Born in 1980, grew up in northern Denmark, Andreas Dalsgaard has directed documentaries for over a decade. Educated in anthropology at Aarhus University and Paris VII, and film directing at The Danish National Film School, his award-winning films have been shown at +200 festivals worldwide and include Afghan Muscles (2007, American Film Institute Grand Prix), Copenhagen (2009, World Best Graduation Film) Bogota Change (2009), The Human Scale (2012, Al Jazeera Audience Award), Life Is Sacred (2015) and numerous shorts. Dalsgaard is also co-founder of the production company Elk Film, writes and directs fiction for both film and theater, and has given conferences and masterclasses worldwide.

Born in Uzbekistan in 1974, Askold Kurov has lived in Russia since 1991. After studying philology, theatre, and theology and working for eight years as a package designer, he earned a degree in documentary filmmaking at the Marina Razbezhkina Film School in Moscow. In 2012 he was one of the directors of the award-winning documentary Winter, Go Away! His next films Leninland and Children 404 also won critical acclaim and screened at numerous festivals. His work focuses on human rights issues and social conflicts in contemporary Russia.

Monika Hielscher and Matthias Heeder have been making documentary films together for more than 20 years. Their primary focus is on investigative documentaries with strong story-telling; their body of work includes theatrical and TV docs for ARD, ZDF, ARTE and others. They are based in Hamburg, Germany.

The 14^th Millennium Docs Against Gravity will provide an opportunity to take a closer look at the works of Bady Minck, an experimental filmmaker whose films make regular appearances at such festivals as Cannes, Venice, Berlinale and Locarno.

This year’s edition of the festival will hold her masterclasses. Our audience will also get to see five of Minck’s films: “The Man with Modern Nerves”, “Mécanomagie”, “In the Beginning Was the Eye”, and “MappaMundi”, “Beauty Is The Beast”.

Born in Algeria, Bahia Allouache lives in between Paris and Algiers. She has been writing and co-writing scripts since 2004. In 2012, she shoots her first short film “Another ordinary day” in Algiers.

Bill Morrison’s films often combine rare archival material set to contemporary music. His work of over 30 titles was honored with a mid-career retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (NY) in 2014-2015. His most recent film, “Dawson City: Frozen Time”, had its world premiere at the 73rd Venice Film Festival, and its North American premiere at the 54th New York Film Festival in October 2016.

“The Great Flood” (78 min, 2013), with music by Bill Frisell, won the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award of 2014 for historical scholarship. In 2013, “Decasia” (67 min, 2002), with music by Michael Gordon, was the first film of the 21 st century to be selected to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. He has additionally created films for projects with John Adams, Gavin Bryars, Philip Glass, Vijay Iyer, Kronos Quartet, David Lang, Steve Reich and Julia Wolfe, among many others.

Studies of Screenwriting and Dramaturgy at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna. There he soon gained experience participating in International Feature Film Productions, working with the legendary DOPs Vittorio Storaro and Sven Nykvist. In 1995 he became an editor for ORF, designing and directing several well known TV programmes. During the 1990ies he produced sociopolitical reports and documentaries for German Broadcasting Stations: Deutsche Welle, Tele 5, SAT1, Pro7 and others. Later on, together with Florian Weigensamer, he exclusivley produced and directed political and social reports and documentaries from Mid/Eastern Europe and Asia for arte. At the same time he operated as manager and consultant for Sir Peter Ustinov – up to Sir Peters death in 2004. Christian has more than 25 years of experience in film and media business and is founder, head producer and CEO of Blackbox Film & Media.

Born 1977 in Linz, Austria, Christian Tod is a filmmaker and an economist. His debut film, “Fatsy – The Last Cowboy of Austria” (Documentary, 54min, 2007) received an honorable mention at Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz in 2007. Christian Tod’s first feature length documentary “Es muss was geben” (104min, 2010) was the opening movie at Crossing Europe’s 2010 edition, was chosen for the official selection at Filmfest München in 2010 and got theatrically released nationwide in 2011. Being a success with both audience and critics, “Es muss was geben” firmly established Christian Tod as an auteur filmmaker. Being both a scientist and a filmmaker, Christian Tod began working on “Free Lunch Society”, combining his expertise in both fields for a project he considers utterly important for the future of mankind.

The life of Ilona Staller, commonly known as Cicciolina, is probably unique with regard to her art as well as her person. Emigrating from communist Hungary, she followed the call of the “dolce vita” to Italy and found it a fertile environment for a life dedicated to scandal. When she started posing as a scantily dressed nymph in naughty photographs her career picked up speed and steadily propelled her into the realms of radio, TV, erotic films and pornography. As the first porn star in the history of democracy, Ilona Staller managed to be elected Member of Parliament and her unexpected victory guaranteed her worldwide attention. Her turbulent relationship with Jeff Koons, whose wife and muse she became, finally secured her iconic status in contemporary pop culture.

Director of “Amazona”. A filmmaker and journalist, Clare has spent more than ten years working on various social issues, ranging from the armed conflict in Colombia and sexual violence as a weapon of war to the spread of cumbia music in Latin America and Europe. She was twice a winner of the Simon Bolivar Colombian National Journalism Award. She was selected for IDFAcademy and Dok.Incubator, and her projects have won financial support from the IDFA Bertha Fund, the Tribeca Film Institute Fund, and the Colombian Film Fund (Proimagenes-FDC). She recently finished directing a documentary series for television for RCN-TV in Colombia ‘2012: Chronicles of the End of the World’ and one for Seńal Colombia ‘Los Colores del Futbol.’

Corinna Belz studied philosophy, history of art and media sciences at Cologne, Zurich and Berlin. She has written, directed numerous  film productions. Amongst her projects are LIFE AFTER MICROSOFT (2001), OTHER AMERICAN VOICES (2002, nominated for the Grimme-Prize, and awarded Filmpreis des Deutschen Anwaltvereins) and THREE WISHES (2005).

Daniel Abma (1978) was born in the Netherlands where he studied Primary school education. After his studies he moved to Berlin where he worked as a youth worker and started his studies Film directing at the Film University Babelsberg in Potsdam (Germany). His first feature length documentary BEYOND WRIEZEN was shown on numerous film festivals and won various prices, among others, the prestigious German Grimme Award. His debut film TRANSIT HAVANA was released 2016 and had theatrical release both in the Netherlands and Germany. Daniel makes charackter based documentaries about social issues, mostly long-time oberservations. Apart from film making he works as a teacher, gives workshops and lectures about documentary film making, and works as a tutor for documentary film projects. website: www.kamerakultur.de

Dmitrii Kalashnikov (1986, Russia) in 2009 graduated from the department of Law, the Pomor State University and entered the Saint-Petersburg Film and TV University. Graduated it in 2014. In 2012 created multimedia project "Malevich in the Square", which was presented at the Third Moscow International Biennale for Young Art (Moscow, Russia) and at the exhibition of young Russian contemporary artists «I am who I am» in Kunst im Tunnel (Dusseldorf, Germany). Then this project was bought by the Multimedia Art Museum (Moscow, Russia). Since 2011 works in the "Studio "Eight and a Half" as an editor, motion designer, cameraman and director. The studio produces corporate videos and documentary projects.

Ester Gould (1975, Peterculter) is a Scottish-born documentary filmmaker who lives and works in Amsterdam. She studied Film and Journalism in Amsterdam and New York and began her career as a researcher and scriptwriter for acclaimed director Heddy Honigmann. Since 2005 she has been directing her own documentaries and series.

A Strange Love Affair with Ego (2015) – her second feature-length film released in Dutch cinemas – won the IDFA Award for Best Dutch Documentary and the Dutch film critics’ KNF Prize 2016. Strike a Pose (in co-direction with Reijer Zwaan) won an audience award at the Berlinale 2016, was screened in cinemas in the Netherlands, US and UK and has been shown by film festivals and broadcasters worldwide.

In 2016, Variety named her one of ten European ‘Female Filmmakers to Watch’. Her last project – the six-part doc series Debt Society in co-direction with Sarah Sylbing – was a national TV hit, led to public debate and is nominated for a BANFF Award and an International Emmy. Recently they were announced Dutch ‘Journalists of the Year’.

After graduating in cinema in France, she moves to Los Angeles and first works on sets for independent movies and studio films.

She directs and self-produces her first short film in 35mm, the executive producers being John Malkovich and Eduardo Ponti.

In Paris, she directs four more produced and successful shorts films. Her fourth one, «Julie et ses Jules», co-produced by Channel France 2 and the CNC, wins many awards, is selected in more than 50 festivals around the world and gets TV broadcasts in France and abroad. She also directs music videos, art videos and short documentaries. MOVE! Dance your life, her first feature film is shot all around the world as a one a one woman-crew for over 2 years.

Director, writer and editor An award-winning filmmaker, Feras Fayyad has directed and edited several films, both Documentary and fiction. He has received recognition for his work about contemporary Syrian issues and the political transformation, best known for his film “Last Men in Aleppo” 

Frankie Fenton is an Award winning Irish Film and TV Director/Producer specializing in documentary film. Frankie graduated with an honors degree in anthropology and sociology before completing a master’s of film and TV at Dublin City University.

One of the most important Czech documentary filmmakers, Helena Třeštíková has directed some forty films since graduating from Prague’s FAMU film school. Her latest trilogy of portraits (“Marcela”, “René”, “Katka”), shot in the late 2000s, brought her international attention. Masterpieces of editing, the three films confirm the filmmaker’s deftness at transforming the humdrum existence of the downtrodden into unique, fascinating narratives.

After studying Journalism at the Brussels University and then filmmaking at IAD in Belgium in 1995, Jerome directed several short fiction films. In 2003 he made a feature length documentary « VOLTER NE M’INTÉRESSE PAS ».

Producer / Co-Director of “Becoming Who I Was”. Jin Jeon is a Producer/Director, who was raised as a third-culture kid in ten cities across four countries. She currently produces human – interest documentaries for South Korean broadcasters. Her work includes ‘Golden Ratio Unveiled’ (2014) and ‘1 Hectare of Happiness’ (2013) which was awarded the KBS Prize for Excellence. Previously, she worked as a Director and Production Manager for South African television for 5 years, after obtaining a Masters in Media Studies and Practice at the University of Cape Town. She also worked in the newsroom, and produced a travel program featuring stories in and around Asia.

Producer / Co-Director of “Becoming Who I Was”. Jin Jeon is a Producer/Director, who was raised as a third-culture kid in ten cities across four countries. She currently produces human – interest documentaries for South Korean broadcasters. Her work includes ‘Golden Ratio Unveiled’ (2014) and ‘1 Hectare of Happiness’ (2013) which was awarded the KBS Prize for Excellence. Previously, she worked as a Director and Production Manager for South African television for 5 years, after obtaining a Masters in Media Studies and Practice at the University of Cape Town. She also worked in the newsroom, and produced a travel program featuring stories in and around Asia.

Director. Born 1979. Self-taught filmmaker, visual artist and designer. Editor on a number of fiction films, shorts and documentaries. Schröder made his first long documentary with “The Invention of Dr. Nakamats” (2009), a portrait of the Japanese inventor. “Rent a Family Inc.” (2012) also centres on a Japanese phenomenon, about renting out stand-ins for special family or company events.

Screen writer, director, set designer and co-creator of poetic music videos. She was born in 1982. She is a graduate of Film Studies at the Jagiellonian University. Together with Szymon Uliasz, she received the Andrzej Munk Award for the Best Directing Debut in 2012 for the film Papercuts.

Marcus Vetter (born 1967) graduated in Economics (1991) and Media Theory and Practice (1994). His studies included long term stays in Buenos Aires and Madrid as well as practical internships in the media and film business. He was selected for the Discovery Campus Master school 2004, a 10-month European training program in international co-productions in the nonfiction sector

Since 1994 he has been working as a TV editor, producer and director at ARD/SWR in Baden-Baden and Stuttgart. His films have received attention at national and international film festivals and won numerous prizes, among which are 3 Adolf Grimme Awards – the German Oscar.

Marcus Vetter lives in Tübingen, is married and has two children. He is fluent in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

Matthew Jones is a multi-award winning creative Director and Producer from London. In 2009 he co-founded the production company Capture, directing and producing commercials for television and cinema as well as promos and cutting edge digital interactive content for companies like Sky, Nike, Jameson, the ICA and Picturehouse Cinemas.

Mette Carla is a Director and writer. She graduated from The National Film School of Denmark with the conceptual LBGT documentary “XY Anatomy of a boy”, – A humorous coming of age film about six homosexual boys. Her debut short fiction “Vanilla” was selected for competition at Milano International Film Festival. Venus is her first feature film, it premiered at IDFA 2016 in the first appearance competition.

Mia Halme is a director and scriptwriter. She has been a professional independent filmmaker for fifteen years and her documentaries have been screened widely in different festivals around the world. Her previous film Forever Yours (2011) was awarded for instance with respected Finnish Jussi -prize as the best documentary film of the year and Best Direction -prize in Visions du Réel. She has directed several documentaries about family-related issues; latest film was about children taken into care. Family in many ways is the connecting factor in her filmography. Halme works now also as a visiting professor in documentary at Film School Helsinki.

Co-founder of EyeSteelFilm, Mila Aung-Thwin has produced more than 25 feature documentaries, including Up the Yangtze, Forest of the Dancing Spirits, and the Emmy Award-winning Last Train Home. He served as president for 5 years of RIDM, Montreal’s International documentary festival, as well as juror for the International Emmy Awards, AFI DOCS, the New Zealand Film Awards, and the Sundance Film Festival. He has also taught documentary film programs to students in places such as Inukjuak, Nunavik, and Yangon, Myanmar.

Miroslav Janek was born in Náchod, Czech Republic in 1954, where he wrote, directed and produced nearly forty short films. He also worked as a film editor for the Czechoslovakian Television before immigrating to the United States in 1979. Settling down in Minneapolis, he began working as a freelance film editor and cameraman. In 1981 he began teaching filmmaking at Film in the Cities in St. Paul, MN. During his six years in Minneapolis he also produced and directed a number of independent films sponsored primarily by the local foundations. In 1986 he moved to New York City where he continued his freelance work until 1994. The next two years he spent in Treviso, Italy, collaborating with American director Godfrey Reggio on developing a multimedia project Fabrica. Since 1993 he shot and directed many documentaries in Czech Republic. Currently he resides in Prague Since 1998 he teaches at the documentary department of FAMU (Film Academy in Prague).

Born in Innsbruck, Austria in 1968, she is a film editor who has long been collaborating with directors Michael Glawogger and Michael Haneke. She won the Austrian Film Award for Best Editing for Barbara Albert’s Die Lebenden, the Filmplus Editing Award for Das weiße Band and for “Thank you for Bombing” by Barbara Eder. Untitled is her first film as a co-director.

Producer and Cinematographer of “Amazona”. A filmmaker, photographer and architect. Currently producing and co-producing several features. As a filmmaker, his work has been awarded the IDFA Bertha Fund, the Colombian Film Fund, and the Tribeca Film Institute Latin Fund. He was also chose to participate in the Dok Incubator, the EAVE-Puentes Producers Workshop, and IDFAcademy. He has worked on television documentaries and for the feature-length documentary ‘Euritmia,’ winner of the Istanbul International Architecture and Urban Films Festival. From 2010 to 2012, he was producer of Violentology by US journalist Stephen Ferry. His project ‘San Juan sin Dios’ won the Colombo Swiss National Photography Prize and was chosen for PhotoEspańa. His work has been exhibited in Colombia, Spain, the USA, the Netherlands, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan.

Producer and Cinematographer of “Amazona”. A filmmaker, photographer and architect. Currently producing and co-producing several features. As a filmmaker, his work has been awarded the IDFA Bertha Fund, the Colombian Film Fund, and the Tribeca Film Institute Latin Fund. He was also chose to participate in the Dok Incubator, the EAVE-Puentes Producers Workshop, and IDFAcademy.

Olga Delane, born in 1977 in Krasnokamensk, is a photographer, editor and director. During the last five years she took several trips through Siberia for her photo, video and movie projects. Her first documentary feature-length film „Endstation Krasnokamensk – Ein Heimatbesuch“ (Final destination Krasnokamensk ) ran successfully in many German art-house cinemas.

Paola Calvo is a spanish Director and Cinematographer born in 1981 in the big city of Caracas. Paola graduated in Audiovisual Communication at the Universidad Complutense Madrid in 2005. Her interests in the image as a powerful way of storytelling, brought her to study photography and film editing. In 2006 she began studying cinematography at the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin (dffb). In 2012 together with Steffen Köhn she co-directed “A Tale of two Islands”, a two channel video installation which was shown at Berlinale Forum Expanded. In 2014 she won the Best Cinematography Award at the 10th New Berlin Film Award Festival for “The Visitor”, a film by Katarina Schröter. “Violently Happy” is the culmination of her studies at the Film Academy, a 92 Minutes Documentary, financially supported by Berlin Film Fonds Medienboard, with rbb TV Channel and dffb Film Academy as Coproducers.

Paul Salahadin Refsdal is a journalist turned documentary filmmaker. After leaving the Norwegian army in 1984, he went to Afghanistan to report on the Mujahedin fighting Soviet occupation. In the following decades Refsdal reported on more than a dozen insurgent groups including the KLA in Kosovo, the Tamil Tigers, the Shining Path of Peru, the Chechen rebels, the Afghan Taliban and the Syrian branch of al-Qaida.

During the making of his first documentary, “Taliban Behind the Masks”(2010), he was kidnapped by a rogue Taliban commander, something that effectively put an end to the filming. In his second documentary, “Dugma – the Button” (2016), Refsdal takes the concept of showing the other side up a notch, resulting in an intimate portrait of a group of al-Qaida suicide bombers waiting for their turn on the list. Here we meet an overweight Saudi fighter with a love for deep fried chicken, and a British convert excited about his marriage to a Syrian woman. The men soon discover that pushing the button is not as easy as they first thought.

Paul Salahadin Refsdal is a journalist turned documentary filmmaker. After leaving the Norwegian army in 1984, he went to Afghanistan to report on the Mujahedin fighting Soviet occupation. In the following decades Refsdal reported on more than a dozen insurgent groups including the KLA in Kosovo, the Tamil Tigers, the Shining Path of Peru, the Chechen rebels, the Afghan Taliban and the Syrian branch of al-Qaida.

Pavel Cuzuioc  was born in 1978, in Chisinau, Republic of Moldova. He studied law in Bucharest, Romania and graduated from the State University of Moldova. In 2000, he moved to Vienna, Austria, where he took a Post-Graduate Diploma in International Studies at the Diplomatic Academy. From 2003, he followed courses on film directing and film production at the Vienna Film Academy, and since then has been working as a filmmaker.

Award-winning director and documentary filmmaker whose works have been shown at more than 50 festivals worldwide. Expert of the Polish Film Institute,  member of the European Film Academy. He made films on film directors such as Wajda, Holland & Marczewski, educational series „How to make a film” and  „Music library for schools” and films about art. He likes experiments and books.

born in 1975. He graduated from the Cinematography Department of the Polish National Filmschool in Łódź. Works as a DOP and directs films of his own.

Rahul Jain is from New Delhi and grew up grew up in the Himalayas.  He recently graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Film and Video from the California Institute of The Arts and is presently pursuing a Writing M.A in Aesthetics and Politics. He is interested in distance, otherness and the everyday. Machines is the debut production of Rahul Jain.

Rhea Stringaris was born in 1934 in Athens to psychiatrist Michael Stringaris and Nota Saliverou. In  1952 she passed her matriculation exams in Athens and went on to study classical archeology and art history in Bonn and Munich (1954-1959). She received her diploma in 1960 in Bonn with the work Das Griechische Totenmahl (“Greek funerary banquet”) under tutelage of Ernst Langlotz. She married Ernst Thönges in 1959 – the couple had three daughters. In the years 1961-1974, Thönges-Stringaris carried out works for the State Art Collections in Kassel; in 1972 she joined the German Movement for Direct Democracy; the same year she made friends with Joseph Beuys with whom she went on to collaborate later.

Theater-, Film- and Media Studies, Psychology and Business Managment at the University in Vienna. During his studies he has already developed and worked on several Theater and Film projects. His short film “Grenzgänger” has been decorated by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation ORF with the “Shorts on Screen Award”. As poducer and author Roland is a long-term member of the Blackbox- Collective since 2011.

Born in Jilin, China 1984. Currently lives and works in Beijing, China. At the age of 16 leaves home and moves to Wenzhou (China) to study photography at 3W Photograpic Studio. In 2003 he moves to Beijing to go on studying in 798 Art Discrict with artist and photographer Xu Yong and then at photographer Yang Jingsun’s 3 Photo Studio.

(1989, Helsinki) is a Finnish/Egyptian artist currently based in Amsterdam. She graduated as a choreography BA in 2016. For the last years she has meticulously explored the possibilities of encounters with strangers through screens, lenses and cyberspace. She has used various internet platforms to find everyday normal co-stars for her works.

Born: 1982 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, lives in Vienna and works in the fields of essay, documentary and experimental film, photography, and conceptual art. From 2002 to 2007 study and graduation at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, Department for Mixed Media Strategies (Bernhard Leitner). From 2008 to 2012 study and graduation at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, Department for Art and Film (Harun Farocki). Festival participations and exhibitions, awards and grants nationally and internationally.

Director of antropology documentary: „Something strange happended here” (2011), „Maps of wonder”, creator of music videos. Together with Magdalena Gubała, he received the Andrzej Munk Award for the Best Directing Debut in 2012 for the film „Papercuts”. At present, he is a PhD student at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology of the Jagiellonian University. He has published essays about Tadeusz Kantor’s last performance and the prose of Lászlo Krasznahorkai.

Tala Hadid made her first feature documentary film Sacred Poet on Pier Paolo Pasolini. Her films have screened at film festivals around the world, including Berlin and Venice and shown, among other venues, at the MoMA and Lincoln Center in NYC, The Walker Arts Center, La Cinémathèque Française in Paris and the Photographer’s Gallery in London. Her films have received numerous awards, including an Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

For over sixteen years, Todd and Jedd Wider have produced numerous critically and commercially successful feature documentary films including the 2012 King’s Point nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short, the multiple Primetime Emmy Awarding winning Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (2012) directed by Alex Gibney, the Emmy Award nominated Semper Fi: Always Faithful (2011) directed by Rachel Libert and Tony Hardmon, the multiple Emmy Award nominated Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (2010) directed by Alex Gibney, 2008 Academy Award Winner for Best Documentary and 2009 Emmy Award Winner for Best Documentary, Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) directed by Alex Gibney, the 2008 Sundance favorite Kicking It (2007) broadcast by ESPN, about the Homeless World Cup soccer tournament, the POV film A Dream in Doubt (2007) about the first post 9/11 revenge killing, Morgan Spurlock’s What Would Jesus Buy? (2007) about our obsession with materialism and consumption, the critically acclaimed Beyond Conviction (2006) directed by Rachel Libert, about restorative justice and victim-offender mediation in the Pennsylvania prison system, broadcast on MSNBC, and Paul Cronin’s A Time to Stir
 about the Columbia University student uprisings in 1968.

In 2011, Todd Wider and Jedd Wider were each nominated by the Producers Guild of America for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures.

The Wider’s commitment to social justice through film has been and remains informed by their respective professional endeavors.

Yuri Ancarani, Ravenna 1972, lives and works in Milano. Yuri Ancarani is an Italian video artist and filmmaker. His works come from a continuous mingling of documentary cinema and contemporary art, and are the result of a research aimed to explore regions which are not very visibile in the daily life, realities in which the artist delves in first person.