Barbara Lorey De Lacharriere

Cultural journalist and film critic for various major German and Swiss dailies and magazines for over twenty years (Die Welt, Tageszeitung, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, epd film…). Curator of photo exhibitions in Europe and the USA (Annemarie Schwarzenbach, The Dark Years 1937 – 1938; Paris, New York, Chicago, Tbilisi) Annemarie Schwarzenbach: Selected Photographs and Writings, 1933-1940, Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Queens College). Former artistic director of the East-West Film Festival (Orenburg, Russia) and program consultant and curator for various international film festivals such as Mumbai Intl. Film Festival, ( India), Visions du Réel and Fribourg Film Festival, (Switzerland), FIPA, (France) , Millenium Film Festival, (Belgium), Metropolis Cinema and Filmhaus Nürnberg (Germany).

Director of Department at FIPRESCI in charge of FIPRESCI AWARD Promotion, she is organizing since 2010 special film programs for a wide range of film festivals all over the world, and as a challenge to Covid, she created in 2021 with her company alizarine, films, arts & events, Terres d’Ici, Terres d’Ailleurs, a film festival in a small rural village in Southwest France. In 2023 she joined the programming team of the Festival du Cinéma Méditerranéen de Tetouan, Morocco.

Born in the former GDR, BLdL studied theater and social sciences and is a graduate from Hamburg University (Germany) in Clinical Psychology and a post-graduate from Sorbonne and EHESS (France) in Sociology.

Eva Peydró Sanz

Has developed her professional career in the areas of film criticism, Philology, Neurolinguistic Programming, translation specialized in modern art, cultural journalism, and children's literature.  Contributed for twelve years to the weekly cultural magazine Cartelera Turia, as a critic and columnist in the sections "Material sensible" and "Sola en la oscuridad", reviewing film shootings, premieres and international film festivals, as well as in other media such as Bianco e Nero, magazine of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia.

In 2014, she founded the online cultural magazine El Hype, which is distributed in Spanish and English, where she is the editor and contributes to her personal blog Director's Cut. For several years she has collaborated in the coverage of the Cannes Film Festival for the Radio 3 (RNE) program El séptimo vicio and in 2022 she participated in the documentary Mujeres sin censura (Women Without Censorship, Eva Vizcarra).

As a writer, she has published two children's novels, Las vacaciones de Saída, winner of the Martín Sarmiento Award, and El tesoro de Saída, winner of the Samaruc Award. She is also co-author of the essay Ficciones las justas (Ensayos sobre la nueva moral en el cine, la música y la pornografía, Ed. Contrabando, 2022)

As a member of the international federations FIPRESCI and FEDEORA, she has served, among others, on the juries of twenty international film festivals such as Cannes, Berlin, Venice, St. Petersburg, San Sebastian and Karlovy Vary.

Philip Cheah

Philip Cheah is a film critic and is the editor of BigO, Singapore's only independent pop culture publication. He is currently program consultant and advisor to film festivals in Shanghai (China), River Meets Mountain (India), Jogjakarta (Indonesia), and Hanoi (Vietnam).He co-founded the South-east Asian Film Festival and the Asia Pacific Screen Lab and is Patron of the SEA (South-east Asia) Screen Academy in Makassar, Indonesia. He is also Spiritual Advisor to the Bakunawa Young Cinema Film Festival, Philippines.He is co-editor of the books, Garin Nugroho: And the Moon Dances; Noel Vera: Critic After Dark and Ngo Phuong Lan: Modernity and Nationality in Vietnamese Cinema.He was given an Honorary Award at the 15th Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival 2019, an award for Achievement in the Promotion of Kyrgyz film by the Kyrgyzstan Film Critics in 2010, an award for promoting Vietnamese film by the Vietnam Cinema Association in 2008, an Award for Asian Cinema at the 8th Cinemanila International Film Festival in 2006, and the Korean Cinema Award at the 9th Pusan International Film Festival in 2004.

Semih Kaplanoglu

Semih Kaplanoglu is one of the most acclaimed writer-director-producers of contemporary filmmaking. Born and raised in Izmir, Turkey, he received BS in Cinema-Television from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Dokuz Eylül University, in 1984.
Kaplanoglu made his debut feature in 2001 'Away From Home', and he was awarded Best Director in Singapore IFF.
He then set up his own production company Kaplan Film and started writing and directing as an independent producer, making worldwide acclaimed international coproductions.
In 2005, his second feature 'Angel’s Fall' had World Premiere in Berlinale Forum and received Best Film Awards in Nantes, Kerala and Barcelona Alternativa FF.
His third feature ‘Egg’, which premiered in 2007 at Cannes FF Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, brought Best Director awards in Fajr IFF, Valdivia IFF and Bangkok World FF. The film received around 30 awards including important national awards such as the Golden Orange (Antalya IFF) and the Golden Tulip award (Istanbul IFF). This film was the first part of the ‘Yusuf Trilogy’ which made Semih Kaplanoglu worldwide known as a director.
In 2008 ‘Milk’ which took part in L'Atelier of the Cinéfondation in 2008, premired at Venice IFF Official Competition, screened at festivals around the world, earning him international awards, including Fipresci prize at the Istanbul IFF.
‘Honey’ the third part of the ‘Yusuf Trilogy’, winner of Golden Bear award in 60th Berlinale IFF, traces the origins of a soul.
In 2013 Kaplanoglu was invited to Cannes FF as a member of Cinéfondation & Short Film Jury member.
Semih Kaplanoglu’s 2017 dated film ‘Grain’, received Best Film Award in 30th Tokyo Film Festival. This 35 mm Black&White shot film is a coproduction of Turkey, Germany, France, Sweden and Qatar, with Jean-Marc Barr, Ermin Bravo, Grigory Dobrygin and Cristina Flutur as cast and English as original language. It took 5 years to complete the film.
In 2018, he started working on ‘Commitment Trilogy’.
2019 dated ‘Commitment Asl?’ is the first digital film from the director. The film had world premiere in 50th International India Film Festival Master Frames section. It was the Academy Award Nominee of Turkey and screened in Palm Springs.
In 2020, ‘Commitment Hasan’ was finished just before the pandemic hit the world causing lockdown. The film had World premiere in 75th Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard Section in 2021. Then screened in Karlovy Vary, Batumi, Chicago, Pingyao, Medfilm Italy and Taipei Golden Film Festivals, earning both international and national awards. Once again, the film was selected as Academy Award Nominee of Turkey. ‘Commitment Hasan’ was theatrically released in France, Spain, Portugal and Turkey.
As a producer, he contributed his fellow director Aida Begic’s 'Djeca' which earned a special mention in 2012 Cannes Un Certain Regard. The film is a Bosnian, German, French and Turkish co-production supported by Sarajevo Cinematograhy Fund, Eurimages, MDM, ZDF/ARTE, TRT, Fonds Sud Cinema and Torino Film Lab.
Semih Kaplanoglu, born in 1963, has also written many articles based on plastic arts and cinema which have been translated into foreign languages and published in many magazines and journals between 1987 and 2003.

Elise Jalladeau

Elise Jalladeau began her career as a producer in the 90's with a new generation of directors including Rodrigo Moreno, Ildiko Enyedi, Jia Zhang Ke, Darezhan Omirbaev, Jérôme Bonnell, Petr Vaclav, Martin Rejtman...

She created and led the workshop "Produire au Sud" in 2001, before group-leading EAVE's Euro-Asian "Ties that Bind"program from 2010 until 2016. 

She is currently the General Director of the Thessaloniki Film Festival, the Greek cinema and audiovisual organization that includes: the International Film Festival, the International Documentary Festival, two major industry markets attached to the festivals, the "boutique" festival Evia Film Project, 4 cinema screens operated throughout the year and the Thessaloniki Film Museum (collections, library, film education, cinematheque). 

She is also a member of the Board of Directors of Europa Cinéma. 

Hervé Schneid

Award winning editor Hervé Schneid is one of the most well respected editors working in film today. He has collaborated with a number of directors including Sally Potter, Lars Von Trier, Mike Figgis, Regis Wargnier, Bille August, Jean-François Richet, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Volker Schloendorff. From his earlier work on Lars Von Trier’s Cannes prize winning  ‘’Europa’’ which established his international reputation and earned him his first award, the Danish Robert for best editing, his varied career has spanned Hollywood blockbusters such as  ‘’Alien: Resurrection’’  to French art-house classics like  ‘’Delicatessen’’,  for which he won the Cesar for best editing in 1992. This was the beginning of a long-term collaboration with world-renowned filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet, that has seen him work on some of the biggest French breakout hits of the past twenty years.
In 2002,  ‘’Amelie’’  saw him nominated for not only a Cesar, but also a Bafta and an Eddie from the American Cinema Editors association. His work on cult hits ‘’Mesrine: Public Enemy No.1’’ and ‘’Mesrine: Killer Instinct’’, directed by Jean-François Richet, saw him nominated for yet another Cesar. They will later collaborate again on ‘’One Wild Moment‘’ and  ‘’The Emperor of Paris‘’.
Schneid’s other credits are too numerous to list, but include all films directed by JP Jeunet "The City of Lost Children", ‘’A Very Long Engagement’’, (Cesar and European Film Academy nominated), "Micmacs", “The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet”, a film shot in 3D,  “Sarah’s Key” directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner, “Sansa“, “Kinogamma“, “Kids Stories”,  ‘’Riga (take 1)‘’, “Bengali Variations”, all directed by Siegfried, “Black Gold”, directed by JJ Annaud, ‘’Zaytoun’’ directed by Eran Riklis, and “Dias de Gracia” directed by Everardo Gout, for which he was awarded an Ariel for best editing in Mexico.
Coming back from Kazakhstan where he has cut ‘’Amanat’’ directed by Satybaldy Narymbetov, Hervé Schneid went on cutting “Neruda“, directed by Pablo Larrain, for which he was nominated to a Golden Reel Award for best sound editing, and awarded a Fenix for best editing.
He then went on to cut ‘’Anna’s War’’, directed by Aleksey Fedorchenko, for which he was nominated to a Nika award.
After having produced and edited his spouse’s first feature film ‘’Olma Djon’’, Hervé has cut in Rome his first serie, directed by Stefano Sollima, Janus Metz and Pablo Trapero, ‘’ ZeroZeroZero‘’. He went on cutting  JP Jeunet's latest opus "Big Bug", "My Neighbor Adolf" directed by Leon Prudovsky, and “No Limit” directed by David M.Rosenthal. He then went to Mexico to cut his latest work, “A Million Miles Away”, directed by  Alejandra Márquez Abella.
He is a member of the french Académie des Césars, the Oscars Academy, the European Film Academy, the American Cinema Editors, and the British Film Academy.

Natacha Régnier

After a flamboyant entry into the profession, with an acting prize at Cannes (among others) for "La vie rêvée des anges", Natacha Régnier remains demanding and will continue to choose directors and projects that fascinate her. She has already worked in leading roles with Costa Gavras, Chantal Akerman, Lucas Belvaux, Jane Birkin, Pascal Bonitzer, François Ozon, Anne Fontaine, Emmanuel Bourdieu, Michel Gondry, Eugène Green, Nicolas Bary, Eric Valette…

Keoprasith Souvannavong

Radio, TV and written press journalist. Since 1993 he works at Radio France Internationale (RFI), member of NETPAC  (Network for the Promotion of Asia Pacific Cinema). After having written and presented newscast and features and having reported on political and cultural events (such as film festivals) for 14 years, he is now chief editor at the Internet Service of RFI, which website is one of the world's most visited French-speaking news site. Fond of cinema, he also acted in the feature film THE SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA, which received the "Caméra d'or" and "Prix de la jeunesse" awards at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1993, as well as the "César" award in Paris as the best first feature film, and which was later nominated for an Oscar as the best foreign film. Based in Paris, he has also been a jury member and president of various juries at different film festivals in the world.