Thanaphon Accawatanyu, graduated from Thammasat University. He is 29 years old and started to work at Documentary Club in 2019 as a theater manager and projectionist. After the Covid pandemic, he began to work in film acquisition. Accawatanyu has a part-time job as a playwright and theater director.

Yuki Aditya graduated from the University of Indonesia majoring in Fiscal Administration. He once worked as a Tax Auditor at a Public Accountant in Jakarta. Since 2013 he is the festival director of ARKIPEL International Documentary and Experimental Film Festival and acts as the producer of the films by Forum Lenteng.

Kaspar Aebi is a curator, author, film and media scholar trained in social studies and cultural anthropology. His main interests are pop culture, the politics of architecture, the intersection of neoliberalism and conservative/right wing ideologies, feminist theory, and documentary filmmaking. For the film blog Jugend ohne Film Kaspar edited a special issue on architecture and neoliberalism. In his master thesis he focuses on spatial intermediation and sheltering through cinema architecture. Kaspar coordinates the film copies and edits the program texts at Sinema Transtopia.

Biography coming soon.

Senem Aytaç is a film critic. She has been on the editorial board of Altyazı Cinema Magazine since 2004 and was one the chief editors for more than ten years. She is a co-founder and the project manager of Altyazı Cinema Association, which was founded in 2019 to strengthen the free film culture in Turkey. She is now based in Berlin as a scholarship holder in collaboration with the Artist Residency Program ‘Hier & Jetzt: Connections’. She is part of Emek Bizim İstanbul Bizim Initiative.

Alejandro Bachmann is a film worker focusing on teaching, writing and programming films. He led the “Education, Research and Publications” department at the Austrian Film Museum until 2018 and has served on various film festival selection committees. He is mentor of the Berlinale Talents Short Film Station, and he became a Professor of Film History and Film Theory at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne in 2023. Alejandro is a (co-)editor of several publications and a board member of Lichtspiel – Netzwerk kulturelle Filmbildung. https://www.alejandrobachmann.com/

Imruh Bakari is a filmmaker/writer. He is a director of the June Givanni PanAfrican Cinema Archive (JGPACA). Bakari has worked in the UK and a number of African countries in the areas of film production and film studies, culture and the creative industries, and currently teaches Film Studies at the University of Winchester.

Marta Baradić is an initiator of Kino Katarina – an open-air feminist cinema project. Kino Katarina started in 2016 as a guerrilla pop-up cinema in which screenings were organized along the coast of the Pula Bay (Croatia). She is a culture worker and currently a PhD candidate at the Department of Gender Studies at the Central European University (Vienna), where she works on the history of women’s activism. As an activist Baradić mostly focuses on the labor conditions in the field of culture, as well as culture as a public good and public space.

Jochen Becker works as author, curator and lecturer and is co-founder of metroZones | Center for Urban Affairs and the station urbaner kulturen/nGbK. He curated Chinafrika. under construction (Graz, Leipzig, Weimar, Shenzhen, Nürnberg) and advised the relocation of the Düsseldorf Theater FFT in terms of cultural policy, concept and curatorial work, including the project City as Factory and Place Internationale (2017-22) as well as the metroZones-exhibition Mapping Along (Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin, 2021). He is active in Initiative Urbane Praxis and prepared two SITUATION BERLIN congresses as well as the Glossary Urban Praxis for this purpose.

metrozones.info
ngbk.de/en/station-urbaner-kulturen
chinafrika.org
smur.eu
fft-duesseldorf.de
urbanepraxis.berlin

Johannes Binotto is a lecturer in cultural and media studies, curator, experimental filmmaker and video essayist. In the “Best Video Essays of 2021” poll, hosted by Sight and Sound Magazine his video essay series “Practices of Viewing” received the most nominations. He is currently leading a research project on video essays as new form of scientific research and teaching:

Cinema La Clef is a historical, independent, non-profit cinema located in the heart of Paris. In 2018, its owner, a French bank enterprise committee, closed the cinema in order to sell the building. A bunch of film lovers, filmmakers, students and neighbors decided to occupy La Clef in September 2019 to prevent this sale. Every night, these volunteers screened films with the massive support of the audience, many french directors, distributors, media and some institutions. In March 2022 they got expelled. Today, “La Clef Revival” team is about to buy the building with specific conditions to keep it out of the real estate market. Lina, Alix, Helena fought for La Clef’s survival during its occupation and remain part of the project.

Anouk De Clercq explores the potential of audiovisual language to create possible worlds. Her work has been shown in Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, MAXXI, Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, MASS MoCA, BOZAR, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Berlinale, Ars Electronica, among others. De Clercq is a founding member of Auguste Orts, On & For Production and Distribution and initiator of Monokino. She is affiliated to the School of Arts University College Ghent as a visiting professor. Anouk De Clercq is the author of Where is Cinema, published by Archive Books.

Fradique is considered one of the most talented and expressive voices in contemporary African cinema. His first fiction feature film Air Conditioner (2020) had its world premiere at the Rotterdam International Film Festival and participated in more than forty international film festivals, receiving ten awards. Independência (2015), his first full-length documentary which focuses on Angola’s liberation struggle won Angola’s Culture National Prize for Cinema in 2015 and is considered an important step in the recovery of Angola’s collective memory. As a filmmaker and one of the founders of the Angola collective Geração 80, he is an advocate of the cinema of the Global South.

Borjana Gaković is a film and media scholar, curator and author. She writes and works as a lecturer in the field of film and cinema culture, Her work focuses on representations of history and medialities of historiography, European cinema of the 1960s, feminisms in film history and war and trauma in film. She regularly presents historical film programmes at cinemas and film festivals, chairs film talks and panel discussions and gives lectures on film and cinema. From 2017 to 2021 she was media spokesperson for the German Association of Municipal and Cultural Cinemas, and editor of the cinema quarterly Kinema Kommunal. Since 2020 she has sat on the Programme and Selection Committee of DOK Leipzig.

Lars Henrik Gass is the director of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. In 1996/97 he was managing director of the European Documentary Film Institute in Mülheim an der Ruhr. He writes about film and film-political topics. He is co-editor of Provokation der Wirklichkeit. Das Oberhausener Manifest und die Folgen (2012) and after youtube. Gespräche, Porträts, Texte zum Musikvideo nach dem Internet (2018). As an author, he published the books Film and Art after Cinema (2012/2017, English edition 2019) and Filmgeschichte als Kinogeschichte. Eine kleine Theorie des Kinos (2019).

Julius Hackspiel has lived in Berlin since 2014, has been a member of Filmrauschpalast Moabit since 2018 and is a member of the multi-member board since 2020. He takes on tasks in various areas of the Cinema, including applying for funding, assisting with construction work during the renovation phase and takes care of cooperations with external partners. After a closure period of one and a half years, he is looking forward to being back behind the counter to present a well curated programme to the neighborhood and cineasts alike.

Jowe Harfouche is the executive director of the Network of Arab Alternative Screens “NAAS”, a growing constellation of non-governmental cinema spaces presenting visionary film programs that engage and challenge audiences across the Arabic-speaking region. He is also a filmmaker and currently lives in Berlin.

Gabu Heindl is a (cinema) architect, urban planner and activist. Professor of urban planning in Nuremberg. She redesigned and remodeled the Kino im Künstlerhaus in Vienna in 2013 and the Vienna Film Museum in 2008. Her Vienna office, GABU Heindl Architektur, focuses on public space, public buildings, affordable housing, and collaborations in the fields of historical politics and critical artistic practice. Most recently, she published Urban Conflicts. Radical Democracy in Architecture and Urban Planning, Vienna, 2020.

Tobias Hering is a freelance film curator and journalist, who recently presented at bi’bak the programme Freundschaft auf Zeit (2019) on contract work and internationalism in the GDR. He is currently responsible for the archive project re-selected at the Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen. In this context he is researching Amos Vogel’s work as the Short Film Festival’s US correspondent in the 1960s

Alain Kassanda is a Congolese-French filmmaker, film director and cinematographer, and founder of Ajímatí Films. He is known for his highly acclaimed documentary films Trouble Sleep (2020), Colette & Justin (2022), and Coconut Head Generation (2023).

Christine Kopf studied film studies and cultural anthropology in Erlangen and Marburg. She developed concepts, exhibitions and film series for Filmhaus Nürnberg, ZKM Karlsruhe, Kulturamt Wiesbaden, HfG Offenbach and DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum Frankfurt. From 2013 to 2019, she was curator for the Bosch Foundation Film Award for international cooperation between young filmmakers from Germany and the Arab region. At the DFF, she has headed the department of film education and outreach since 2013 and has developed and/or accompanied numerous film education projects.

Jan Kulka is a Prague-based experimental filmmaker. His primary focus is the invention of special projection apparatuses for live performances. Rather than telling a story, he tries to target the senses of each spectator directly with light and sound to reveal some of the foundations of our perception.

Malve Lippmann is a freelance artist, curator and cultural manager. She studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart and at the Institute for Art in Context (UdK) in Berlin. As a freelance stage designer and artist, she has designed numerous performances, opera and theater productions. Since 2010, Malve has been working as a curator and cultural manager, leading artistic workshops and seminars and is active in various cultural and community projects. She is Co-founder and Artistic Director of bi‘bak and SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA in Berlin where she was responsible for various international programs, events and exhibitions such as Cinema of Commoning (since 2022), the documentary exhibition projects Sıla Yolu – The Holiday Transit to Turkey and the Tales of the Highway (2016-17) and Bitter Things – Narratives and Memories of Transnational Families (2018), Selected publications: Please Rewind – German-Turkish Film- and Video Culture in Berlin (Archive Books, 2020), Bitter Things – Narratives and Memories of Transnational Families (Archive Books, 2018).

Louise Malherbe is a film curator and film critic based in Berlin. She worked as a film programmer for the Metropolis Cinema Association in Beirut and is now coordinating the Reel Streams project aiming at supporting the dissemination of independent cinema in the Arab region. She is Head of Programming for Soura Film Festival, a queer film festival focusing on the S.W.A.N.A. region, writes film critics for Manifesto XXI, and recently started curating films and festivals for Cinema Akil.

Olivier Marboeuf is a performer, author, critic and film producer. Together with Yvan Alagbé in the 1990s, he founded Amok (now Frémok), a research comic book publisher, and then Espace Khiasma , an independent art centre dedicated to visual art and literature that he ran in the Lilas (outskirts of Paris) from 2004 to 2018. Marboeuf currently shares his work between theoretical and fictional writings around the representation of minority bodies and places, drawing and film production within Spectre productions. His recent texts are visible on the blog Toujours Debout.

Lyse Ishimwe Nsengiyumva is a film curator and photographer. Lyse is currently based in Belgium where she founded Recognition in 2016. Recognition is a Brussels-based initiative with the aim of increasing the visibility of African and African diaspora art, literature and culture via community-based film screenings. In her work for this project, Lyse curates a film program that takes place at art and cultural spaces in various cities across Europe. Lyse currently works at IFFR as a programmer for the Sub Saharan African region. Previously, she was a film consultant for the Berlinale Forum.

Luthfan Nur Rochman is a filmmaker, curator, and researcher. He is also an active member of Forum Lenteng and organizer of ARKIPEL – Jakarta Documentary & Experimental Film Festival since 2018. Currently he is focusing his activity mostly in Milisifilem; a group study of film production through the practice of visual experimentation initiated by Forum Lenteng. He is currently developing Candikala platform at Forum Lenteng, which is trying to recontextualize Hindu-Buddhist heritage in Indonesia by the practice of art.

Ignacio Ocampo is a Chilean filmmaker and producer. He studied at Instituto Profesional de Artes y Comunicación ARCOS. His experience it’s mostly related to video art and documentary film. Since 2019 he worked as a producer for Centro de Cine y Creación – CCC in Santiago de Chile.

Stefanie Schulte Strathaus is film curator and co-director of the Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art as well as director of the Berlinale Forum Expanded. From 2001-2019 she was a member of the selection committee of the Berlinale Forum. From 2010-2013 she conceived and directed the project “Living Archive – Archive Work as Contemporary Art and Curatorial Practice”. Schulte Strathaus is co-initiator of the silent green project “Film Field Research” and member of the board of Harun Farocki Institute, Master Program Film Culture at the University in Jos/Nigeria and NAAS | Network of Arab Alternative Screens.

Monica Sebestyen is responsible for the reactivation of Cinema ARTA from Cluj-Napoca, one of the few arthouse cinemas from Romania. Also, she is co-founder and co-director of the UrbanEye Film Festival from Bucharest. She believes in the impact of culture on the societal and urban development, in the last 10 years coordinating various cultural projects focused mainly on film, but also on art, architecture and education.

Angela Seidel is a cultural and media educator. The focus of her work is on the development of content-related and economically sustainable future perspectives of cultural institutions in independent sponsorship. Since 2012, she has been responsible for the range of management tasks at the Cinémathèque Leipzig as well as the development and realization of a new center for film art and media education in Leipzig.

Daniella Shreir is the founder-editor of Another Gaze – a journal of film and feminisms, in print and online – and the programmer of Another Screen, a free irregular online streaming platform highlighting films of feminist interest. She is also a literary translator from the French and in 2019 she translated Chantal Akerman’s My Mother Laughs (Silver Press).

Can Sungu is a curator, researcher and author. He is Co-founder and Artistic Director of bi‘bak and SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA in Berlin where he curated various international programs, events and exhibitions such as Cinema of Commoning (since 2022), the documentary exhibition projects Sıla Yolu – The Holiday Transit to Turkey and the Tales of the Highway (2016-17) and Bitter Things – Narratives and Memories of Transnational Families (2018). He has served as a juror and consultant for the Berlinale Forum, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Duisburger Filmwoche, Hauptstadtkulturfonds and the DAAD Artist-in Berlin Program, among others. He has published several books, including Please Rewind – German-Turkish Film- and Video Culture in Berlin (Archive Books, 2020). Between 2020-23, he has been part of the curatorial team of Fiktionsbescheinigung at the Berlinale Forum – a film program that parries German film history with intersectional perspectives. Since 2023 he is curator for filmic practices at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin.

Sarnt Utamachote is a Southeast Asian nonbinary filmmaker and curator based in Berlin. They view cinema as a tool for social engagement and collective healing. They are a co-founder of un.thai.tled, an artist collective from the German-Thai diaspora, and have curated multiple research-based exhibitions concerning postcolonial histories, the Southeast Asian diaspora, and activism in divided Germany (GDR/FRG). They work as a film programmer at XPOSED Queer Film Festival Berlin, Hamburg International Short Film Festival, and at SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA.

Mirian Vanda is a graduate from The Arts University Bournemouth with a BA in Architecture. She is particularly interested in exploring film as a way of understanding architecture and the role of architecture in shaping communities. She is currently based in Luanda, working as an assistant and film curator at Geração 80.

Ivan Velisavljević studied Comparative Literature and Literary Theory and Dramaturgy. He is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts Belgrade and works as a chief media archive curator of the Alternative Film Archive at the Student City Cultural Center in Belgrade. His essays on film were published in a number of books, journals and magazines.

Mohanad Yaqubi is a filmmaker, producer, and one of the founders of the Ramallah-based production outfit Idioms Film, as well as of the research and curatorial collective Subversive Films which focuses on militant film practices. He is a resident researcher at KASK- School of the Arts in Gent, Belgium. Yaqubi is researching archival structures within transnational solidarity movements, asking questions about politics, aesthetics and cinema, at the same time, re-thinking imperfect archives as a mechanism to bridge living memories, his work involves interactions inventories, film scanners, reels, magnetic tapes, and a Canon A1 with 50mm lense. Yaqubi’s first feature film Off Frame AKA Revolution Until Victory (2016) made its premiere at TIFF, Berlinale, Cinéma du réel, Dubai IFF, and Yamagata among fifty other premiers and screenings around the world.

Buse Yıldırım is the managing artistic director of Kundura Cinema & Stage and has been playing an essential role during the construction of the artistic and cultural identity of Beykoz Kundura, a remarkable industrial heritage site in Istanbul. In 2015 she founded Kundura Hafıza, exploring the history of the factory, which runs as a non-profit association for the conservation of intangible heritage. As a filmmaker, she directs her own films and video works using ethnographic methods. Buse Yıldırım holds a B.A. in History of Art at Goldsmiths University London and Documentary Filmmaking at ESEC Paris and has also completed her postgraduate studies on Visual and Media Anthropology at Freie Universität Berlin in 2019.