Isabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert is a French actress. Known for her portrayals of cold, austere women devoid of morality, she is considered one of the greatest actresses of her generation. With 16 nominations and two wins, Huppert is the most nominated actress at the César Awards. She is also the recipient of several accolades, including five Lumières Awards, a BAFTA Award, three European Film Awards, two Berlin International Film Festival, three Cannes Film Festival and Venice Film Festival honors, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award nomination. In 2020, The New York Times ranked her second on its list of the greatest actors of the 21st century.
Gong Li is a Chinese actress. Regarded as one of the best actresses in China today, she is known for her versatility and naturalistic performance. She starred in three of the four Chinese-language films that have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.
Susanne Bier is a Danish filmmaker. She is best known for her feature films Brothers (2004), After the Wedding (2006), In a Better World (2010), and Bird Box (2018), and the TV miniseries The Night Manager (2016) on BBC One and AMC, The Undoing (2020) on HBO, and The First Lady (2022) on Showtime. Bier is the first female director to receive an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a European Film Award, collectively.
Kevin S. Bright is an American television executive producer and director whose credits include Dream On and Friends.
Jennifer Abbott is a Sundance and Genie award-winning film director, writer, editor, producer and sound designer who specializes in social justice and environmental documentaries.
Ondi Doane Timoner is an American filmmaker and the founder and chief executive officer of Interloper Films, a production company located in Pasadena, California.
Lucy Walker is an English film director. She has directed the feature documentaries Devil's Playground (2002), Blindsight (2006), Waste Land (2010), Countdown to Zero (2010), The Crash Reel (2013), Buena Vista Social Club: Adios (2017), Bring Your Own Brigade (2021), and Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa (2023). She has also directed the short films The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom (2011) and The Lion's Mouth Opens (2014). Waste Land was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary.
Man on Wire is a 2008 documentary film directed by James Marsh. The film chronicles Philippe Petit's 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center. It is based on Petit's 2002 book, To Reach the Clouds, released in paperback with the title Man on Wire. The title of the film is taken from the police report that led to the arrest of Petit, whose performance lasted for almost an hour. The film is crafted like a heist film, presenting rare footage of the preparations for the event and still photographs of the walk, alongside re-enactments and present-day interviews with the participants, including Barry Greenhouse, an insurance executive who served as the inside man.
Ava Marie DuVernay is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer. She is a recipient of two Primetime Emmy Awards, two NAACP Image Award, a BAFTA Film Award, and a BAFTA TV Award, as well as a nominee for an Academy Award and Golden Globe. In 2011, she founded her independent distribution company ARRAY.
Kelly Reichardt is an American film director and screenwriter. She is known for her minimalist films closely associated with slow cinema, many of which deal with working-class characters in small, rural communities.
YorgosLanthimos is a Greek filmmaker. He has received multiple accolades, including a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for five Academy Awards.
The Red Chapel is a 2009 Danish documentary film directed by Mads Brügger. It chronicles the visit of Brügger and two Danish comedians who were adopted from South Korea, Jacob Nossell and Simon Jul, to North Korea under the pretense of a small theatre troupe on a cultural exchange. This is also the first time the two comedians have ever visited North Korea. The entire trip is a ruse: the trio are actually trying to get a chance to portray the absurdity of the pantomime life they are forced to lead in the DPRK. The film turns deeply emotional as Jacob Nossell has spastic paralysis and North Korea has been accused of disposing of the disabled. The film won Best Nordic Documentary at Nordisk Panorama 2009 and Best Foreign Documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival where it was included in the Official Selection. It is filmed and edited by René Sascha Johannsen.
The Wall is a 2012 Austrian-German drama film written and directed by Julian Pölsler and starring Martina Gedeck. Based on the 1963 novel Die Wand by Austrian writer Marlen Haushofer and adapted for the screen by Julian Pölsler, the film is about a woman who visits with friends at their hunting lodge in the Austrian Alps. Left alone while her friends walk to a nearby village, the woman soon discovers she is cut off from all human contact by a mysterious invisible wall. With her friends' loyal dog Lynx as her companion, she lives the next three years in isolation looking after her animals. The Wall was filmed on location in the Salzkammergut region of the Austrian Alps. The film was selected as the Austrian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.
Jason Becker: Not Dead Yet is a feature-length documentary film directed by Jesse Vile about guitarist Jason Becker and his 22-year-long battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
9-Man is a 2014 American documentary film about the sport 9-man played in Chinatowns in the U.S. and Canada. The New York Times called it "an absorbing documentary."
Janicza Michelle Bravo Ford is an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter. Her films include Gregory Go Boom, a winner of the short-film jury award at the Sundance Film Festival; Lemon, co-written with Brett Gelman; and Zola, co-written with playwright Jeremy O. Harris.
Superfest International Disability Film Festival is a juried film festival held in the San Francisco Bay Area. Superfest is the longest-running disability film festival in the world. In addition to featuring films developed by and starring people with disabilities, Superfest aims to be inclusive. The directors also coach the film makers about accessibility of films to people with disabilities. During the film festival, the organizers provide sign language interpreters and film narrators to allow for the attendees with various disabilities to appreciate the films. All of the judges for Superfest are people with disabilities from various community roles, including disability community organizers, disability studies scholars, and film aficionados. Superfest closely follows the disability rights slogan: Nothing About Us Without Us.
Off the Rails: The Darius McCollum Story is a 2016 American documentary film about Darius McCollum, a man with Asperger's syndrome who was jailed 32 times for impersonating New York City bus drivers and subway conductors and driving their routes. The film was written, directed and produced by Adam Irving. It was nominated for a 2016 Critics' Choice Documentary Award for Best First Documentary Feature.
Ivete Lucas is a filmmaker, documentarian, producer, editor, and director based in Austin, Texas. Her work includes the documentary short films The Curse and the Jubilee, The Send-Off, Roadside Attraction, The Rabbit Hunt, Skip Day, Happiness is a Journey and the documentary feature film Pahokee.
Kokomo City is a 2023 American documentary film, directed, produced, and edited by D. Smith. It explores the lives of four Black trans women and their experiences as sex workers in New York and Georgia. Lena Waithe serves as an executive producer.
