrote and directed the films Search Engine in 2015 and Red Snow in 2020.

Hüseyin Karabey was born in 1970 in Istanbul. His first feature My Marlon And Brando premiered at the 37th Rotterdam Film Festival and won the Best Director award at the 6th New York Tribeca Film Festival. My Marlon And Brando participated in more than thirty international film festivals and won numerous awards. His second feature Come To My Voice had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. The film participated in several festivals and won many awards including the Best Film and Audience Award at Istanbul Film Festival, Milano Film Festival and Mar del Plata Film Festival. Having a career spanning with five feature films, seven documentaries and three shorts, Karabey won the Special Jury Prize at the International Adana Film Festival and the Best Screenplay award at the Dhaka International Film Festival with his latest film Insiders.

Orçun Benli graduated from Academy Istanbul Cinema-TV department in 2002 and became the assistant of many directors including Şerif Gören, Cemal Şan, Ömer Uğur and Murat Saraçoğlu. His first experience as a director was in 2011 with Let This Be The Last One. In 2015 at NYFA New York Film Academy, along with Paul Brown known for being the writer and executive producer of films such as The X Files and Star Trek, he undertook the role of executive producer in high budget films like Transformers. He also participated in independent film producer Ashley Bank’s production workshop.

Anne Delseth studied Journalism in Switzerland. She earned a master’s degree in Cultural Management. From 2008 to 2011, she was first assistant then deputy to the artistic director of the Fribourg Film Festival. In 2011 she worked in international sales at Urban Distribution. Then a member of the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight selection committee since 2012, she also joined the selection team of the Locarno Festival for the 2018 edition. She directed the HEAD in Geneva and ECAL Master’s in Film Studies in Lausanne for seven years and now runs an arthouse cinema. She is also programmer for Angers Film Festival, artistic director of Ulaanbaatar International Film Festival in Mongolia, and consultant for the Neuchatel Fantastic Film Festival and the Zürich Film Festival. She also is an active member of numerous Swiss cultural management organisations. 

Hilal Baydarov was born in Azerbaijan in 1987. After doing his master’s in Computer Sciences, Baydarov studied at the Sarajevo Film Academy under Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr before going on to make his feature debut Hills Without Names in 2018, which premiered at the Montreal World Film Festival. The same year his documentary debut Birthday won the Docu Talent Award at the Sarajevo Film Festival. Since then Baydarov has completed an award-winning trilogy set in Katech. When The Permissions Grew won the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Documentary at the Sarajevo, Mother and Son premiered in the main competition at IDFA, and Nails In My Brain premiered at Cinema du Reel. Baydarov’s second feature In Between Dying premiered at the Venice Film Festival. 

Kamyar Mohsenin was born in 1971 in Tehran. He began his collaboration with Farabi Cinema Foundation as a research executive in 1998. He was involved as a film critic in a number of film magazines, papers and TV programs. As a board member of Fajr International Film Festival in the restructuring of the festival, he has been working since 2016 as the Manager of International Relations and Programming Director. After leaving Farabi he co- founded Irimage. Mohsenin has served as a jury member in different film festivals including Shanghai International Film Festival.

Yoshi Yatabe began producing and distributing documentary films, and helping manage the French Film Festival in Tokyo after spending eight years in the financial world. After joining the Tokyo Film Festival in 2002, he oversaw the Programming Division and served as Programming Director for the Japanese Independent Film section. In 2007, he was appointed to the position of Programming Director for the International Competition section, and stayed until 2021. Yatabe produced the documentary Dryads In A Snow Valley. He has served on the jury for many organisations.

Svetla Tsotsorkova was born in 1977 in Bulgaria. In 2004 she graduated from the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts in Sofia. Her first short film Life With Sophia was screened at various international film festivals such as Semaine de la Critique, Karlovy Vary, Telluride among others, and won various awards including Trieste and Lodz, among others. Her first feature Thirst had its world premiere at San Sebastian Film Festival in 2015. Her second feature Sister premiered at San Sebastian Film Festival in 2019 and received many awards.

Eylem Kaftan studied Philosophy at Boğaziçi University and earned her master’s degree in Cinema-TV at York University. She made documentaries for TV stations including TeleQuebec, VisionTV and National Film Board of Canada. Her film Vendetta Song received awards in many festivals in Canada. She directed films including Aşk Ve Ceza Sahası, Sarajevo My Love, Seeing Isn’t Everything and Massacre In Rabia for Al Jazeera World. She worked as the director and presenter in a program series called Biçiftlik for TRT Documentary channel. Her first feature The Hive received significant awards in numerous international festivals. She is currently editing her new film A Day, 365 Hours.

Mahdi Fleifel is a graduate of the UK's National Film and Television School where he studied Fiction Directing under Stephen Frears and Pawel Pawlikowski. In 2010 he founded the London based production company Nakba FilmWorks. Fleifel's critically acclaimed debut, A World Not Ours, received over thirty awards including the Berlinale Peace Prize, the Edinburgh, Yamagata and DOC:NYC Grand Jury Prizes. In 2016 Fleifel won Silver Bear for his film A Man Returned. His follow up, A Drowning Man, was in the Official Competition at Cannes and nominated for BAFTA. His film I Signed The Petition won the Best Documentary Short at IDFA and was nominated for the 2018 European Film Awards.

Murat Uğurlu was born in 1987 in Ankara. He studied at Ankara University Faculty of Communication and at the Polish National Film School in Lodz. After moving back to Turkey, he shot commercial films for companies including Atlantik Film, Depo Film and Ptot Film. The short films he wrote and directed were screened and awarded in numerous national and international festivals. His first book Buralar Bıraktığın Gibi was published in 2013 by İletişim. Uğurlu currently lives in Istanbul and continues to work in various fields.

Armin Hadzic has been involved in the Sarajevo Film Festival since 2010, first as a CineLink coordinator and later as the manager of the industry department. He is also engaged as a producer at Marletti and Obala Art Center where he produced several short and feature films presented at the Directors Fortnight at Cannes, Toronto Film Festival, and Busan Film Festival among others. The films he was involved in the production department of include Some Other Stories by Ines Tanovic and A Good Day’s Work by Martin Turk, as well as shorts such as Lupus by Ajla Hamzic, Just Another Day by Tina Smalcelj, and Stolen Happiness by Hari Secic. He is a teaching assistant at the Academy of Performing Arts Sarajevo.

Diana Ashimova has a master's degree in Filmmaking. She was the head of programming at Eurasia International Film Festival for nine years and has run several international film festivals in Kazakhstan and abroad. For seven years she worked as an international consultant of Kazakhfilm JSC named after Shaken Aimanov. Since 2011 she is the artistic director of Bastau International Student and Debut Film Festival. In 2017 she founded the film company A Team that supports young filmmakers and produces short films, full-length feature films, and documentaries. The films were in the official selection of many prestigious film festivals and got several awards.

​​Ensar Altay was born in 1980 in Erzurum. He graduated from Uludağ University and studied cinema at London Film Academy. He shot the documentary Gün Doğmadan: Sezai Karakoç in 2011. Altay started working at Al Jazeera TV as of 2012 and in 2016, he started working at TRT World TV.  Guardian of Angels, the documentary he shot for TRT participated in many festivals and won awards in various categories. His latest film Kodokushi had its world premiere at the 8th Bosphorus Film Festival winning the Special Jury Prize. Altay served as a jury member and president in many international festivals.