Sameh Alaa is an Egyptian director, producer and screenwriter. His first short film ‘FIFTEEN’ premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival 2017 and won several awards in festivals around the world. His last short film ‘I AM AFRAID TO FORGET YOUR FACE’ became the first Egyptian film to be awarded ‘Palme d’Or’ in the Cannes Film Festival Short Film Competition 2020. The film continues its festival run at San Sebastian Film Festival, Cairo Film Festival, Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, Palm Springs Film Festival, Moscow International Film Festival and many others. Sameh is currently developing his debut feature film ‘When I close my eyes I see your eyes’.

Koen de Rooij is a Rotterdam-based film programmer and curator. His main interests lie in the continuing influences of national borders, migration and the (colonial) past on the lives of humans and how this is reflected in and explored through film. He holds MA degrees in Asian Studies and Media Studies from Leiden University and used to program monthly film screenings in Leiden during his studies. He has been part of the IFFR Short Film selection committee since 2017 and the Feature Film Selection committee since 2022 and has organised a variety of art events and residencies in Rotterdam together with MINT Podium.

Vincent is a festival programmer, documentary filmmaker, and presente from Berlin. After falsely hoping for a career as a track and field athlete (amongst other things), he was drawn to film and from there abroad. As a member of the Youth Jury and Young Journalists of the Berlinale, he first travelled the world in the cinema, then as a filming volunteer in the revolting Egypt of the Arab Spring. His studies of International Relations, Arabic and Documentary Film Directing took him to Scotland, Morocco and Sudan, where he worked in educational and cultural institutes, and realised film projects. Vincent works as a podcast editor and author of audio description, and is a member of the selection committees of Filmfest Dresden, Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, and up-and-coming Hannover, as well as Programme Manager Short Films of Berlinale Generation.

Hugo Emmerzael is an Amsterdam-based film critic and programmer. He’s an editor of independent Dutch print magazine Filmkrant, and a contributor to outlets such as MUBI Notebook and Senses of Cinema. His curational work bridges experimental film and mainstream cinema, discovering new approaches to programming and engaging with film. He has served in FIPRESCI juries at the festivals of Cannes, Karlovy Vary and Venice, amongst others. He’s the editor-in–chief of the GAIFF daily magazine in Yerevan, and now serves as Deputy Editor of Locarno’s daily magazine, Pardo

Fay Breeman (1986, she/her) is freelance project manager and consultant, with a heart for (audio)visual stories in all forms. As founder and director of Studio Camera (since 2024), she supports creatives in the Utrecht region with talent development programmes. Besides that, she works on freelance assignments for Utrecht Creative Community, Common Frames, EYE, the HKU and Cinekid. As a committee member at the NPO Fund and the Netherlands Film Fund, former manager of the Hubert Bals Fund and with years of work experience at film festivals (i.a. IFFR/Go Short), she has in-depth knowledge of the (inter)national film world. Fay obtained her MA Film and Television Studies and minor in Journalism from Utrecht University in 2011. She participated in EAVE Puentes and Leadership in Culture Artistic.

Jasper Hokken is a programmer at IDFA, where he is responsible for IDFA’s Short Documentary Competition and the short film selections for Best of Fests, Signed, Frontlight, and Luminous. He is also a curator for the IDFA on Stage program, which presents unique live events that explore the space between documentary cinema, new media, and performing arts. Additionally, he manages the festival’s online video-on-demand collection, which currently offers a curated online catalogue of 1000+ IDFA-selected documentary films and new media projects. Prior to working at IDFA in 2011, he studied Media & Culture Studies at the University of Amsterdam. In 2012, he completed his master’s degree in Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image.

After a ten years’ experience at Semaine de la Critique, Cannes as responsible for short films, Julie Marnay is now involved in the management and organization of film development and market access programs. She has been named head of European Short Pitch in 2019, an annual development and networking program aimed at European emerging short film talents. In 2021, she was appointed Program Manager and joined the international team of collaborators at First Cut Lab, which supports feature films in the editing phase. She is also Coordinator of the Producers’ Association of the South Region, in France.

Francesco Ragazzi is a filmmaker and an associate professor in International Relations at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He holds a PhD from Northwestern University and Science Po Paris, as well as a master’s degree in film from the Netherlands Film Academy. Dr. Ragazzi’s research interests encompass algorithmic politics, surveillance, and identity. His current research project investigates the security applications of computer vision in areas such as biometric surveillance, social media content moderation, and border control. His work has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals such as International Political Sociology, Security Dialogue, and Political Geography. His contributions have been featured in various edited volumes. As a filmmaker, Dr. Ragazzi has showcased his films at prominent festivals, including the Torino Film Festival and Karlovy Vary.

Yuyan Wang (b. 1989, China) is a filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist. Her works focuses on the mutation of the industrial production chain of images, a process whose perpetual evolution results in an abstraction of reality. Through repurposing images, her practice delves into the impact of image creation in media, representation, and the attention economy, deconstructing and recontextualizing embedded hierarchies and meanings inherent in found, processed, and created materials. Her work has been showcased at Tate Modern, ICA London, Palais de Tokyo, Centre Pompidou, UCCA Beijing, the 12th Berlin Biennale and various festivals, such as the Berlinale International Film Festival, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, MoMa Doc Fortnight, the European Media Art Festival, receiving numerous awards.