Dalibor Matanic

DALIBOR MATANIC was born in 1975 in Zagreb. He has graduated in film and TV directing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. His film debut was “The Cashier Wants to Go to the Seaside” in 2000 and it achieved huge festival and cinema success, followed by the equally successful “Fine Dead Girls”, which was awarded the Big Golden Arena from the jury, the audience award and the critics’ award in Pula. He then directed six more feature films (“100 Minutes of Glory”, “I Love You”, “Kino Lika”, “Mother of Asphalt”, “Daddy” and "Handyman") and several shorts (“Drought”, “Party”, “Mezzanine”), two of which premiered internationally at the Cannes International Film Festival. Following its Cannes premiere, “Party” has been shown at almost eighty film festivals and has won nineteen awards. His latest feature film "The High Sun" was included and afterwards awarded with Jury Prize in the official competition program "Un Certain Regard" of the 68th Cannes Film Festival. D. Matanic has received numerous international and Croatian awards and gained professional recognition for his work. He is a member of the European Film Academy.

Daniel Kusan

DANIEL KUSAN graduated in film and TV directing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. Since 1998, he has been working as a film and TV director. He has directed short and TV films, TV series and documentaries. He has written the scripts for most of the films he has directed. He has also directed and written plays for the theatre and published several short stories in literary magazines. He is a member of the Croatian Film Directors Guild. “Koko and the Ghosts” is the first film he has directed and it has attracted 86.000 viewers and has been shown at around twenty international festivals on all continents. The film has won seven Croatian and one international award. In the beginning of 2014, he completed his short film "Together" and in the same year he shot his newest feature film from Koko series "Love or Death" which achieved the highest cinema attendance among Croatian films in 2014.

Zvonimir Juric

ZVONIMIR JURIC was born in 1971 in Osijek. He graduated in film and TV directing from the Zagreb Academy of Dramatic Art in 1999. He has directed several award-winning documentaries (“The Blacks Resisted, Can I?”, “Juric: tvrdja 1999” and “The Skies below Osijek”). He is the author of feature film “The One Who Will Stay Unnoticed”. He has also directed a segment of the “Sex, Booze, Short Fuse” omnibus. His short film “Yellow Moon”, a segment of the “Zagreb Stories” omnibus, was shown in competition at the Berlin Film Festival and won several awards. Feature film “The Blacks”, codirected and cowritten with Goran Devic, has won four Croatian and eight international film awards, including the Grand Prix awards at the Linz, Lubljana and Belgrade festivals. “The Blacks” was the Croatian candidate for the 2010 Academy Awards and it won the City of Zagreb Award in the same year. His latest feature film "The Reaper" was presented at the Pula Film Festival where it won four awards and was subsequently screened at the prestigious Toronto and Rotterdam IFF. In 2015 he co-wrote and directed TV mini-series "Road Patrol".

Hana Jusic

HANA JUSIC obtained MA degree in film and TV directing at Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. She also graduated in comparative literature and English language and literature from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in 2007 and she enrolled in the Postgraduate Doctor's Study of Literature and Film. So far, she has written and directed several short fiction and documentary films which have been shown at student, but also at some prominent European festivals. She has directed short films „Zimica“ / „The Chill“ (international premiere in competition at the prominent Oberhousen festival), „Musice, krpelji, pcele“ / „Gnats, Ticks and Bees“, for which she has received Oktavijan award and the Jelena Rajkovic award and „Terarij“ / „Terrarium“, for which she received Oktavijan award for fiction film and Golden Pram award at Zagreb Film Festival. She has written the script for feature film „Zagonetni djecak“ / „The Mysterious Boy“, directed by Drazen Zarkovic. „Quit Staring at My Plate“ is her debut feature film as a director/screenwriter. The project was developed at screenwriting workshop Torino Film Lab, the programs Script & Pitch and TFL – FrameWork, intended for projects in pre-production. The film had its premiere at the Venice International Film Festival where it won the FEDEORA Award for Best European Film.

Snjezana Tribuson

SNJEZANA TRIBUSON was born in Bjelovar. She graduated in film and TV directing from the Zagreb Academy of Dramatic Art in 1981, where she has been teaching film and TV directing since 2004. She has directed a number of TV dramas and films, including “Bad News or International Women’s Day” and “Three Love Stories”, which have also received the Oktavijan award. She has also worked on a number of TV shows and series. Her first feature film, “Recognition”, was awarded three Golden Arenas in 1996. The film “The Three Men of Melita Žganjer” (1998) has received seven awards, while her latest film, “God Forbid a Worse Thing Should Happen”, has won two Golden Arenas. She and Goran Tribuson cowrote the scripts for 55 episodes of the successful sitcom “Take a Rest, You Deserved It”. She has also directed about twenty episodes of the series. In 2016 she has completed her newest feature film "All the Best" for which she wrote the script. "All the Best" has won 15 awards.

Nevio Marasovic

NEVIO MARASOVIC was born in 1983. He has graduated in Film and TV Directing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. His first feature film "The Show Must Go On", which is also his final film project at the Academy of Dramatic Art, has won numerous awards at the film festival in Pula, including the Breza Award for best debutant and the Octavian Critic's Choice Award for Best Movie. He has directed two more feature films. Film “Vis-a-vis” enjoyed great success at festivals, and in 2013 the portal Cineuropa included it in five best European creations. “Goran” (2016) has received 6 awards so far, and its festival distribution is still in progress. He has filmed and directed the sitcom “Instructor”, as the author and the screenwriter, together with actor Stjepan Peric. Along with film making, Marasovic is also a professional director of commercials. In 2018 he finished his fourth feature film “Comic Sans”.

Drazen Zarkovic

DRAZEN ZARKOVIC graduated in film and TV directing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. He has been working as a freelancer since 1993, and he has worked as a scriptwriter and director on numerous feature and documentary films. He has directed two feature films: “Go, Yellow” and “Tressette: A Story of an Island”, TV film “The New Year’s Robbery” and numerous documentaries. He is one of the directors of sitcoms “Bumps and Princesses”, “Take a Rest, You’ve Deserved It” and “Stipe Visiting”. He has received numerous awards for his film and TV work, including four Oktavijan awards. On the international scene, he has received seven international awards for his most successful film “Tressette: A Story of an Island”, which has been shown at numerous festivals. In 2013 he directed the cinema hit, sequel to "Koko and the Ghosts" - a film for children "The Mysterious Boy".

Ivana Juric

IVANA JURIC was born in Osijek in 1982. She has graduated in animation and new media from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. During her studies, she was awarded for her overall student work. She has directed short animated film “I”, for which she was awarded the ESSL Award CEE in 2009. Her short animated film “The Room” has been highly successful. It has been shown at a number of animated film festivals, the most prominent one being within the New Directors / New Films program in New York in 2012. The film has received the Croatian Animated Film Festival Grand Prix award. It has also been shown on the prestigious ARTE television as a part of a program presenting just twelve films from annual European production. The latest animated short film "Pupa" in 2014 began its festival live. Ivana exhibits her art work in group and solo exhibitions in Croatia and abroad. She is a member of the Croatian Association of Artists. She lives and works in Zagreb.

Predrag Licina

PREDRAG LICINA was born on 28 May 1972 in Zagreb. He studied film and TV directing at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. In early 90s, he wrote film reviews for various newspapers (Vjesnik, Studio, Panorama) and after that he worked as first assistant director on Croatian Radiotelevision (HRT), where he assisted in the making of music documentaries. He had directed seventy music videos by the end of the 90s. Between 1997 and 1999, he directed three documentaries (“22:04”, “A plus”, “Young Talents”) for HRT’s classical music department. He started directing commercials at the end of 2000 and he has made around 80 of them to date. In 2012, he has written and directed 15 episodes of sitcom “Sunday Morning, Saturday Evening”. In 2013 he directed his first short fiction film "Teleport Zovko" and in 2019 his feature film debut "Last Serb in Croatia".

Goran Devic

GORAN DEVIC was born in 1971 in Sisak. He graduated in film and TV directing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb, where he is currently working as an assistant professor at the Directing Department. He is the author of numerous documentaries which have been awarded both in Croatia and abroad: “Imported Crows”, “Nothing Nice to Say”, “3” and “Happy Land”. Film “Imported Crows” has received awards in Motovun, Sarajevo and Croatian Film Days and it was shown at dozens of international festivals. “The Blacks”, his first feature film, codirected and cowritten with Zvonimir Juric, has received four Croatian and eight international film awards, including the Grand Prix awards at the Linz, Ljubljana and Belgrade festivals. In 2010, “The Blacks” was the Croatian candidate for the Academy Awards and it won the City of Zagreb Award in the same year.

Lukas Nola

LUKAS NOLA (1964.-2022.) graduated in film directing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in 2003. He also studied at the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts and history of art at the Zagreb Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. In his career, he has worked as an art director, written dramas and directed plays (“Birds II”, “Plan 9”, “The Horde”). He was a docent at the Zagreb Academy of Dramatic Art’s Directing Department. He was the author of numerous TV shows, films and series. He made seven feature films in the period between 1984 and 2013. He was awarded several Golden Arenas at the Pula Film Festival for his films “Each Time We Part Away”, “Russian Meat”, “Skies, Satellites” and “Alone”. He has also won the Vladimir Nazor and Oktavijan awards for his work. He has written the scripts for all of his films. Apart from feature films, he is also a prominent author of experimental films, including “The Theft”, “Photo Atelier”, “All Conditions for a Story”. His feature-lenght film titled "Hush..." was produced in 2013 and the screenplay was based on a true story. He has written and directed a TV drama series "Guardian of the Castle". His last work is the film "Escort", produced in 2022. and finished in 2023.

Ivan Veljaca

IVAN VELJACA was born in 1984 in Zagreb. He graduated from the Faculty of Architecture – design studies at the Zagreb University. He first worked as art director assistant and later on as art director on various TV series. He is also involved in interior and furniture design and he has participated in several exhibitions with his works from student days. "Mother of Asphalt", directed by Dalibor Matanic, was the first feature film on which he worked as an art director. He later worked as an art director on several short films as well as feature films, including "Koko and the Ghosts" by Daniel Kusan, "Hush..." by Lukas Nola, "The Mysterious Boy" by Drazen Zarkovic, "These Are the Rules" by Ognjen Svilicic, "Love or Death" by Daniel Kusan and "The Mystery of Green Hill" by Cejen Cernic. He also worked on the project of TV series Game of Thrones II as an art director assistant. Short fiction film "Polenta" is his directorial debut.

Sonja Tarokic

SONJA TAROKIC has a BA in Literature, with the focus on film theory, and holds a Master's in Film. She has written and directed several award-winning short films, including the latest short film "On Shaky Ground" which premiered at IFF Rotterdam and was awarded a prize for the best young author at the festival Days of Croatian Film in 2014. She also wrote and directed well received short films "I'm A Self-Made Woman", "Bitch!" and "Red". Together with Hana Jusic, she co-directed short fiction films "Birthday Party"and "Smart Girls". Currently she is developing her first feature film "Staffroom".

Cejen Cernic

CEJEN CERNIC has graduated in film and TV directing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. She has directed a number of short films, the most distinguished ones being short feature “Followers” and short documentaries “The Circle”, “To Me Without Me” and “Il Postino”. Since 2007, she has been working as an assistant director on feature films and series, documentaries and animated films and as a collaborator on dance performances. In 2013 she wrote and directed her first short animated film “The Girl Who Loved Fairy Tales”. In 2017 she directed her first feature film “The Mystery of Green Hill” based by the novel "The Mystery of Green Hill" by Ivan Kusan.

Ivan-Goran Vitez

IVAN-GORAN VITEZ was born in 1975 in Zagreb, where he studied TV and film directing at the Zagreb Academy of Dramatic Art. He has written and directed the provocative short film “The Death of the Seals” (2000), which was rejected as a diploma dissertation at the Academy. His medium-length film “The Final Sacrament” (2005) won the Golden Pram Award at the 2005 Zagreb Film Festival. He is the author of a documentary on Croatian Pula Film Festival, “Small Hands” (2001), and the director and coscreenwriter of TV show “Law!”, as well as of twelve episodes of the “Bumps and Princesses” sitcom. His feature film debut “Forest Creatures” (2010) has won two Golden Arena awards (editing and costume design) at the Pula Film Festival and has been shown at a number of international film festivals.

Miranda Herceg

MIRANDA HERCEG graduated from the School of Design at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Zagreb. Works in the field of graphic design and film. Participates in Croatian and international exhibitions, programs and festivals. She is the director and screenwriter of experimental films "From To" and "Dog Hotel". She received the Oktavijan critics’ award for best experimental film at the 21st Croatian Film Days; People's Choice Award at the Naoussa Int. Film Festival 2012, Naoussa, Greece; Prix Experimentale at the Aubagne Int. Film Festival 2013, Aubagne, France. A member of the Croatian Designers' Society and the Croatian Freelance Artists' Association. "First Gasp" is her latest short experimental film.

Marko Santic

MARKO SANTIC was born in 1983 in Split. He graduated from the Ljubljana Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television in 2008. He is the author of several short feature films, the most distinguished ones being “Nothing Personal”, which received the award for best directing at the 2010 Croatian Film Days, as well as “Good Luck, Nedim”, which received the following awards: the Student Visionary Award at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival, the award for best short film at the 2006 Sarajevo Film Festival, it was nominated for the best short film by the European Film Academy in 2006 and it received numerous other awards. Short feature film “The Hole” was also awarded at the 2007 Sarajevo Film Festival, at the 2007 Young Cinema Art World Student FF (student jury award) and it received the award for best picture at the 2008 Mostra delle scuole Europee di cinema. He has also directed documentary film “Remembrance Home” and TV drama “Great Escape”.

Sasa Ban

SASA BAN was born in 1978 in Zagreb. He graduated in film and TV directing at the Academy of Dramatic Art. He also graduated in comparative literature and philosophy from the Zagreb Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in 2003. He has been a member of the Croatian Film Directors Guild since 2007. He received two awards at the 14th Croatian Film Days for his documentary “Park”. His short feature “Interior, Apartment, Night” was awarded at the 2009 Cottbus Film Festival. He has directed the following documentary TV series: “The Exchange”, “Travelling the World in College Shoes” and “Direct”. He has directed short documentary “Ana and her Brothers”, which was included in the official program of the 2010 Chicago International Children’s Film Festival. He won the Special Award at the 9th Zagreb Film Festival for his documentary “Land of Knowledge”. In 2013 he directed short fiction film "Prettyboy" produced by Kinorama.

Melissa de Raaf, Razvan Radulescu

MELISSA DE RAAF (NL, 1976) studied art theory, philosophy and media art at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe, Germany. She is an independent curator of experimental film programs and exhibitions in the Netherlands, Germany and Russia and she cooperates with visual artists, film- and documentary-makers on productions as writer and director.

RAZVAN RADULESCU (RO,1969) studied Literature and Opera Directing in Bucharest. He wrote two novels and worked as an art director for magazines. In 1999 he started to write for films, among which the award wining Stuff and Dough (Cristi Puiu), Niki and Flo (Lucian Pintilie), The Paper will be Blue (Radu Muntean) and the internationally acclaimed The Death of Mr. Lazarescu. He worked as script consultant for Cristi Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days and he is curently teaching dramaturgy in HFG Karlsruhe, Germany.

Robert Orhel

ROBERT ORHEL was born in 1975. He has graduated in film and TV directing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. He is a member of the Croatian Film and TV Directors Guild. He has directed numerous documentaries (“Amateur Filmmaker”, “Brazil, Brazil”, “Direct”, “Time Witnesses”), a number of episodes of TV series “Mamutica”, “Good Intentions” and “Theatre in the House” and short films “Fly, Fly” (2003), the award-winning “Sunny Side of Saturday” (1999) and “At 4 o’clock” (1996). He has also made award-winning commercials and music videos. For his work, he has received the Oktavijan critics’ award three times. He works as a docent at the Film and TV Directing Department at the Zagreb Academy of Dramatic Art. He wrote and directed his debut feature film "One Shot".

Simon Bogojevic Narath

SIMON BOGOJEVIC NARATH graduated in 1992 from the Painting Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. As a director, art director, CGI artist/animator or graphical designer, he has been working for the past twenty years on numerous art and commercial projects (TV shows, music videos, commercials, plays and auteur short films and feature films). He has also worked for many renowned clients as professional CGI artist/animator and director. He directs, animates and produces his own auteur animated/experimental films for which he has received many Croatian and international recognitions and awards. He has directed about a dozen short animated films, among other including prominent films "Morana", "Leviathan", "Plasticat", "Bardo Thodol" etc. He is currently preparing his first feature film "Illyricvm".

Bojan Vuletic

BOJAN VULETIC was born on 19 August 1977 in Belgrade. He graduated in film and TV directing from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade in 2007. He has worked as assistant director on numerous films and independently directed several documentaries and short feature films and TV series (“Lovers”, “Tears of Dennis Tito”, “Vanda Never Forgets Anything”, “My Heart and I”). He has so far directed documentaries “Curuvija” and “Tapestry in Serbo-Croatian” in the production of RTV B92, the latter one being awarded at the 2004 Motovun Film Festival. His first feature film is “Practical Guide to Belgrade with Singing and Crying”, which premiered internationally at the prominent festival in Karlovy Vary. He was also awarded the Fedeora international critics’ award at the 2012 Pula Film Festival. He is a coscreenwriter of “Love and Other Crimes” and the author of the idea for short film “Fabulous Vera”, a segment in the award-winning omnibus “Lost and Found”.

Vinko Möderndorfer

VINKO MÖDERNDORFER was born in 1958. He graduated in theatre directing from the Academy for Theatre, Radio, Film and Television. Apart from films, he also directs in the theatre, opera and on television. He is also a writer – he has published more than 40 books. He made his first feature film, "Predmestje" (Outskirts), in 2004, followed by "Pokrajina Št.2" (Landscape No.2) in 2008. Both films were based on his novels with identical titles and they were both shown in Venice and won numerous domestic and international awards. Film "Predmestje" was, apart from Venice, also shown in three other A category festivals: Montreal, Karlovy Vary and Cannes. Film "Pokrajina Št.2" was the Slovenian candidate for Oscar for best foreign language film. The film won six awards on the Festival of Slovenian Film and two international awards. The film’s sales agent is French company Wide Management, which has sold it to distributors in 11 countries so far. "Inferno" is his third feature film.

Marta Prus

MARTA PRUS was born in 1987 in Warsaw, Poland. She has graduated documentary directing from the Andrzej Wajda’s Master School and she is currently studying directing at the Polish National Film School in Łódź (PWSFTviT: Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Filmowa Telewizyjna i Teatralna im. L.Schillera). She has made several short films and documentaries, which have won about a dozen film awards.

Vuk Rsumovic

VUK RSUMOVIC was born in Belgrade in 1975. He studied writing for film, theatre, TV and radio at the Faculty of Drama Arts in Belgrade. He also studied Analytical Psychology. He wrote screenplays for documentaries, fiction series, animation and short feature films. Additional to his film and TV experience, he works as a dramaturg in major Serbian theatres. In 2007, he established film production company BaBoon Production which produced several short films and documentaries. "No One's Child" is his directorial debut.

Sara Kern

SARA KERN is a writer / director, born in 1989 in Ljubljana. She obtained a bachelor's degree in Film and Television Directing from the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television (UL AGRFT) in 2013. During her study she was awarded Grossman Scriptwriting Award for 4 consecutive years. Her graduate short film "Maks" (2012) screened in more than 15 countries, winning national and international awards. The film was distributed by Pacific Voice Inc, Japan. Sara has been working as a freelance script writer and director for Slovenian TV channels and radio. "Good Luck, Orlo!" is her latest short fiction film. Sara is currently developing her debut feature film "Ivana".

Michaela Müller

MICHAELA MÜLLER was born in Switzerland. She graduated with an MA in Animation and New Media from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Croatia. Müller’s acclaimed eight-minute film, "Miramare" (2009), made its international premiere at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, and has been shown at more than one hundred festivals. It has won eighteen awards, among them the Grand Prix at the Animation Festival Ljubljana, the Golden Centaur for Best Debut Film at Message to Man Film Festival in St. Petersburg, and the Swiss Film Prize Quartz. In 2012 Müller was invited as an artist in residence at Location One, New York, where she exhibited her animated installations "Transit" and "Conductivity". In 2012 she convened in Zagreb with dancer Zrinka Šimičić Mihanović and sound artist Fa Ventilato to launch the multimedia performance "Trag/Trace/Spur" at the Zagreb Museum of Contemporary Art. The project had a follow up in 2013 at the Student Centre Zagreb: "Up the Stairs, Behind Doors, Out the Window". In 2015 she contributed painted animations for the opera production Orlando. Her newest short animated film "Airport" has been released in 2017 and has a very successful festival distribution.

Ognjen Glavonic

OGNJEN GLAVONIC graduated Film and TV directing at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Belgrade. His short films have been screened at more than 50 international film festivals. His documentary, “Zivan Makes a Punk Festival”, produced in 2014, premiered at Cinéma du Réel film festival in Paris, France. This film has been screened at more than 50 international film festivals including IFF Rotterdam, IndieLisboa and CPH:DOX. “Depth Two”, premiering at 66th Berlinale Forum, is Ognjen's first feature-length documentary. So far, it has been screened at 30 festivals, where it won 10 awards. Glavonic's first fiction feature film, “The Load” was supported by the Eurimages, CNC (Cinémas du monde), Visions Sud Est, Hubert Bals Fund, Provincial Secretariat for Culture (Serbia) and Croatian Audiovisual Centre. In 2018 "The Load" was included into the parallel selection “Director’s Fortnight” (“Quinzaine des réalisateurs”). He is the director and co-founder of Pancevo Film Festival (Serbia).

Miha Mazzini

MIHA MAZZINI was born in 1961 in Kranj. He has an MA in Creative Writing for Film and Television from the University of Sheffield in England. He is the screenwriter of two award-winning screenplays for a feature film and a TV film, and he has directed five short films and documentaries. Feature film “Erased” is his directorial debut for cinematic distribution. He is the author of about thirty books translated in 9 different languages, and as a computer expert he has published nine technical manuals. He has won numerous literary and film awards, the most prominent ones being the American literary prize Pushcart, which he was given in 2012. His work is included in several world literary anthologies.

Radu Jude

RADU JUDE is a Romanian director and screenwriter. He studied filmmaking in Bucharest. In 2006, he made the short film The Tube with a Hat, winner of more than 50 international awards. Jude's feature debut The Happiest Girl in the World (2009) was selected for more than 50 international film festivals. Titles such as Aferim!, Scarred Hearts and Everybody in Our Family followed and won multiple awards: Silver Bear for Best Director in Berlinale 2015, Special Jury Prize in Locarno 2016 and an EFA nomination for Best Scriptwriter. The international premiere of The Dead Nation in Locarno 2017 marked his debut in documentary film. I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians (2018) won the Crystal Globe for Best Film and Label Europa Cinema Prize in Karlovy Vary in 2018. His two films, Uppercase Print and The Exit of the Trains (co-directed with Adrian Cioflâncă), premiered in Berlinale Forum 2020. At Berlinale 2021 he was awarded Golden Bear for his film Bad Luck Banging or Looney Porn.

Radivoje Andrić

RADIVOJE ANDRIĆ’s films gained great popularity with the regional audience and achieved cult status. He is one of the rare directors whose work has been acclaimed by the critics, numerous international festivals and wide audience. His first feature THREE PALMS FOR THREE PUNKS AND A BABE (1998) had a regional audience of 280.000 while his second feature DUDES! (2001) was a positive example of a low-budget youth film that exceeded all expectations and was seen in the region by more than 570.000 admissions in cinemas. His third feature WHEN I GROW UP; I’LL BE A KANGAROO was also a box-office hit that was awarded at Thessaloniki IFF and Motovun IFF. He is the author of the children’s book HOW TO MAKE A FILM, published in Indonesia, China and Poland.

Dubravka Turić

DUBRAVKA TURIĆ graduated in film and TV editing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. Belladona, her first short feature as writer/director/editor, won the Orizzonti Award for the best short film at Venice Film Festival (Mostra) 2015. The film was also in the official selection of Sundance, Rotterdam and many other film festivals. Cherries, Dubravka's second short feature, was premiered within Quinzaine des realisateurs at Cannes Film Festival 2017. Enrico Vannuci, short film advisor of the Venetian Mostra, hailed it one of the best five films at 'Cineuropa top five European shorts' that year. Her her third short Tina (2019) premiered at Sarajevo Film Festival. Traces is her feature film debut.

Goran Stolevski

GORAN STOLEVSKI was born and grew up in Macedonia before migrating to Australia in his teens. He completed a Bachelor in Creative Arts at the University of Melbourne and a Masters in Film and Television at the Victorian College of the Arts. His debut feature, You Won't Be Alone, premiered in official competition at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, while his second, Of an Age, opened the 2022 Melbourne International Film Festival before winning the $100,000 CinefestOz prize for Best Australian Film. Both films were distributed internationally by Focus Features and Universal. Before shifting to features, Goran had made twenty-five shorts, playing over 200 festivals worldwide, with Would You Look at Her winning the jury prize for Best International Short at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and being selected for the Criterion Channel.

Ivan Marinović

IVAN MARINOVIĆ was born in 1984 in Kotor, Montenegro. He graduated industrial design at Politecnico di Milano in 2007 and received an MA in film directing at FAMU Prague in 2011. His feature debut "The Black Pin'' premiered in Official Competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival in 2016, and was the Montenegrin Oscar candidate for the 86th Academy Awards. He is a member of the European Film Academy, and was a two term president of the Montenegrin Association of Film Directors and Producers. "Forever Hold Your Peace", his second feature film as a writer/director, premiered at Black Nights FF in Tallinn 2023.

Srđan Vuletić

SRĐAN VULETIĆ was born January 1st 1971 in Sarajevo. He studied at Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo. He directed and scripted award winning feature and short films: Summer in the Golden Valley (Rotterdam Film Festival - Tiger Award, Toronto Film Festival, Pusan Film festival); It's Hard to Be Nice (Sarajevo Film Festival - Best Actor Award, Mont Blanc Scriptwriting Prize - Hamburg Film Festival, Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival); Hop, Skip & Jump (Berlinale - Best Short Film Panorama Award, Clermond Ferrand Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival - Tous Les Cinemas du Monde - Slovenia); 10 Minutes (script - European Film Academy - Best short film). In 2009 he became a member of European Film Academy. He is currently a professor of screenwriting and the head of director’s department at the Academy of Performing Arts of Sarajevo.

Mladen Đorđević

MLADEN ĐROĐEVIĆ’s debut documentary "Made in Serbia" made his way to the wide audiences – it was a film about people at the margins of the world of the porn industry in Serbia, which premiered at the Belgrade FEST in 2005. His first feature film "The Life and Death of a Porno Gang" (2009) gained the status of a cult film, both domestically and internationally. It was screened at over 50 festivals around the world, and had the most success at fantasy and horror festivals, including Grossman FF (Best Film), Montreal FFF (Best Screenplay), Boston Underground FF (Jury Award).

Marko Naberšnik

MARKO NABERŠNIK was born in 1973 in Maribor, Slovenia. He graduated in film and television directing in 2002 from the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television in Ljubljana. He directed numerous television shows and documentaries. In 2007 he directed his first feature film, Rooster's Breakfast, which became one of the most-watched Slovenian films of all time. In 2012 he directed the feature film Shanghai, which had its world premiere in Montreal. In 2014 he directed the film The Woods Are Still Green, which premiered in Shanghai. In 2017 he directed the feature film Slovenia, Australia and Tomorrow the World, and in 2024 the feature film White Washes at Ninety, based on Bronja Žakelj's bestseller.