As an Iranian New Wave cinema icon, Mehrjui is regarded to be one of the intellectual directors. Dariush Mehrjui was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1939. As an adult, he moved to the United States and entered the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Department of Cinema. He switched his major to philosophy and graduated from UCLA in 1964. Returning to Iran in 1965, he almost immediately embarked on a filmmaking career. He made his debut in 1966 with Diamond 33. His second featured film, Cow (1969), brought him national and international recognition. In 1971, the film was smuggled out of Iran and submitted to the Venice IFF, where, without programming or subtitles, it became the largest event of that year's festival. The film was a turning point in the history of Iranian cinema. The public received it with great enthusiasm, despite the fact that it had ignored all the traditional elements of box office attraction. In 1973 Mehrjui began directing what was to be his most acclaimed film. The Cycle was co-sponsored by the Ministry of Culture but encountered opposition from the Iranian medical establishment and was banned from release until 1977. It was universally admired abroad. The film won the FIPRESCI Prize at the Berlin IFF in 1978. In 1981, he traveled to Paris and remained there for several years, during which time he made a feature-length semi-documentary for French TV, Voyage au Pays de Rimbaud (1983). Feeling homesick, he returned to Iran to film The Tenants (1986), a comedy of conflict between apartment tenants and a realtor seeking to throw them out. In Hamoun (1989), a portrait of an intellectual whose life is falling apart, Mehrjui sought to depict his generation's post-revolutionary turn from politics to mysticism. The '90s also found Mehrjui releasing films dealing with women's issues. Banoo (1991, released in 1998) more or less brought Luis Buñuel's Viridiana to Iran. Sara (1993) did the same for Ibsen's A Doll's House. Pari (1995), a transplanting of Salinger's Franny and Zooey, attracted the attention - and the threat of a lawsuit - from the reclusive author. Leila (1996) was all Mehrjui's own and the first to receive any sort of wide theatrical release in the West. The story of a marriage undone by infertility and a meddling mother-in-law, it earned Mehrjui raves. Outside of festivals and a career-spanning retrospective by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in late 1998, his films remain largely unseen outside Iran, an oversight that will hopefully be corrected with the passing of time.

Born in 1947 in Belgrade, one of the most distinguished directors from the former Yugoslavia, is a member of the so-called “Prague school” of FAMU graduates. He became known for his short documentaries, but it was his feature films which classed him among leading European directors, whose style, themes and tragicomic aura bore traces of the influence of the Czech New Wave. He received international recognition particularly for his films Beach Guard in Winter (1976), Special Treatment (1980 – Golden Globe nomination), Twilight Time (1983 – Main Prize at the Chicago IFF), The Elusive Summer of ‘68 (1984), Guardian Angel (1987), Time of Miracles (1989), The Powder Keg (1998 – FIPRESCI prize at the Venice IFF), How Harry Became a Tree (2001) and Midwinter Night’s Dream (2004 – Grand Jury Prize at the San Sebastian IFF). His new film The Optimists was premiered in the autumn of 2006.

Born in 1971 in Istanbul. She received her MA degree from Bosphorus University in Istanbul. She works for the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts organizing five international festivals (Film, Theatre, Music, Jazz and Biennial) since 1993. She worked as the coordinator of the 5th, 6th and 7th Istanbul Biennials and became the deputy director of the Istanbul IFF in 2003. She is the director of the Istanbul IFF since 2006. She also organizes the Istanbul Autumn Film Week for the last seven years. She is a member of NETPAC and Asia Pacific Screen Awards Nominations Council.

Born 1959, Graz, Austria. Studied at San Francisco Art Institute and Vienna Film Academy. In addition to being a director, he is a cameraman and writer. He has regularly cooperated with Ulrich Seidl. In 1995, he recieved the Vienna Film Prize for Die Ameisenstrase. In 2006 “Workingman’s death” documentary has received Golden Apricot Prize.

Born in 1963 in Lvov. Mansky entered the VGIK (Russian State Institute of Cinematography, then the Moscow All-Union Cinema Institute) in 1982. Beginning 1989 he has directed 23 films participating to more than 200 international festivals and winning more than 30 awards. His films have been repeatedly screened on TV in Russia, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Israel and other countries. He is the author and the host of the Real Cinema TV program on the Russian First Channel since 1996. From 1996 to 1999 Mansky was the head of Cinema Screening Service at the REN-TV Company and its general producer. From 1999 to 2003 he headed the Documentary Program Production on the Rossia-RTR TV channel. Mansky has co-produced more than 200 films in the recent years.

The only American ever to anchor the famous BBC World News, Carla Garapedian earned her Ph. D. in international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science before working as a producer, director and correspondent based in Britain. She has made her name as an international documentary director, with the film about the brutal treatment of women in Afghanistan - "Lifting the Veil" -- which premiered in the US on the Sundance Channel in August 2003. In "Dying for the President" she made world headlines by sneaking into Chechnya to document the Russian army's single worst war crime, the bombing of a white-flag refugee convoy. More recent headlines surrounded her 2005 film, "My Friend the Mercenary" about the attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea, linked to Mark Thatcher and the notorious mercenary, Simon Mann. Garapedian went inside the mercenary world in South Africa, where the coup was plotted, and secretly filmed in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea. Garapedian's other acclaimed film was about North Korea, "Children of the Secret State, " a film that detailed starvation, human rights abuses and cannibalism in that impoverished nation. Her film "Iran Undercover," about the underground student movement in Iran, won the prestigious Edward R. Murrow award in 2005, as part of the PBS Frontline World series. The headline about her in the LA Times Calendar article is probably the best description of her work so far - "Documenting Truth in Dangerous Places," In addition to anchoring BBC World News, Garapedian has been a correspondent for NBC Sunrise, NBC Nightly News and CNBC financial news. She narrated the Armenian genocide film, "Voices from the Lake" by the acclaimed filmmaker, J. M. Hagopian, as well as co-writing his award-winning film "Germany and the Secret Genocide. " "Screamers" debuted at the AFI Film Festival in Los Angeles in November 2007 where it won the coveted "Audience Award, " It has been on nationwide release in the US and Canada and has recently begun its international theatrical release. As well as being shown around the world, the film has been shown in the Library of Congress and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the British the Houses of Parliament. Carla Garapedian’s THE SCREAMERS was awarded with Golden Apricot award in Armenain Panorama competition and Ecumenical Jury encouraging award at GOLDEN APRICOT Yerevan International Film Festival in 2007.

Was born in New Jersey, and grew up in Los Angeles. She studied music from an early age, playing violin, flute, alto saxophone and bass guitar in a variety of musical groups ranging from symphony orchestras to hard rock bands. Switching careers to the film industry, she began working for Francis Ford Coppola's company American Zoetrope as director of Zoetrope's research library, and has continued her long-time collaboration with Coppola as his story editor, script supervisor, and producer. Her first feature film as a producer was Pomegranate and her second was Illusion, starring Kirk Douglas. She was Executive Producer of Coppola's first film in 10 years, Youth Without Youth, during which she spent almost two years.

Born in south of France (Lespignan ), Patrick Cazals studied philosophy and film at the Sorbonne. Television producer and director (he founded his own company Les Films du Horla in 1987), his directorial credits include some fifty documentaries and portraits from 1977 to 2008. Former collaborator (1988 - 2000 ) with Liberation, Cahiers du Cinema and Radio France (France Culture), he wrote articles for various magazines and newspapers.His books include Musidora, la dixième muse and Sergueï Paradjanov (Cahiers du Cinéma publishers) and two books in the famous Tales and Legends collection (Edts Nathan). Scholarship holder for the National Center of Books in 1989-1990. Manager of the Cultural Action and National scene Center and Art and Try Cinema show room in Aubusson between 1980 and 1985. He is Claude Miller’s assistant for L’Accompagnatrice (The accompanist 1990) and Otar Iosseliani’s first assistant for the two Arte special thematic nights (Alone Georgia 1994 ). Member of Help raise fund projects (CNC comission) for the cinema theaters of the Eastern countries and Central Europe in 1994-1995, he was also member of Help raise fund projects (CNC comission) for the documentaries from 2004 to 2006. He is Member of Audiovisual board (SCAM).

Born 1950, Nor Jugha, Isfahan. Graduated from Isfahan University with a degree in Chemistry. In 1971 he co-founded Free Cinema Society of Isfahan and supervised it up to 1978. Meanwhile he began filmmaking and directed three short films – At Dawn (1972), The Old Doll (1973), Another Season (1976). A film critic since the early 1970s, he has contributed different theater and film magazines and has made number of books in Persian on Iranian veteran filmmakers and their films (Massud Kimiai, Bahram Bayzai, Abbas Kiarostami). Also being active in TV series since the early 1980s, he has made films for it, including All Are My Children; I Am Reza Nourkia; The Photographer; Under the Sky of Vank; Flight and Man, Hose, Fish, as wellas number of TV documentaries on Armenian topics. Has awarded ”Golden Film” prize of Iranian government.

Completing her doctoral thesis on German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder at the Slade School of Fine Arts, University College, London, Sheila Johnston became the founder-journalist for The Independent, where she contributed as a cinema reporter for ten years. She now writes on the arts for the Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Scotsman, Sight and Sound and other publications. Johnston has lectured on cinema and popular culture for institutions including the British Council, the British Film Institute and the Open University and divides her time equally between London and France.

Cinema historian, Film critic, Doctor of Fine Arts. Graduating from the School of Technical Cybernetics of the Yerevan State Engineering University (then the Yerevan State Polytechnic Institute) in 1991, Galstyan is also a 1999 graduate of the School of Cinematology, Yerevan State Institute of Theater and Cinema. Galstyan has been contributing critical articles to various newspapers and magazines of Armenia beginning 1995. She also has publications abroad. Beginning 1999 Galstyan is a lecturer of the History of Cinema at the Yerevan State Institute of Theater and Cinema and the Yerevan State University since 2002. She is a member of the Association of Cinematologists and Cinema Journalists of Armenia since 1998, the FIPRESCI since 2000 and the Union of Cinematographers of Armenia since 2007. In 2001 Galstyan participated to the International Conference in Expressions of Identity Modification in Visual Arts at the Leipzig University with a report on Armenian cinema in the post-Soviet period called The 90s: Worries and Hopes of the Future. In 2003 Galstyan was included in the FIPRESCI Jury of the Kinotavr International Film Festival in Sochi. She has been a screenwriter for documentary films Paths (Ughiner, director A. Shahbazyan, 2000); Abortion (Hghiutyan arhestakan yndhatum, Director L. Gevorgyan, 2001); The Secret of Eternal Color: Vordan Karmir (Haverzhakan guyni gaghtniky: vordan karmir, Director A. Shahbazyan, 2002). In 2007 Galstyan wrote the scenario for a documentary about Aram Khachaturian for the More Than Love (Bol’she chem lyubov’) series on the Russian Kultura TV (Director A. Yeritsyan). Galstyan has also hosted programs on cinema on TV – Cinematograph and Belated Premiere (Ushatsats premiera). In 2002 she published the selection of her short stories Pages from Someone Else’s Diary (Ejer urishi oragrits). Some of her short stories were included in the Contemporary Armenian Women Literature (Sovremennaya armyanskaya zhenskaya literatura, in Russian) published in 2003.

Born in 1969 in Istanbul. In 1991, graduated from the University of Istanbul, Department of Communications. She began working for the Milliyet Art Review and Milliyet Daily newspaper in 1992. During the 16 year period in this media group she has been a correspondent, film critic and the editor of the Art Review. Meanwhile she made various cinema programs with fellow critics for the cultural channel of the Turkish Radio and Television TRT 2. Programmed and presented the Thematic Films Ribbon for the news channel 24. She has been a critic and a columnist for the Star Daily newspaper, 2008-15. Alin Taşçiyan has been an advisor and programmer for all the major FFs in Turkey. She has served in many national and international FF juries. She is a member of the European Film Academy. After serving as the Vice President for four years, she has been elected the President of FIPRESCI, in 2014. She currently writes for the prominent culture and art portal of Turkey, www.sanatatak.com.

Journalist and film critic, Horemans finished a training course for teachers and holds a degree in psychology. He worked as a teacher, and later director of the Catholic education of the Antwerp Diocese. Horemans is a member of the Katholiek Filmliga (now Film Magie) since 1968, the President of this association as well as its regional committee in Antwerp since 1993. He has been contributing to film magazines as an independent journalist for 30 years. Horemans is the President of SIGNIS - Europe since June 2005. He is also a member to the Ecumenical Jury at the Locarno, Montreal and Cannes festivals.

Born 1977, in the town of Masis, Saroyan is a graduate of the Gevorkian Seminary of Holy Etchmiadzin. He studied English and Psychology at the Concordia College (USA). Saroyan received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Theology from the University of Leeds and the Oxford University in Great Britain respectively. Saroyan is the Dean of the Vaskenian Seminary.

Muller is the Pastor of Reformed Church of France and of the Protestant Church of Geneva. Spending her childhood in Cannes, and getting a university education in pedagogy and humanities, Muller graduated from the Protestant Theological University in Montpellier (France) and the Protestant Theological University in Chicago and Richmond (USA). She worked as a minister in different parishes in USA, France and Switzerland. Muller is a member of PRO-FIL (France), the WACC and the Vice-President of INTERFILM. An INTERFILM delegate, Muller has been organizing the Ecumenical Jury at the Cannes Festival with the SIGNIS since 2000. Muller is also a member of the Ecumenical Jury at the Locarno, Berlin, Montreal and Cannes festivals.