Sarah Ellen Polley is a Canadian filmmaker, writer, political activist and retired actress. She first garnered attention as a child actress for her role as Ramona Quimby in the television series Ramona, based on Beverly Cleary's books. This subsequently led to her role as Sara Stanley in the Canadian television series Road to Avonlea (1990–1996). She has starred in many feature films, including The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), Exotica (1994), The Sweet Hereafter (1997), Guinevere (1999), Go (1999), The Weight of Water (2000), No Such Thing (2001), My Life Without Me (2003), Dawn of the Dead (2004), Splice (2009), and Mr. Nobody (2009).
Douglas Elwin "Duke" Erikson is an American musician, songwriter, screenwriter, film producer and record producer, best known as a co-founder and guitarist of the alternative rock band Garbage. Garbage has sold more than 17 million albums worldwide.
CPH:DOX, also known as Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, is a Danish film festival focused on documentary films, held annually in Copenhagen, Denmark. Since 2008 has been run by Copenhagen Film Festivals, which also managed the now-defunct CPH PIX festival.
Thomas Furneaux Lennon is a documentary filmmaker. He was born in Washington, D.C., graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1968 and Yale University in 1973.
Asif Kapadia is a British filmmaker.
Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, or PÖFF, is an annual film festival held since 1997 in Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia. PÖFF is one of the largest film festivals in Northern Europe. In 2014 it was upgraded to an A-list festival by FIAPF.
The Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF) is a cultural, charitable organization whose mission is to recognize and celebrate the art of cinema by showcasing Canadian and International films and filmmakers. When the festival first took place, it had 1,000 people in attendance and screened 20 films over the course of 2 days.
Sydney Freeland is a Native American (Navajo) filmmaker. She wrote and directed the short film Hoverboard (2012) and the film Drunktown's Finest (2014), which garnered numerous acclaims after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. Her second film, Deidra and Laney Rob a Train, debuted at Sundance and was released on Netflix in 2017.
Maya Newell is an Australian filmmaker, known for the feature-length documentaries Gayby Baby (2015) and In My Blood It Runs (2019). She works at Closer Productions in Adelaide, South Australia.
Eric Weinrib is a filmmaker and TV producer from Plainview, New York, United States.
Robert Rippberger is an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter. He is the director of the upcoming sci-fi movie, Renner, producer of The Inventor, writer/director of Those Who Walk Away (film) starring BooBoo Stewart, the director/producer of Strive with Oscar winner Danny Glover, the director of the feature documentary Public Enemy Number One (film) from Executive Producer Ice-T, and director/producer of the Hulu released documentary 7 Days in Syria. Robert executive produced with Jason Blum the feature documentary Alive and Kicking. The film was sold to Magnolia Pictures and Netflix after its debut at the 2016 SXSW Film Festival, where it received a Grand Jury nomination.
Maite Alberdi Soto is a Chilean film producer, director, documentarian, screenwriter, and film critic. She is the founder of Micromundo Producciones.
Olga Yuryevna Dykhovichnaya, born Golyak is a Belarusian and Russian actress, producer and director.
Kseniya Yorsh is a Belarusian film producer who resides in Los Angeles.
Andrew "Andy" Cohen is a three-time Emmy nominated independent filmmaker and journalist whose film To Kill a Tiger was nominated for a 2024 Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary.
Sophie Hyde is an Australian film director, writer, and producer based in Adelaide, South Australia. She is co-founder of Closer Productions and known for her award-winning debut fiction film, 52 Tuesdays (2013) and the comedy drama Animals (2019). She has also made several documentaries, including Life in Movement (2011), a documentary about dancer and choreographer Tanja Liedtke, and television series, such as The Hunting (2019). Her latest film, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, premiered at the Sundance Festival in 2022. Her upcoming film Jimpa stars Olivia Colman and John Lithgow.
Amanda Kernell is a Swedish, Southern Sami director and screenwriter. She is best known for the movie Sami Blood, which won several awards.
Monica Hellström is a Danish film producer.
Zoe Ramushu is a South Africa based Zimbabwean writer, director, producer, actress and multimedia journalist. Her debut film, It Takes A Circus was nominated for the Student Academy Awards. Zoe Ramushu is co-founder and former spokesperson of Sisters Working in Film and Television. She also chairs a committee for the South African Department of Sports, Arts and Culture.
Darya Zhuk is an independent film director and playwright of Belarusian origin. She was born in Minsk in 1980, at the age of 16 she left to the USA where she studied economics at Harvard and started her career as a business analyst at HBO. She became interested in filmmaking and in 2014 graduated with honors from Columbia MFA in Directing. Zhuk's credits as director and playwright include detective drama Zato for Netflix, Russian Affairs for Amazon Europe, Little America for Apple TV+, and many more. As an independent director, she won such prestigious grants as New York State Council for the Arts, Panavision Emerging Filmmaker grant, and Interdisciplinary Council for the Art of Columbia University.
