Arnold van Bruggen (The Netherlands)
(director, writer)
Director, writer, and co-owner of the documentary production company Prospektor Amsterdam. Arnold is fascinated by how the bigger movements and stories in history affect people's everyday life.
For all his productions, he experiments with different story formats in which film, exhibition, web, and Arnold's favorite publication format - the book - are combined.
He's currently working on a documentary series, podcast, and web doc on a big treasure from a shipwreck that puts a small island community in peril.
Gennady Kofman (Ukraine)
(producer)
Producer, Board member, and one of the founders of the International Documentary Film Festival About Human Rights Docudays UA, Board Member of the Ukrainian Film Academy, and Member of the European Film Academy. In 1992 he founded the MaGiKa Film company in Kharkiv – one of the first independent production companies in Ukraine. He produced several animated films and more than 50 documentaries.
The films participated in and won awards at many leading international film festivals, for example (selected): Prychynna. The Story of Love by Andrii Shcherbak (Award of the Ukrainian Film Academy); Delta by Oleksandr Techynskyi (Best Ukrainian Feature Film Award, FIPRESCI Prize OIFF; DokLeipzig Honorable Mention, ARTDOCFEST Award; The Living Fire by Ostap Kostyuk (Special Jury Prize Hot Docs; Best Documentary Olympia IFF; The American Cinematographer Award Salem Film Fest; Two Awards of the Ukrainian Film Academy; The Best Ukrainian Documentary 2011-2015).
Olena Ivanovska (Ukraine)
(doctor of philological sciences)
Doctor of philological sciences, professor of the department of folklore studies of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. She is the author of about 120 scientific, educational, methodical, scientific, and popular publications.
The main scientific interests are the history and theory of folklore, semiotic analysis of folklore text, customary law of Ukrainians, and cultural anthropology.
Olena Ivanovska is a member of The Expert Council on Intangible Cultural Heritage at the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine.
She is also a member of the International Organization of Folk Art (IOV) - an International NGO in consultative relations with UNESCO; Professor Olena Ivanovska is a scientific consultant for many cultural projects, particularly the Ukrainian 3D cartoon Mavka.
Forest Song (Animagrad, Film.UA.Group companies) and the computer game The Forest Song (Colabee Studios, USA)
Sebastian Majstorovic (Austria)
(digital historian)
Digital historian who works with audiovisual sources and ethnographic documentaries have been his lifelong passion.
Sebastian co-founded the international grassroots initiative "Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online" (SUCHO), which supports the digital preservation of Ukrainian cultural heritage.
He studied History, Film, and East European Studies in London, Belgrade, and Florence and currently works as a Digital Humanities Consultant in Vienna.
Lamia Fathy (Egypt)
(Film Critic & Film Programmer)
Film Critic & Film Programmer based in Berlin, FIPRESCI member. Studied Drama & Criticism at Ain Shams University in Cairo and participated in several trainings and workshops on Physical Theater and Filmmaking.
Member of EFCA – Egyptian Film Critics Association.
Worked as a film programmer in several film festivals in Egypt and was the Artistic Director Assistant at CIFCW – Cairo International Film Critics Week in its 2nd and 3rd Editions.
Marta Domachowska (Poland)
(ethnologist, cultural animator, researcher of Polish folk culture)
Ethnologist, cultural animator, researcher of Polish folk culture, student of rural singers, dancers and musicians.
Co-founder of the Toruń "n obrotów" group for the promotion of traditional music and dance and the Traditional Music Forum of Poland.
For several years she has been exploring, practicing and popularizing Polish musical traditions, incl. through field research and organizing dances, concerts, workshops and singers' meetings.
She conducts dance and vocal workshops as well as meetings for families using traditional children's folklore. On a daily basis, she works as an educator at the Ethnographic Museum in Toruń.