Margje de Koning has been directing documentaries for 12 years and taught documentary filmmaking at the University of Amsterdam. In 2004, she became Commissioning Editor for 52-minute documentaries, focusing on social and moral issues with a human interest angle. The subjects were mainly Dutch but included global topics.She later led IKON’s Television Department and became Head of TV, Radio, and New Media in 2012. After IKON merged with EO in 2016, she became Head of Documentaries at EOdocs. Since June 2019, Margje has been artistic director of Movies that Matter.

Marcella Jelic founded Split Screen in 2022 for festival distribution and film sales. She also collaborates with Restart, a theatrical distributor in Croatia. Previously, she worked at Taskovski Films as a sales and acquisitions executive. Marcella was the festivals and promotion coordinator at the Croatian Audiovisual Centre. She also served as programming director for Klasik TV and DOX TV. With a background in journalism and film criticism, she focuses on documentaries—both shorts and features—with strong storytelling, unique characters, and thought-provoking themes.

Jane Mote is a Consultant Editor for The Whickers, supporting emerging documentary filmmakers with a global perspective. She has collaborated with Docs by the Sea (Bali), MyDocs (Malaysia), and the Asian Network of Documentary (Busan), and led training in Uganda and at the BFI in London. Formerly UK Managing Director of Al Gore’s Current TV and Executive Editor at BBC London, she has also held roles at Discovery, Turner, BBC Worldwide, UKTV.  She is the Director of beechtobeach ltd.

Robert Tomić Zuber is a sociologist, journalist, editor, and award-winning documentary filmmaker with over 20 years of experience in Croatian and international media, including the BBC. He has directed four feature documentaries, including Mila Seeking Senida, winner of the Human Rights Award at the Sarajevo Film Festival. Formerly Head of Documentary Production at Croatian National Television, he now runs his own production house, TOROlab, lectures at Vern’ University, and directs the Rab Film Festival (RAFF) in Croatia.

Matt Sarnecki is a journalist, producer, and film director at the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. His documentary Killing Pavel, about the murder of journalist Pavel Sheremet, won the IRE Medal in 2017 and the DIG Award in 2018. He has produced work for VICE and Powder.com. Based in Bucharest since 2013, his latest film, Killing of a Journalist, about the murder of Slovak journalist Ján Kuciak, has screened at Karlovy Vary, Hot Docs, and other festivals.

Radu Ciorniciuc co-founded Casa Jurnalistului, Romania’s first independent media organization, in 2012. He has since worked as a long-form writer and undercover investigative reporter, focusing on human rights, animal welfare, and environmental issues worldwide. His debut documentary, Acasa, My Home, premiered at Sundance (2020), winning the Special Jury Award for Cinematography and earning a European Film Academy Award nomination. He is also the co-director of TATA, which premiered at TIFF and was honored at multiple international festivals.

Ovidiu Vanghele is a Romanian investigative journalist and founder of the Center for Investigative Media (CIM). He co-manages Să fie lumină (Let There Be Light), a reader-funded project exposing ties between the Church and the state, and co-hosts the weekly videocast Judecata de Acum. Vanghele began his career at MEDIAFAX in 2002 and later worked at PRO TV. His investigations focus on major corruption and abuses in mental health institutions. Since 2021, he has co-hosted The Latest Inquest, a weekly YouTube current affairs show.

Vlad Stoicescu is a Romanian journalist, co-founder and editor of the independent media outlet Dela0.ro. He is also co-editor of Să fie lumină (Let There Be Light), a project investigating church-state relations, and co-host of the weekly current affairs videocast Judecata de Acum (The Latest Inquest). Vlad began his career at Evenimentul Zilei in 2008 and founded Dela0 in 2012. He has since led multimedia projects on politics, media ownership, the COVID-19 pandemic, and reproductive rights.

Ana Maria Ciobanu is a journalist and storytelling trainer. She is part of DoR magazine for more than 11 years, writing about social inequity, gender inequality, extreme poverty, racism. She produced the narrative podcasts Satul Mădălinei and Obiceiul pămăntului and was the co-host of the mother podcast. She is currently collaborating with the Museum of Abandonment and creates the script and editing of the podcast On the Tracks of Abandonment. She is teaching narrative journalism at the Faculty of Journalism, University of Bucharest.

Viktoriia Mickute is a multi-award-winning senior producer and director. Based in New York City, formerly in Doha, she has led the production of three Emmy-nominated works—Inaccessible Cities, Living in the Unknown, and Yemen’s Skies of Terror—as well as Still Here, which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Her work has been recognized with dozens of international awards, including a Gracie Award, multiple Online Journalism Awards, and honors from Amnesty International, Venice TV Awards, and the Drum Online Media Awards.

Ieva Balsiunaite is a journalist and documentary filmmaker, currently Foreign Affairs Editor at Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT). She reports on global issues through live radio, investigative features, and fieldwork in Ukraine and Belarus. Her documentary The Snowball Rolled South premiered at Nordic Film Days in Lübeck. Ieva’s radio work won first prize at the 2022 Bohemia Radio Festival. She holds an MA in Human Rights from Sciences Po Paris and studied cinema at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.