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Sibel Kekilli
Sibel Kekilli is a German actress with Turkish roots. With her debut in "Gegen die Wand" ("Head-On") she gained major public attention. She has won twice the highest German movie award "Lola" for Best Actress in "Gegen die Wand" and "Die Fremde" ("When we leave" in 2010) and the Tribeca film festival amongst others. With her portrayal as Shae in the HBO award winning series "Game of Thrones" she became widely known internationally.
Kekilli played in several national and international productions like "Winterreise" ("Winter journey", 2006) aside with Josef Bierbichler and Hanna Schygulla, the leading role Umay in Feo Aladags "Die Fremde" ("When we leave") or the very successful comedy "What a man" directed by Matthias Schweighöfer. She played an investigator in the highly regarded German series "Tatort" for several years and was part of the main cast in the award-winning HBO-series "Game of Thrones" which turned into a major international success. Her latest appearance include the Finnish noir series "Bullets", Karanlık Gece ("Black Night") from Özcan Alper and quite recently "Yunan" from the young director Ameer Fakher Eldin which will be released in 2024. Quite recently Kekilli also gave her theater debut at the Berliner Ensemble with "Fremd" by Michel Friedman.
Besides being an actress Sibel Kekilli commits herself to topics that are important to her. She fights for women rights since 2004 and supports various organizations. On the occasion of the World Women's Day in March 2015 in conjunction with Federal President Joachim Gauck at Schloss Bellevue Sibel Kekilli gave a widely acclaimed speech, for which she was subsequently awarded the prize "author of freedom" and two years later the "Federal Cross of Merit" of the Republic of Germany.
Further on she is a founding member of the women’s network UNIDAS which was created in 2019 together with the German Foreign Ministery. The aim of the network is to strengthen the rights of women between Latin America, the Caribbean and Germany.
Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson
Born 1978, Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson holds an MFA in film from Columbia University, New York. His first feature EITHER WAY (2011) screened at film festivals all around the world and was re-made in the US as PRINCE AVALANCHE starring Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch. He was selected as “Variety’s Ten European Directors to Watch” in 2012. His second feature PARIS OF THE NORTH (2014) traveled extensively after its competition premiere in Karlovy Vary. UNDER THE TREE (2017) premiered at Venice Orizzonti and Toronto, was the second highest Icelandic box office hit of the year and chosen as the local Oscar entry. In 2023, Hafsteinn’s first English language film, NORTHERN COMFORT (starring Lydia Leonard, Timothy Spall and Sverrir Gudnason) premiered at SXSW, gaining wide distribution in cinemas around the world. Hafsteinn co-created, wrote and directed BALLS, his debut in television, which premiered in Iceland in the spring of 2023. The show was hugely popular in Iceland and has been very warmly received in other Nordic countries.
Konstantinos Kontovrakis
After years of experience as a film critic, festival programmer and publicist, Greek-born Konstantinos Kontovrakis moved to production in 2010 and has been consistently producing ever since. Kontovrakis has produced and coproduced more than 25 internationally acclaimed films, including BAFTA and Un Certan Regard winner How to Have Sex (UK, Greece) by Molly Manning Walker, Palm d’Or winner and Oscar nominated Triangle of Sadness (Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, Greece) by Ruben Östlund, Angela Schanelek’s Berlinale winner Music (Germany, France, Greece), Semaine de la Critique winner Feathers by Omar el Zohairy (Egypt, France, Netherlands, Greece), Uberto Pasolini’s upcoming The Return (Italy, Greece, UK, France), starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, and many more.
Kontovrakis was Producer on the Move for Greece in Cannes 2014. He is a member of the European and the Hellenic Film Academies and is the national representative for Greece at EAVE Producers’ Network. In 2018, Kontovrakis received the prestigious European Co-production Award at the European Film Awards.
Markéta Šantrochová
Markéta Šantrochová closely cooperated with the Program Department of Karlovy Vary IFF for more than 8 years, before boarding in 2004 the newly founded Czech Film Center and co-developed its agenda and position in Czech and international film environment.
Since 2013 she is the Head of Czech Film Center, which operates since 2017 as a division of the Czech Film Fund, the main public financing body for cinema in the Czech Republic.
In May 2019, Markéta was named the president of the European Film Promotion.
Paul Negoescu
Born in 1984 in Bucharest. Studied film directing at The National University for Cinematography. He has directed several award-winning short films selected in major international film festivals such as Cannes - Semaine de la Critique (2012), Berlin (2008, 2009 and 2010), Karlovy Vary and Rotterdam. Two of his short films (Renovation and Derby) were nominated for the European Film Academy Awards in 2009 and 2011. His debut film "A Month in Thailand" premiered at the Venice Film Festival (Settimana della Critica) in 2012 and won, among others, the FIPRESCI Award at the Sofia Film Festival and the Romanian Debut Award at the Transilvania Film Festival. The second feature film, "Two Lottery Tickets", was at the same time a box office success with record box office takings for a Romanian film, but was also very well received by critics and international film festivals (Zurich, Shanghai, Thessaloniki etc) and was distributed in several countries. Another of his feature films, "Man of Deeds", was also very well received both by the public and by festivals and critics, while winning the most important Gopo awards in 2023 (best film, best direction, best screenplay, best male lead, best male supporting role, best editing). He is currently working on his sixth feature film and is a professor of directing at UNATC.