Carmen Baltzar is a Finnish writer-filmmaker based in Lisbon. She graduated with an MA in Documentary Film from University College London. She writes short stories, essays, and columns, and recently co-edited a collection of lyrical essays on the theme of death. She is currently working on her first novel and moving towards fictional storytelling in her filmmaking.
Mladen Đorđević’s debut feature fiction film The Life and Death of a Porno Gang (2009) was presented at over 50 international festivals, winning 14 awards. Mitch Davis, a selector of the Festival Fantasia in Montreal, compared Mladen Đorđević with authors such as Gaspar Noe, Lars von Trier and Michael Haneke, writing that The Life and Death of a Porno Gang did for Serbia what Clockwork Orange did for Great Britain. He was born in 1978 in Belgrade. He graduated Film & TV Directing at Faculty of Drama Arts in Belgrade with the feature documentary film Made in Serbia, which later premiered at Belgrade Film Festival FEST and went into cinema and DVD distribution in Serbia. He directed several short films (Living Dead, Hunger, Shaving Foam) and documentaries (Ali Hamad’s Story, Straight Through the Wind). Mladen Đorđević wrote and directed one of the stories in the omnibus film Equals (2014), which premiered at Sarajevo Film Festival. Since 2014, he is programming FEST, Belgrade Film Festival. His new feature film Working Class Goes to Hell, a co-production of Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece (Homemade Films), Montenegro and Romania had its world premiere at the Midnight Madness section of the Toronto IFF.
Sofia Exarchou was born in Athens, where she received degrees in Electrical Engineering and Film Studies. She studied theatre at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York and pursued post-graduate film studies in Toulouse. She has worked as an assistant director in feature films and commercials, and as a freelance director and screenwriter since 2009. She has written and directed two short films, Distance and the award-winning Mesecina. In 2014, she was selected for the Sundance Screenwriter’s & Director’s Lab. Park, her first feature film, premiered at Toronto IFF and San Sebastian IFF, where it won the New Directors Award. Since then, it has participated and won awards in numerous international film festivals(Rotterdam IFF, BFI, Thessaloniki IFF-Best Actress&Best Greek Film, European Film Festival Palic-Best European Film, Greek Film Academy-Best First Feature&Best Sound Award etc). Her sophomore feature film, Animal, a production of Homemade Films, had its world premiere at the International Competition section of the 76th Locarno International Film Festival 2023, where it was awarded with the Pardo for Best Performance for Dimitra Vlagopoulou. It currently screens in theatres and festivals around the world, winning a string of awards in the Thessaloniki, Cork, Vancouver, Santiago del Compostella, Bruxelles, Les Arcs international film festivals, among others. In 2024, Animal was nominated for the LUX Audience Award by the European Parliament and the European Film Academy.
Panagiotis Fafoutis was born in Patras. He studied law and film direction in Athens. He has directed two feature films, The Heir and Paradise and 6 short films. His short films have participated and won awards in many international festivals. Panagiotis has directed several episodes for TV series, documentaries, news reports and commercials. He teaches acting and directing in Drama and Cinema Schools.
Mahdi Fleifel is a Danish-Palestinian film director who graduated in 2009 from the UK National Film & TV School. In 2010 he set up the London-based production company Nakba FilmWorks with Irish producer Patrick Campbell. His debut feature documentary, A World Not Ours (2012), premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and picked up over 30 awards, including the Peace Film Prize and the Panorama Audience Award at the 2013 Berlinale and the Edinburgh, Yamagata and DOC:NYC Grand Jury Prizes. Mahdi’s 2016 short film, A Man Returned, won the Silver Bear and the European Film Nomination at the Berlinale and his latest film, A Drowning Man, formed part of the Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival 2017 and was nominated for a BAFTA award. His fiction feature film debut, a co-production of UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece (Homemade Films), Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Palestine, To A Land Unknown had its world premiere at the 2024 Quinzaine des Cinéastes in Cannes to rave reviews and is currently screening in festivals and theatres around the world.
Maria Hatzakou is a film writer/director, producer and a musician, based in Athens, Greece. She holds a BA in Film and Video (London College of Printing) and joined the film industry by working extensively as a film programmer for the Athens IFF (2000-2004), and the Thessaloniki IFF (2005-2008). In 2007, she started working as a producer at Haos Film — a pioneering filmmaker-run production and post-production studio based in Athens. Maria has collaborated with director Athina Rachel Tsangari on a number of projects. Attenberg, her first producer credit, premièred in main competition at the Venice Film Festival. In 2012, she produced Tsangari’s The Capsule, that premièred at dOCUMENTA(13) in Kassel, and went on to screen in competition at the Locarno, Toronto and Sundance Film festivals. In 2013, she produced 24 Frames Per Century (Tsangari’s sci-fi short for the Venice Film Festival’s commemorative anniversary project “Venezia 70 — Future Reloaded) and in 2014 Chevalier which won Best Film at the BFI London Film Festival. In addition to her work with Tsangari, she co-produced Yorgos Lanthimos’ Alps, which premièred in main competition at the 2011 Venice Film Festival, as well as produced Digger (Georgis Grigorakis) which opened at the Panorama section at the Berlinale 2020. In 2021 she founded her own production company MERRICAT. Its credits include Maria’s first foray into writing and directing with the short film AMYGDALA which had a successful worldwide festival run. Her second short film 7Hz (2024) had its world premiere at the Brussels Short Film Festival and her 3rd short STARFLYER, is in post-production. Her first feature film Stringa, co- written and co-directed with fellow filmmaker Alexandra Matheou won the Post production award at the Agora Crossroad Co-production forum at the 64th Thessaloniki International Film Festival in 2023. Maria is a Sundace Institute and an Oxbelly Amumna. She is also the drummer of the female duo Someone Who Isn’t Me.
Born in 1962. He studied political science and film studies. He has directed a series of documentaries for television (with social, political and historical themes) and two feature documentaries: The House of Cain, exploring the existential situation of seven everyday people who have committed murder, and Raw Material, a film immersed in the most impoverished neighborhoods of Athens to discover the unseen connection between immigrant slums and the Greek steel industry. Both films were honored with awards and distinctions in Greece and abroad (1st Prize at the Nyon Festival, FIPRESCI Prize, Audience Award in Munich etc) and have been screened at many festivals (Berlinale, Karlovy Vary, Nyon etc). He teaches Documentary Studies at the University of Athens, at the private Hellenic Cinema and Television School Stavrakos, and for the last 5 years has been running his own documentary workshop, which has already formed a core of new creators and films. Lately, alongside his work on feature documentaries Future Tenses and Death Plan for a Dog and a Man, he has been working on writing the script of his first fiction film (Power of Inertia).
Nikos Kolioukos (b. 1996) is a film director based in Athens. He graduated from the Film Department of the School of Fine Arts at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His debut short film, The Chaos She Left Behind, was awarded 2nd Prize in LA CINEF at the 77th Cannes Film Festoval 2024. It also received the Best Student Film Iris Award from the Hellenic Film Academy and the Best Director and Best Actress awards in the national student competition at the 46th Drama ISFF. In 2024, Nikos Kolioukos was commissioned to create the official promotional campaign of the Greek Film Centre for the 64th Thessaloniki International Film Festival. He is currently preparing with Homemade Films his next short film, Amnesia, a queer love story set in the working-class Thessaloniki of the 1980s.
Nicolas Kolovos is a Greek-Swedish film director, scriptwriter and playwright. He has written and directed several short films that have been screened at a variety of International Film Festivals and won several awards (Index, 2019; Fig, 2015; Porsche, 2013; End of the road, 2013; Special day, 2012; Thomas’ room, 2011; Peter’s room, 2010; I am gay, 2008). Kolovos has directed TV series and documentaries for the Swedish national television broadcaster. He is also active as a playwright in Sweden and has written plays for various theaters and radio plays for the Swedish national public Radio. At the moment he is in development with his first feature film, The Hermit. Nicolas Kolovos’ films often portray, with humor, people in existential crises.
Born in Komotini, Konstantina Kotzamani is a graduate student of the Film Department of Fine Arts of Thessaloniki. Her short movies have premiered in major festivals such as Cannes, Berlinale, Venice, Locarno and have received numerous international awards. For her short films Washingtonia (2014) and Limbo (2016), she has been twice awarded with the Hellenic Film Academy best short film award and twice nominated by the European Film Academy for the best short of the year. Limbo was qualified for the short films Oscar nomination in 2017. Her medium-length film Electric Swan had its world premiere as a Special Screening Out of Competition at the Venice International Film Festival, won many awards in several international festivals and was declared Best Short Film of the Year by the Association of French Critics. Her latest medium-length film What Mary Didn’t Know had its world premiere at the Pardi di Domani Short Film Competition of the 2024 Locarno International Film Festival. Her first feature film Titanic Ocean , a co-production of Greece, Germany, France, Romania, Spain and Japan is currently in production.
Despina Kourti was born in Rhodes. She studied Law and Film in Athens. Her first short, The Doll (2014) premiered at the Athens IFF. Her second short, Ourania (2017), won four awards at the Drama International Short Film Festival and the script prize of the Athens IFF. She was supported by the 1st Artworks program of the Niarchos Foundation. Her short film Old West (2020) had its national premieres at the Drama and the Athens International Short Film Festivals and its international premiere at the Short Shorts Film Festival 2021. Her new short film, Numb, premiered at the Drama International Short Film Festival 2024 (International and National Competition), where it received the Onassis Film Award.
Born in Greece in 1986, he received his MFA in Film Directing with Honours. He has lived and worked in Berlin, Athens, Vietnam and China, teaching Film, Media and Communication and directing short films and commercials. He has worked as video artist for several Greek companies and organisations, including the National Theatre Company of Northern Greece. He took part in Berlinale Talents (2013) and Sarajevo Talents (2014). His first short drama King Kong premiered at Rotterdam IFF 2014 and continued in QueerLisboa, Split, Sguardi Altrove, Pink Screens and Queersicht. Baby is his feature debut, being developed with the support of the Greek Film Fund, while it has won the YapimLab award in Sarajevo’s Pack&Pitch 2014.
Vasiliki Lazaridou is a queer visual artist and filmmaker born in 1989 and raised in Thessaloniki. They studied Cultural Technology and Communication at the University of the Aegean and Theory οf Cinema at Université Paul Valéry – Montpellier III. Lazaridou have often produced the work of their fellow artists and acted as assistant director for their projects, and have worked as creative director, writer and curator. They hold a Master’s degree in Communication & Media Rhetoric from the Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences. They are currently working on their genre short film Hopepunk with Homemade Films.
Nikos Labôt studied film direction in Athens, Greece. He has worked in feature and short films in Greece and France, TV series and TV shows. He has directed 3 short films, a creative documentary, music videos and theater plays. His short film The Dog participated in numerous international film festivals and won many awards. He has co-directed the theater play REPULSION_6 for the experimental music performance group Erasers. His feature documentary The Immortals at the Southern Point of Europe premiered at the 15th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and made its international premiere at the 5th Annual Atlanta Philosophy Film Festival 2013. His debut feature film Her Job had its world premiere at the Discovery Section of the Toronto IFF 2018.
Alexandra Matheou is a writer and director. She holds a Law LLB and LLM from King’s College London, as well as an MA in Film Studies from University College London (UCL). Her short films have screened internationally and her latest A Summer Place (2021), a Cyprus-France co-production with the support of the CNC has enjoyed selections and awards at major film festivals across the world. Alexandra’s first feature film Shibboleth is currently in development with the support of the Cyprus Film Fund, Onassis Culture and MEDIA mini slate. With Shibboleth, Alexandra won the top award at Crossroads Co-Production Forum at Thessaloniki International Film Festival, as well as the Producer’s Network Award (Cannes Film Festival 2022). Alexandra is an alumna of Talents Sarajevo, First Films First (Goethe-Institut), Oxbelly Screenwriters and Directors Lab and the Mediterranean Film Institute(MFI) lab. Her sophomore feature STRINGA (co-written and co-directed with Maria Hatzakou) is also in early development with the support of the Greek Film Centre.
Christos Passalis was born in Thessaloniki, Greece. He graduated from the Drama School of the National Theatre of Northern Greece. In cinema, he participated as an actor in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth (Prix Un Certain Regard, 2009 Cannes IFF, Best Foreign Language Film nomination at the 83rd Academy Awards), Syllas Tzoumerkas’ Homeland (Venice 2010) and The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea (Berlinale 2019), Vardis Marinakis’ Black Field, and Fiona Tan’s History’s Future. In theatre, he worked with various directors before founding the Blitz Theatre Group in 2004. To date, he has written, directed and acted in all 15 of the group’s performances in Theatre de la Ville, the Schabuehne, in Festival d’ Avignon, Onassis Stegi and various festivals in Europe and the world. Christos Passalis’ latest theatre work includes The Book of Myself series of theatrical performances in Athens and his co-directions with Angeliki Papoulia of Euripides’ Alkistis and Dürrenmatts’ Der Besuch der alten Dame at the Luzerner Theatre in Switzerland. His co-direction with Syllas Tzoumerkas, feature film The City and the City, had its world premiere at the Encounters Competition of the 72nd Berlinale and its North-American premiere at the New Directors/New Films by MoMA and Film at Lincoln Center. In the same year, his debut feature film Silence 6-9 had its world premiere at the International Competition section of the 56th Karlovy Vary IFF.
Born in Greece in 1977, Elina studied filmmaking and sociology in Athens. She continued her studies in cultural history in Paris and participated in the 2007 Berlinale Talent Campus. Her first feature, The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas, won the Works in Progress Award at the Karlovy Vary IFF in 2012, premiered at the Berlinale Forum in 2013 and participated in more than 40 international film festivals. During that same year, trade publication Variety singled her out as one of the “10 European Directors to Watch” and in 2014, she won the first-time director award from the Hellenic Film Academy. Her second feature, Son of Sofia, was selected to participate in the 2013 Berlinale Residency program, as well as the 2014 Berlinale co-production market, won the Works in Progress Award at the Les Arcs EFF in 2015, premiered in competition at the Tribeca FF in 2017 and won the Best International Narrative Feature Award. Son of Sofia also won 5 awards from the Hellenic Film Academy, including the best feature film, best director and best screenplay. Both her films were part of European Film Awards’ selection list in 2013 and 2017 accordingly. Her feature film documentary Stray Bodies had its world premiere at the 2024 CPH:DOX and is currently screening in theatres and festivals around the world. She is developing her third feature Patrimonial Fears and Other Symptoms (Berlinale Co-production Market 2019).
Nely Reguera is the director of María (y los demás), a dramatic comedy starring Barbara Lennie, which premiers at the San Sebastián Film Festival (New directors) and was present in a multitude of festivals and awards: Feroz Awards (nominated for Best Comedy), Goya, (nominated for Best Novel Direction), Forqué, Miami Film Festival (Best Film), REC (Special Jury Mention), within others. In 2017, she directed several chapters of the comedy Welcome to the Family, created by Pau Freixas, which is the best fiction premiere on TV3 in the last 10 years, and is available on Netflix at the global level. She directed, together with Inés de León, the original series for Netflix, Valeria, an adaptation of the successful literary saga by the writer Elisabet Benavent.
After graduating from the Netherlands Film Academy in 2008 with the award-winning short Gradually, writer/director Margot Schaap wrote/directed several short films. In 50 minutes films Lynn and Flarden Von Thomas, she further developed her style of an observatory eye for detail and a deep and intuitive visual understanding of characters’ behaviors. Her no-budget, master graduation film 12 Months in 1 Day (73’) premiered at IFFR 2015 and won Best Newcomer and the FIPRESCI award at the International FF Mannheim-Heidelberg 2015. While creating her first feature film Quicksand she also became a mother of three daughters.
Syllas Tzoumerkas was born in 1978 in Thessaloniki. His first feature film Homeland premiered at the Venice Critics’ Week 201o. His second feature A Blast premiered in competition at Locarno 2014, and his third, The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea at the Berlinale Panorama 2019. Acclaimed by the world press and audiences for their distinctive style, bold characterisation and strong performances, Tzoumerkas’ films have participated in over 200 festivals around the world and have been distributed to theatres and streaming platforms in many countries. His co-direction with Christos Passalis, feature film The City and the City (2022) had its world premiere at the Encounters Competition of the 72nd Berlinale and its North-American premiere at the New Directors/New Films by MoMA and Film at Lincoln Center. Syllas Tzoumerkas co-wrote the scripts of Argyris Papadimitropoulos’ Suntan (Rotterdam, SXSW, 2016) and Ahmad Ghossein’s All This Victory (Venice Critics’ Week Award, 2019), and participated as an actor in feature films, shorts and stage performances. In multi-platform and theatrical works, he collaborated with Onassis Stegi, the Greek National Opera, Thessaloniki IFF, the Athens Epidaurus Festival, the Greek National Theatre of Northern Greece, and others. He co-curated Motherland, I See You – the 20th Century of Greek Cinema, the restoration program and moving festival of the Hellenic Film Academy, and the Panigíri – Live Cinema, The Working Class, Sirens festival for Eleusis 2023 – European Capital of Culture. His short film My Mother Is a Saint had its premiere at the Pardi di Domani – Corti d’Autore Competition of the 76th Locarno IFF 2023 His upcoming film project, feature film A Thousand Days, A Thousand Nights (Berlinale Co-production Market) is in development. OFFICIAL SITE: syllastzoumerkas.net
Born in Izmir, Turkey, in 1981. Started his career in film as a scriptwriting assistant. After obtaining his BA and MA in Film Studies from Mimar Sinan University and The University of Paris – La Sorbonne, he worked as a freelance producer in Paris for commercials and music videos. He collaborated with Forecast Films and concentrated on producing and financing feature films until he moved back to Istanbul, in 2007. Since then, he has worked as producer with directors such as Semih Kaplanoglu (Milk, 2008), Kamen Kalev (Eastern Plays, 2009; The Island, 2011) and Hüseyin Karabey (Do Not Forget Me Istanbul, 2010; Come to My Voice, World Premiere in Berlinale 2014). He directed a short film called Aziz. He collaborated with Ahmet Büke on two scripts, There Outside and The Gulf. The Gulf had its world premiere at the Critics’ Week of the Venice IFF 2017.
Yorgos Zois was born in Athens. He studied applied Math and Nuclear Physics in N.T.U.A. and film direction at Stavrakou Film School, Athens and at U.d.K, Berlin. His debut short film, Casus Belli, premiered at the 67th Venice Film Festival in 2010 and participated in the official competition of numerous international film festivals (Rotterdam, Clermont Ferrand, Tokyo Short Shorts, Palm Springs, LA Short Fest etc) winning multiple awards and distinctions. His second short film, Out of Frame, premiered at the 69th Venice Film Festival in 2012 and won the EFA award for the Best European short film and was nominated for Best Short film of the European Film Academy Awards 2012. His first feature, Interruption, premiered at the Orizzonti Competition of the 72nd Venice Film Festival. His follow-up shorts, 8th Continent and Third Kind premiered as a special screening at the Venice IFF, and at the Cannes Semaine de la Critique and the Telluride IFF, respectively. His sophomore feature film, Arcadia had its world premiere at the Encounters Competition of the 74th Berlinale (2024), and went on to win the Best Actor Award for Vangelis Mourikis at the Hong-Kong IFF and the Best Director Award at the Sarajevo International Film Festival. OFFICIAL SITE: yorgoszois.com