A visionary filmmaker of wide range who is making his mark in Senegalese cinema, his artistic journey began in the 2000s in graphic design and animaton. He later founded Obelus Film & Animaton Studio" a production structure dedicated to bridging the gap in the producton of local content. Amath made his mark with his first live-acton film, Geut Goudi (2012), an innovatve silent nature, demonstratng the diversity of his artstc expression. Five years later, he made Maty, a classic that inaugurated the concept of Cinema Wu Elek (“Cinema of Tomorrow” in French). Maty won the Audience Award at the Cortos-Rek competton that same year. Leading a “low-budget” produc􀀁on philosophy, he produced influen􀀁al films such as Ousmane Mahja Sarr’s Xaax, Mamadou Socrate Diop’s Wuutu, and Dieynaba Racky Dia’s Enième Victime. In 2019, he directed Ganja, an art film highligh􀀁ng the dangers of consuming illicit products. This masterpiece, the first 3D animated film entirely in Wolof produced by a Senegalese team, won the Best Short Film Award at “Image et Vie” Fes􀀁val and nominations at the prestgious Fespaco and Vue d’Afrique festival in Montreal.

Bilbao (Basque Country), 1981. A graduate in Audiovisual Communication, he worked primarily as a screenwriter, assistant director, and editor for Spanish TV networks in the 2000s. He founded his production company Pressure Filmak in Bilbao, and won awards in Chile, UK, Italy, United Arab Emirates, Iraq & Hungary. He moved to NYC in 2017, opened Pressure Filmak LLC in Brooklyn and turned to a more technical career as cinematographer. As Producer and Director in the US, his web series The Coffee Advisors, an investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks through a comedy series, and his short film The Union, a study of union power structures in the NYC metropolitan area, are two among many of his US-based projects. He's also co-founder of Defy Funding LLC, a startup that works to tokenize global culture through the Defy Portal ticketing platform. His passions lie in committed storytelling, culture diversity and art independent of funding methods.

He’s someone, just someone,

sometimes two or three.

Sometimes a dream and nightmare explorer, 

sometimes a filmmaker, 

an historian ? A guide ? 

With all these souls, 

it feels as if there is an idea of hary joel,

 some kind of abstraction 

but there is no real me, 

an entity, something illusory. 

And though I can hide my cold gaze 

and you can shake my hand 

and feel my flesh gripping yours 

and maybe you can even sense 

our life may be real 

but the truth is 

.

.

.

 I simply am not here...

Maria Alves Tobias grew up in a low-income neighborhood in São Paulo, Brazil. Her childhood was marked by poverty and inequality. She found solace in filmmaking, using her camera as a tool to shed light on her community's struggles. Maria's early films focused on the everyday realities of urban life in Brazil, capturing the beauty and resilience of the people around her."

Finn Darrell is a multidisciplinary artist, working across filmmaking, photography, performance art and stained glass. Finn grew up in rural Essex, UK and moved to London in 2018, studying animation at UAL for a year, before going on to study a BsC in psychology at King’s College London. Following this, they studied for a year at The New School in New York, all the while developing their creative practice. Finn has performed at an array of venues across London and New York, using visceral body modification techniques to explore themes of mental health, fetish, magic, Christianity, ritual and rebirth. Finn made their debut short film, Muntjac, during the pandemic in 2021, releasing it in 2023. The film examines the esoteric and archetypal through a distinctly queer lens, and has screened at festivals across the UK and Europe.

Ivana Larrosa is originally from Spain and lives in New York City. She holds a BA in Film and Media Studies from University of Navarre (Spain) and a Master of Fine Arts at Bard College-International Center of Photography (New York, 2016), where she was awarded with the ICP Director’s Scholarship and taught video installation and performance.

She is also a visual artist. Through photography, video and performances she investigates the impact of her permanent double vision and her experience of space, consequence of a car accident. Larrosa is interested in conceptual strategies that have to do with the body as an object of study and a medium to approach memory, trauma, perception and architecture.

Her work has been shown at at Art venues and Museums including Anthology Film Archives, International Center of Photography, The Exponential, Queens Museum, The Center for Fine Art Photography, Project Space Kleiner Salon, Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, and Galeria Sicart, among others. Larrosa's work is at the permanent collection of Foundations, Museums, Institutions and Collections such as Bassat Private Collection, Spanish National Museum of Sculpture and video art platform Lucid / PerformVu in New York.

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She has received grants such as City Artist Corps Grant of New York, Lluís Carulla Foundation Individual Artist Grant, and Museum of Tortosa Artist in Residency, and numerous awards, including Ramon Aloy International Photographic Award and Camera Club of New York Baxter St, Annual Juried Competition.

Iulia Teodora Turicianu (Triasic Cuddle). Iulia Teodora Turicianu is a Romanian animator and illustrator. Her art often focuses on the many modern, extinct, as well as fantastical animals around the world.

Spanish curator, filmmaker and researcher based in New York. She is currently a Senior Programmer at DOC NYC, DocumentaMadrid and The Architecture and Design Film Festival. As an independent curator she is interested in cinematic rituals and emotional experience in subjective cinema, the poetics of fragility, and reclaiming a non judgmental non anthropocentric space for emotions. As a filmmaker her work has been shown in theaters, festivals and museums internationally and her latest films are constructed around taboos of the female body, gender specific illnesses and patriarchal structures in the medical establishment, ritual, mortality, human remains and experiences of loss.

Fernanda Galindo is a screenwriter, director and producer born in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico. She has won various awards at international festivals including Best Director from the Andromeda Film Festival and Best Documentary at the Feminist Border Arts Film Festival in New Mexico. In 2015 she won Best Socially Relevant Content Award given by Red de Televisoras Públicas y Culturales de Latinoamérica, thanks to the series she produced titled «Historias de Mujeres» (Women Stories) for Channel 22.

Layan is a multimedia artist from Saudi Arabia who merges visual and auditory storytelling, translating emotions and philosophical concepts into sensory experiences. Her work often blends text, imagery, and sound to create dynamic, living compositions that invite viewers to engage and evoke deep introspection and emotional resonance.

Christian Spurling & Delphine Coudray (Re-rooted). Since graduating from IADT in 2021 He has worked in background design, animation, storyboarding and prop painting for stop motion, experimenting with a plethora of mediums in animation and film with a variety of studios. His first short Small Hours, a mosaic-screen animation co-directed with Marta Sniezek, premiered at Annecy International in 2022. ReRooted is his second animated short and first stop motion and paper craft animated film. Delphine has worked for over 25 years writing and directing for theatre, coaching and film-editing. After studying Animation in her thirties, she entered the industry as Courses and Events Coordinator for Animation Skillnet, providing training solutions to the animation, games, and VFX sectors. She now works part-time as Head of Operations for Animation Ireland, the representative organisation for the country’s leading animation studios, and continues writing and directing her own projects. ReRooted is her first animated short.

Slovenian born visual artist and filmmaker Nataša Prosenc Stearns earned her BA at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana. She moved to Los Angeles on a Fulbright Grant for her MFA at California Institute of the Arts. Her body of work ranges from single and multi-channel videos, video installations, short and feature films, video objects and print media. She is known for creative use of non-gallery spaces and large multi-channel installations. Her films Souvenir, (released by Cinema Epoch), The Trial of Socrates, (collaboration of 23 filmmakers), Hotel Diary, Živa and others explore innovative strategies in storytelling and visual expression.

Nataša's films and artworks have been shown internationally. Her work was featured in the contemporary opera CodeL This year the Slovenian Cinematheque presents a retrospective of her work.

Nathaniel Sullivan is a creative non-fiction artist, based in the Bronx. He makes videos, lecture performances and guided tours that explore the roots of power and the limits of reason. He has exhibited in festivals, galleries and alternative art spaces worldwide, most recently a networked performance and video installation at FilmWinter 36 in Stuttgart, Germany, a screening at Code+ in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and in a program of video art at Documenta 14 in Kassel, Germany.

Former tugboat captain and award-winning filmmaker from The Bronx. He was raised amongst the eccentric denizens of an inner-city marina, which gave him a deep understanding of people on the fringes of society. He is currently the Director of Media at the historic Andrew Freedman Home in the Bronx. Bristol Fashion marks his feature directorial debut and was released digitally in 2022. His second feature, The Book of Harth, is an award-winning feature length documentary and released in 2024. He most recently served as an Associate Producer on Screamboat and Abel Ferrara’s Turn in the Wound. 

Born in Pristhina, capital of Kosovo, Flaka holds a BA in Animation from the Metropolitan University of Budapest. Her work recently appeared at the Short Film Corner at Festival de Cannes and has won several international awards. She got her start in 2013 as a volunteer for the Anibar International Animation Festival. Over time, she took on various roles including workshop tutor, film selection panelist, festival interviewer and animation tutor at Anibar Animation Academy. In 2020, Flaka established Flammorum, her own animation studio based in Prishtina through which she has completed two short films, two animated music videos, and various other animated projects, including explainer videos and content creation for different organizations.

Max Garcia is a 24 year old Filmmaker from The Bronx, New York City. Past writing credits include Off Broadway produced plays "Fly" for The People's Theater and "Shrink" for the Working Theater. His first film Deli is currently going on an award winning Film Festival run.