Sanjay Leela Bhansali is an Indian film director, film producer, screenwriter, editor and music composer, who works in Hindi cinema. He is the recipient of several awards, including seven National Film Awards and 12 Filmfare Awards, in addition to a nomination for a BAFTA Award. In 2015, the Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian award. Bhansali is best known for his use of aesthetics and musical vision, particularly in period dramas.
Sean Harris is an English actor. He played Ian Curtis in 24 Hour Party People (2002), Micheletto Corella in The Borgias (2011–2013), Fifield in Prometheus (2012), Solomon Lane in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) and Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018), Philip in Possum (2018), William Gascoigne in The King (2019) and Henry Peter Teague / Peter Morley in The Stranger (2022).
David Hugh Mackenzie is a Scottish film director and co-founder of the Glasgow-based production company Sigma Films. He has made ten feature films including Young Adam (2003), Hallam Foe (2007), Perfect Sense (2011) and Starred Up (2013). In 2016, Mackenzie's film Hell or High Water premiered at Cannes and was theatrically released in the United States in August. The same year he executive produced Damnation, a TV pilot for Universal and USA Network. Mackenzie also directed Outlaw King (2018), a historical film for Netflix. Mackenzie and his films have been described as not fitting neatly into any particular genre or type.
Jacques Audiard is a French film director, producer, and screenwriter. Over the course of his career, he has received numerous accolades including two British Academy Film Awards, three Golden Globes, ten Cesar Awards, four prizes from the Cannes Film Festival as well as nominations for four Academy Awards.
Edward Maurice Charles Marsan is an English actor. He won the London Film Critics Circle Award and the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor for the film Happy-Go-Lucky (2008).
Matteo Garrone is an Italian filmmaker.
Shahana Goswami is an Indian actress. She is the daughter of Indian economist and writer Omkar Goswami. She became known for her supporting role in the musical drama film Rock On!! (2008), which won her the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress. She was nominated for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Firaaq (2009). She subsequently featured in films such as Heroine and Midnight's Children as well as the series A Suitable Boy (2020). Goswani has since taken on lead roles in the independent films Zwigato (2023) and Santosh (2024).
Firaaq is a 2008 Indian Hindi-language drama film written and directed by Nandita Das. It is set one month after the 2002 violence in Gujarat, India, and looks at the aftermath and its effects on the lives of everyday people. It claims to be based on "a thousand true stories." Firaaq means both separation and quest in Arabic. The film is the directorial debut of actress Nandita Das and stars Naseeruddin Shah, Deepti Naval, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Inaamulhaq, Nassar, Paresh Rawal, Sanjay Suri, Raghubir Yadav, Shahana Goswami, Amruta Subhash, and Tisca Chopra.
Mohammad Rasoulof is an Iranian independent filmmaker who lives in exile in Europe. He is known for several award-winning films, including The Twilight (2002), Iron Island (2005), Goodbye (2011),Manuscripts Don't Burn (2013), A Man of Integrity (2017) and There Is No Evil (2020). For the latter, he won the Golden Bear at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival.
Number 9 Films is a British independent film production company co-founded in 2002 by producers Elizabeth Karlsen and Stephen Woolley, after a long collaboration at both Palace Pictures and Scala Productions.
Mikaela "Mikey" Madison Rosberg is an American actress. She began her career acting in short films and received recognition for her role as a sullen teenager in the FX comedy series Better Things (2016–2022). Madison then played Susan Atkins in Quentin Tarantino's period comedy-drama film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) and Amber Freeman in the horror film Scream (2022).
Payal Kapadia is an Indian filmmaker. In 2017, her short film Afternoon Clouds was the only Indian film selected for the 70th Cannes Film Festival. In 2021, she won the Golden Eye award for best documentary film at the 74th Cannes Film Festival for her debut feature A Night of Knowing Nothing.
Close is a 2022 coming-of-age drama film directed by Lukas Dhont, and written by Dhont and Angelo Tijssens, reteaming after their first feature film Girl (2018). The film stars Eden Dambrine, Gustav De Waele, Émilie Dequenne and Léa Drucker. It follows two teenage boys whose close friendship is thrown into disarray when their schoolmates notice their intimacy, causing a rift between them.
Zwigato is a 2022 Indian Hindi-language drama film directed by Nandita Das. The film is produced by Applause Entertainment and Nandita Das Initiatives. Kapil Sharma and Shahana Goswami star as the leads. The film debuted at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival. The film was theatrically released on 17 March 2023. At the 69th Filmfare Awards, the film received three nominations, including Critics Best Film and Critics Best Actress
Bird is a 2024 drama film written and directed by Andrea Arnold and starring Nykiya Adams, Barry Keoghan, and Franz Rogowski.
All We Imagine as Light is a 2024 drama film written and directed by Payal Kapadia. The cast includes Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam and Hridhu Haroon. Featuring Malayalam, Hindi, and Marathi dialogue, it is an international co-production involving companies from France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Italy.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig is a 2024 political drama film written, co-produced and directed by Mohammad Rasoulof. Its plot centers on Iman, an investigating judge in the Revolutionary Court in Tehran, who grapples with paranoia as nationwide political protests due to the death of a young woman intensify and his gun mysteriously disappears, making him distrust his wife and daughters. It stars Soheila Golestani, Missagh Zareh, Mahsa Rostami and Setareh Maleki. The fictional narrative is combined with real images of the 2022–2023 protests in Iran that were violently suppressed by Iranian authorities.
Sandhya Suri is a British-Indian film director and documentarian.
