John Daniel Singleton was an American director, screenwriter, and producer. He made his feature film debut writing and directing Boyz n the Hood (1991), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, becoming, at age 24, the first African American and youngest person to have ever been nominated for that award.
Hans Florian Zimmer is a German-born American film score composer and music producer. He has won two Oscars and four Grammys, and has been nominated for three Emmys and a Tony. Zimmer was also named on the list of Top 100 Living Geniuses, published by The Daily Telegraph in 2007.
My Own Private Idaho is a 1991 American independent adventure drama film written and directed by Gus Van Sant, loosely based on Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, and Henry V. The story follows two friends, Mike Waters and Scott Favor, played by River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves respectively, as they embark on a journey of personal discovery that takes them from Portland, Oregon, to Mike's hometown in Idaho, and then to Rome in search of Mike's mother.
Noah Baumbach is an American film director and screenwriter. He is known for making comedies set in New York City and his works are inspired by writer-directors such as Woody Allen and Whit Stillman. His frequent collaborators include Wes Anderson, Adam Driver, and his wife, Greta Gerwig.
Jeremy Podeswa is a Canadian film and television director. He is best known for directing the films The Five Senses (1999) and Fugitive Pieces (2007). He has also worked as director on the television shows Six Feet Under, Nip/Tuck, The Tudors, Queer as Folk, and the HBO World War II miniseries The Pacific. He has also written several films.
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 AMC, The Undoing (2020) on HBO, and The First Lady (2022) on Showtime. Bier is the first female director to win a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a European Film Award, collectively.
Ira Sachs is an American filmmaker. Sachs started his career directing short films such as Vaudeville (1991) and Lady (1993) before making his feature film debut with The Delta (1997). Sachs later won acclaim for his dramatic independent films Forty Shades of Blue (2005), Keep the Lights On (2012), Love Is Strange (2014), Little Men (2016), and Passages (2023).
Raoul Peck is a Haitian filmmaker of both documentary and feature films. He is known for using historical, political, and personal characters to tackle and recount societal issues and historical events. Peck was Haiti's Minister of Culture from 1996 to September 1997. His film I Am Not Your Negro (2016), about the life of James Baldwin and race relations in the United States, was nominated for an Oscar in January 2017 and won a César Award in France. Peck's HBO documentary miniseries, Exterminate All the Brutes (2021), received a Peabody Award.
Yair Qedar is an Israeli documentary filmmaker, social activist and former journalist. In his project "the Hebrews", he had been Chronicling the lives of Jewish and Israeli figures of the modern Hebrew literary canon, Qedar's 19 feature length documentaries have all premiered at film festivals and have won the director over 20 prizes. Also, Qedar is a leading LGBTQ activist. He created several Queer films and the first Israeli LGBTQ newspaper.
Xavier Dolan-Tadros is a Canadian filmmaker and actor. He began his career as a child actor in commercials before directing several arthouse feature films. He first received international acclaim in 2009 for his feature film directorial debut, I Killed My Mother, which he also starred in, wrote, and produced, and which premiered at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival in the Directors' Fortnight section and won three awards from the program.
Return is a 2011 independent film about an American reservist, wife and mother returning home from her tour of duty in the Middle East. The film was written and directed by Liza Johnson, and stars Linda Cardellini, Michael Shannon and John Slattery. It is Johnson's first feature-length film, and received good reviews at its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival Directors' Fortnight. Linda Cardellini was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead for her performance in the film.
Ludwig Wüst is an Austrian film director, scriptwriter and producer.
Fatima Sana Shaikh is an Indian actress, who works in Hindi films. Shaikh appeared as a child artist in such films as Chachi 420 (1997) and One 2 Ka 4 (2001). In 2016, she portrayed wrestler Geeta Phogat in the top-grossing sports film Dangal. She has since starred in the streaming projects Ludo (2020), Ajeeb Daastaans (2021) and Modern Love Mumbai (2022), and portrayed Indira Gandhi in the biographical drama Sam Bahadur (2023).
Tali Shalom-Ezer is an Israeli filmmaker, screenwriter, and director. She is best known for her debut feature, Princess (2014) which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival as part of the World Dramatic Competition.
Shira Arad is an Israeli film editor and musical supervisor. She is a former DJ and TV actress. In 2016 she received the Ophir Award for Best Film Editing, for the movie Our Father. Since 2020 Arad is a member of the European Film Academy.
Mike Wallace Is Here is a 2019 biographical documentary film directed by Avi Belkin. It was produced by Rafael Marmor, Peggy Drexler, John Battsek, Avi Belkin, and Chris Leggett, under the banner of Drexler Films, Delirio Films and Rock Paper Scissors Entertainment. The film follows the life and career of American journalist Mike Wallace, using never-before-seen archival footage of the journalist preparing for and speaking about his work.
Sócrates is a 2018 Brazilian drama film directed by Alexandre Moratto and starring Christian Malheiros—both in their feature film debuts. The film traces the story of Sócrates, a black 15-year-old teenager from Santos, in the coast of São Paulo, as he has to overcome extreme poverty, the death of his mother, and homophobia.
Advocate is a 2019 Israeli documentary film, directed by Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Bellaïche. The film premiered at the 2019 Sundance Festival, and went on to win top prizes at Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, Kraków Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival and Docaviv Festival. Advocate won the Emmy for Best Documentary in the 42nd News and Documentary Emmy Awards.
Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese is a Mosotho screenwriter, film director and visual artist. He lives in Berlin.
The Viewing Booth is a 2019 documentary film directed, co-produced and co-edited by Ra'anan Alexandrowicz. An international co-production of Israel and the United States, the film features a Jewish American college student named Maia Levy. Levy, a staunch supporter of Israel, is shown videos depicting Palestinian life under Israeli military rule in the West Bank, causing her to contemplate her worldview and her beliefs about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
