Rada Šešić is a festival programmer, film director, critic, and lecturer originally from the former Yugoslavia, now based in Utrecht, Netherlands. She has collaborated with IDFA Amsterdam for over 15 years and has led the Documentary Competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival for 13 years. She co-heads the Docu Rough Cut Boutique and works with the Doha Film Fund and the Trieste Film Festival’s Last Stop Trieste platform. Rada also teaches at the Netherlands Film Academy and mentors at numerous international workshops across Europe and Asia.

Ilian Metev, originally trained as a classical violinist, grew up between Bulgaria and Germany before graduating from the UK’s National Film and Television School in 2008. His debut feature, Sofia’s Last Ambulance (2012), offers an intimate look at three Bulgarian medics and premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week, earning a Camera d’Or nomination and the Visionary Award. His second feature, 3/4 (2017), premiered at Locarno and won the Golden Leopard. His films have been widely broadcast, theatrically released, and recognized with 45 awards, including a showcase at MoMA in New York.

Dana Bunescu has been the main editor of the Romanian New Wave. She was awarded a Silver Bear at the 2017 Berlinale for her exceptional artistic contribution to „Ana, Mon Amour“ and has edited documentaries like Andrei Ujică Cannes selection Autobiography of „Nicolae Ceaușescu and Things We Said Today“ and Transilvania International Film Festival-winning Laura Căpățână’s „Here…I Mean There“, as well as iconic fiction films like the Palme d’Or winner „4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days“, Un Certain Regard winner „The Death of Mr Lăzărescu“ and Golden Bear winner „Child’s Pose“.

Albert Elings is a Dutch documentary maker and film editor. Besides art- and filmschool he did a master cultural history at Utrecht University. Many of his films are characterised by a preoccupation with the aesthetics of temporality. Five of his films were screened at IDFA. Together with Eugenie Jansen he made several documentaries of which ‘Foreland’ won the Jury prize of the Documentary Film Festival in Yamagata. One of the last films he has been editing on is “Four Journeys’ by Louis Hothothot, opening film at IDFA in 2021.

Noemi Schory is an independent producer and director with over 100 documentaries to her name, created for Israeli broadcasters and international co-productions. Her credits include A Film Unfinished, A Snail in the Desert, God Forbid, Israel’s Generals, The Inner Tour, and several chapters of the Tkuma series. She also produced all the historical films for the Yad Vashem museum. Noemi lectures on production at Tel Aviv University and mentors at documentary labs in Goa, Sarajevo, Budapest, and Tbilisi.

Bina Paul, also known by her married name Bina Paul Venugopal, is an Indian film editor who works mainly in Malayalam-language films. A graduate of the University of Delhi, she completed a course on film editing from the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, in 1983. She is the recipient of two National Film Awards and three Kerala State Film Awards. She has held several positions including the artistic director of International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) and the vice chairperson of Kerala State Chalachitra Academy.

Vladimir Rakić is a music composer and performer in the field of film, electro-acoustic, contemporary and improvisation music. He graduated in 2005 as Bachelor of Art and Technology in Sound Design and Applied Composition from the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht, Netherlands. For more then 15 years he has been actively working in film, collaborating on many documentary, fiction and animation film projects .The most well known projects he collaborated on are „Moj narobe svet“ (2016), „Telo“ (2023) and „Mostar United“ (2008).

Hanka Kastelicová is the Vice President and Executive Producer of Documentaries for Warner Bros. Discovery, based in Prague. She oversees the development and production of HBO documentary films and series across Europe, commissioning and co-producing content for Max. Her focus is on feature-length documentaries and series that are bold, creative, and thought-provoking, offering fresh perspectives and sparking debate. Hanka also lectures on documentary filmmaking and contributes to masterclasses, industry seminars, and training programs across the international documentary community.

Dimitra Kouzi is an award-winning filmmaker, creative producer, journalist, and audience developer. Since 2013, she has led audience campaigns for European documentaries (La Chana, Nowhere to Hide, Siberian Love, Communion, Reconciliation, Radiograph of a Family, The Balcony Movie). She is an audience producer and tutor at BDC Discoveries, Doku Rough Cut Boutique, and Sarajevo’s Docu Rough Cut Boutique pitching workshop, working to support filmmakers in developing their projects and reaching audiences effectively.

Ivo Trajkov works as a director, film editor, screenwriter and story editor. He was born in Macedonia and graduated from FAMU in Prague. He has written/directed 8 feature-length films in several countries for which he received numerous awards. His last film “The Ballad of Piargy” win 123 international awards. Three of his feature films were Macedonia’s nominee for the best foreign-language film for Academy Awards. As a producer and story editor Ivo Trajkov was involved in more than 120 episodes of a critically acclaimed documentary series “Unexplained Deaths”. He works as story editor and editing supervisor for more than 30 films every year.

Renata Barić has extensive experience as a sports psychologist, working with numerous athletes and trainers of various sports in the field of psychological preparation. She was member of the quad scull’s training team for the London Olympic Games 2012 (silver medal), the Croatian water polo representation for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro (silver medal), and was a sports psychologist of several athletes of individual sports in Rio 2016. She is the official sports psychologist of the Croatian Water Polo where she works on the psychological preparation of men’s representation, U-20 men’s water polo representation and female representation.