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(Madrid, 1965). Screenwriter, director, and graduate in Classical Philology, she studied film at the American Film Institute, after which she built an extensive career as a screenwriter before directing her own feature films. She is the author of screenplays such as Mentiras y gordas (2009), Heroína (2005), La vida que te espera (2004), and La buena estrella (1997), for which she received the Goya Award for Best Original Screenplay. She has also worked as a screenwriter on television series such as Amar es para siempre and Bosé. As a director, she made her debut with La suerte dormida (2003), for which she received the Goya Award for Best New Director, followed by Una palabra tuya (2008), which earned Malena Alterio the Goya Award for Best Actress, and El comensal (2022). As a novelist, she has been a finalist for the Planeta Prize and the Edebé Prize for Children’s Literature.

Arantxa Echevarría is a director and screenwriter. Her first feature film, “Carmen y Lola”, was nominated for eight Goya Awards in 2019, winning two; Best New Director and Best Supporting Actress for Carolina Yuste. The script was also a finalist for the Julio Alejandro Prize of the General Society of Authors and Publishers (SGAE). In addition, she was selected in 2018 for the Directors' Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival, becoming the first Spanish director to be selected for the Fortnight. In 2021 was released her feature film “La Familia Perfecta” (The Perfect Family), a comedy starring Belén Rueda and José Coronado and distributed by Universal and with the participation of Antena 3. The film achieved one of the ten highest box-office revenues of the year and number one on Netflix Spain and number two on Netflix worldwide. She has also directed on television the last chapter of the series “El Cid” and two chapters of “Días mejores”, (When You Least Expect It) both for Amazon Prime.

His career as a producer has taken him to international festivals such as Berlin, Cannes, Venice, Busan, Torino and Shanghai, among others. He focuses on providing a platform for emerging national and international talent with strong cinematic value, both artistically and socially. He won the Goya Award for Best Documentary Short Film as director and producer of El Santo. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences and president of the merged PIAF-MAPA (Federación de Productoras Independientes Audiovisuales). He won the José María Forqué Award as director and producer of the short film Yalla, which was nominated for the 2022 Goya Awards. In 2024, he was nominated for a Goya for the documentary feature Contigo, Contigo y sin mí, and in 2025, as producer of the documentary short Ciao, Bambina and the fiction feature Calladita.

He is currently overseeing the distribution of two of his latest feature films: Este cuerpo mío, directed by Afioco Gnecco and Carolina Yuste, which premiered at Seminci, and Chicas Tristes, directed by Fernanda Tovar, a co-production with Colectivo Colmena that won the Crystal Bear and the Grand Prix of the Youth Jury at the 76th Berlinale.

Carlota Callén is a director, screenwriter, producer and actress. As a director and screenwriter, she has worked in theatre on productions such as La tuerta (winner of the Max Award for Best Young Playwriting), El Gran Gatsby and Mentir está muy feo; she also directed, produced, wrote and starred in the short film Mi primera opción. She has worked as an actress in theatre, television, voice-over and film, in productions such as Mi primera opción (2021), Desaparecidos (2020) and Ego-Sum (2017).

Claudia Estrada Tarascó (València, 1997) is a fiction and documentary director and screenwriter. Her debut feature film, Salen las lobas, portrays life inside juvenile justice centers, inspired by her sister’s experience. Her filmography includes internationally screened short films such as Loquílla mía (2025), Vigilia (2025), Tot crema (2023), Las heridas de mi casa (2021), Las flores que arrancas (2020), and ¿Cómo fue tu vida, abuela? (2019). Her style combines narrative sensitivity with documentary research, through a social and feminist lens.

Claudia Müller, born in 1964, is a German documentary filmmaker living in Berlin and Vienna. She is known for her numerous outstanding film portraits, which are primarily dedicated to international artists. Müller has a profound knowledge of the production and theory of contemporary art and a deep insight into the art scene; in almost three decades she has established connections with many artists all over the world. After studying German, journalism and art at the universities of Berlin and Cologne, she worked as a freelance journalist and director and made numerous documentary films. Claudia Müller is particularly interested in the visual arts and presents in her films the work of artists such as Jenny Holzer (2009), Shirin Neshat (2010), Kiki Smith (2014), VALIE EXPORT (2015), Katharina Grosse (2020) Heidi Bucher ( 2021) as well as the writer and theater director Hans Neuenfels (2011) and the designer and artist Helmut Lang (2016). In her ongoing documentary series Women Artists, Claudia Müller has featured Katharina Grosse, Annette Messager, Kiki Smith, Berlinde de Bruyckere, Monica Bonvicini, Tatiana Trouvé, and Ursula von Rydingsvard. More than 80 women artists from diverse geographical and cultural contexts are represented in this comprehensive project. Their work contributes to the ongoing debate on identity, gender, sexuality, feminism, female aesthetics, and the visibility of women in art. Her feature length documentary Elfriede Jelinek-Language unleashed has been awarded with the German and Austrian Film Award for Best Documentary as well as the international critics’ prize FIRPRESCI Award.

Claudia Müller just finished a feature length documentary on the German artist Rebecca Horn (Cinema release in 2026) and is now working on a new film about the Austrian artists VALIE EXPORT.

For more than twenty years, Cristina Cerezales Laforet combined her career as a painter with working as an art teacher, English teacher and translator, as well as travelling. Since 1996, she has devoted herself fully to literature. She has published the novels De oca a oca (2000), Por el camino de las grullas (2006), Música blanca (2009), El pozo del cielo(2013), Ulises y Yacir (2016), La trilogía del Camino de Santiago (2006–2021) and Oro (2026) with Editorial Destino, as well as the short-story collection Amarás a tu hermano (2010).

She has also published three books from Los viajes con la abubilla (2019–2021) with Editorial Renacimiento, as part of the Espuela de Plata collection.

He has been in charge of the media outlet Cinedania.es since 2008 and is a contributor to Noticine.com. He is a member of the Círculo de Escritores Cinematográficos, a commissioner for the Fugaz Short Film Awards, and a member of the Círculo Profesional de las Series Españolas, as well as serving as a jury member for the Blogos de Oro. As a director, he has directed the short films Antítesis, produced by the Madrid Film Institute and presented at CINEMAD, and Déjame hablar, based on his own screenplay, which premiered at the Shorty Week International Film Festival. He has also covered festivals such as San Sebastián, Málaga, Valladolid and Gijón on numerous occasions.

Actress, screenwriter and director, born in Barcelona. She made her directorial debut with the feature film Júlia ist, which she also starred in. For her debut, she received the Silver Biznagas for Best Film and Best Director in the Zonacine section of the Málaga Film Festival. Her second feature, Creatura, in which she stars, co-wrote and directed, premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, where it received the Europa Cinemas Award for Best European Film. The film, which explores the awakening of sexuality and desire from childhood through to adulthood, also received six Gaudí Awards and three Goya Award nominations, among other accolades. As a director and screenwriter, she has also worked on other fiction projects, including Perfect Life, Veneno and En casa, an HBO series.

Esther García is the executive producer at El Deseo. Throughout her more than thirty-year career, she has produced all of acclaimed director Pedro Almodóvar's films since Matador in 1986. Her long career as a producer also includes collaborations with other notable Latin American filmmakers such as Guillermo del Toro (The Devil's Backbone, 2001), Isabel Coixet (My Life Without Me, 2003), Paul Leduc (Cobrador. In God We Trust, 2007), Lucrecia Martel (La mujer rubia, 2008 and Zama, 2018), Diego Galán (Con la pata quebrada, 2013), Damián Szifron (Relatos salvajes, 2013) and Pablo Trapero (El clan, 2015), among others. Her work has been recognized on numerous occasions at the Goya Awards and also at the Oscars. In 2015, she was honored in Segovia, her hometown, as part of the European Film Festival, and in 2018 she received the National Film Award. She is an active member of the Spanish Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the United States. Currently, in 2024, Pedro Almodóvar's latest film, La Habitación de al lado, Ramón y Ramón by Salvador del Solar, a co-production with Peru, is awaiting release. Oliver Laxe's After is in post-production and she has a couple more projects on her desk in development.

Estrella Araiza is currently the director of the Guadalajara International Film Festival and the FICG Cineteca. During her tenure, her main management objective has been the promotion of Mexican, Latin American and Ibero-American cinema. She has also directed the GuadaLAjara Film Festival (GLAFF) in Los Angeles, California, and has gained experience as Director of Industry and the Film Market at FICG, as a sales agent, academic and film distributor in Mexico.

She began her career in international film distribution in 2005 and, in 2012, launched her company Vendo Cine. She has served on juries at international festivals and has also collaborated and participated in major film markets around the world.

Among her contributions to the Mexican film industry is the implementation of programmes such as Cine incluyente, aimed at enabling people with disabilities to enjoy films on the big screen. She was also the executive producer of the exhibition En casa con mis monstruos and of the stop-motion version of Pinocchio, both projects by Guillermo del Toro.

Eya Bouteraa is a Tunisian actress. She rose to prominence with her leading role in the film Tres mujeres (À voix basse), which competed at the 2026 Berlinale. She plays Hasna in Lofti Achour’s film Les Enfants rouges (The Red Children, 2024) and Iris in Mathilde Rey’s short film Crysalide. In this Franco-Tunisian feature film by Leyla Bouzid, she plays the lead role of Lilia, a woman in her thirties who is a lesbian and returns to Sousse for the funeral of her maternal uncle. Alongside Hiam Abbass, Marion Barbeau and Leyla Bouzid, she was invited to the 76th Berlinale, where the film competed on February 13, 2026.

Fernanda Tovar (Mexico City, 1991) is a director, screenwriter, and member of Colectivo Colmena. She graduated from the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC) and took part in Berlinale Talents Guadalajara and Berlinale Talents Latin America in 2020. Her short film My Age, Yours, and the Age of the World participated in the Semaine de la Critique de Cannes in 2022 and received a Special Mention at the Morelia International Film Festival. In 2024, her short film I Want to Violently Crash into the Windshield of Love premiered at the Tribeca Festival. Sad Girlz, her debut feature film, was supported by EFICINE (Mexico), ICAA (Spain), CNC and SACEM (France), and had its world premiere at the 76th Berlinale, winning the Crystal Bear and Grand Prix for Best Feature Film in the Generation 14plus section. 

She studied filmmaking and scriptwriting at the National School of Cinematographic Arts of UNAM. Her short films have been acclaimed at various international film festivals, with 'Pinky Promise' standing out as it won the award for Best Short Film at FICM 2020 and was presented at the Cannes Critics' Week. She directed 'A Prisoner in the Family', which is part of the documentary series 'A Moment in Mexico' by The New York Times, nominated for a 2019 Emmy in the category of "New Approaches: Arts, Lifestyle, and Culture", and winner in the Short Form Series category at the International Documentary Association Awards. She is a recipient of the "Young Creators" grant from FONCA in the category of 'Screenwriting'. She works as a screenwriter and/or director for television series for Amazon and Netflix. Her debut feature film 'Adiós, Amor', winner of the 14th UNAM-FOPROCINE First Feature Film Contest, is about to embark on its festival circuit.

Isabel Coixet (Barcelona, 1960) is a renowned Spanish director and screenwriter and an eight-time Goya Award winner. She developed a passion for cinema from an early age, influenced by her grandmother, who worked as a cinema ticket seller, and began her career in advertising and film criticism. She made her filmmaking debut in 1984 with the short film Mira y verás. She gained recognition with My Life Without Me (2003) and The Secret Life of Words (2006), both starring Sarah Polley. Her other notable films include The Bookshop (2017), Elisa & Marcela (2019), A Romantic Exile (Un amor, 2023) and her latest film, Tre Ciotole (2026). She has directed the series Foodie Love (2019) and Alguien debería prohibir los domingos por la tarde (2026). She has also directed documentaries such as Invisible Women (Invisibles, 2007) and Listening to Judge Garzón (Escuchando al juez Garzón, 2011). Among other accolades, in 2015 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Málaga Film Festival and recognition from the French Ministry of Culture. In 2022, she received a Career Achievement Award from the Cine por Mujeres Madrid Festival.

Director and screenwriter based in Barcelona. Since founding her production company, Al Pati, she has focused on the development and production of films committed to social issues that explore the boundaries between documentary and fiction, while fostering new perspectives on culture, humanity, and society.

Her documentaries have been broadcast on major European television networks, including NTR, SVT, YLE, RAI, RTVE and TV3, among others. With El fill de son pare / His Father’s Son (2010), she received a Special Mention from the Jury at the Prix Europa. Her feature-length documentary Corredors de fons (2014) was awarded Best Director at the Aljazeera International Documentary Film Festival and Best Screenplay at Europe-Orient du Film Documentaire in Asilah. With the short film La Veïna (2015), she won the Public Freedoms and Human Rights Award at AJIDFF.

She has been a pioneer in exploring interactive documentary with web-based animation, through the webdocs Orgull de Baix (2016) and Orgull d’Horta (2020), produced with TV3 and A Punt Media. Her latest work is the feature documentary Los constructores de la Alhambra (2022), supported by MEDIA Creative Europe, Agencia Andaluza de Instituciones Culturales, ICEC, RTVE, Canal Sur, ZDF/ARTE, ORF and Al Jazeera. It was nominated for Best Documentary at SEMINCI 2022 and selected for the Official Sections of the Montreal International Festival of Films on Art (2023), Bogocine (2023), the London Spanish Film Festival (2023) and the Bosphorus Film Festival (2023). It was released theatrically in Spain in November 2022 and in Hungary in April 2023.

Born in Switzerland, Jennifer Alleyn is a Canadian filmmaker, writer and photographer living in Montreal. After earning a BA from Concordia University, she jumped right away into La Course destination monde (Radio-Canada) to shoot 26 documentaries within 26 weeks on 5 different continents, all on her own. She was one of the directors of the collective feature film Cosmos, winner of the CICEA award in Cannes at the 1997 Directors' Fortnight, and was also selected to represent Canada at the Oscars. Her 2003 short film Svanok (The Call) was awarded best short fiction film by the Quebec Films Critic Association and NYFF. Her documentary, My Father’s Studio, a portrait of Canadian artist Edmund Alleyn, was named best Canadian film at the International Festival of Films on Art in Montreal and also received a Gémeaux Award. For Impetus, a hybrid drama which blurs the frontier between fiction and cinéma vérité, she received the 2019 Creation Award for her outstanding contribution to the development of Quebec cinema. Presented as a U.S. Premiere at the 2019 Slamdance Festival, Alleyn’s stunning feature film, threads multiple narratives, and “delivers razor sharp commentary that eludes pretense to reveal something rare in modern cinema; true emotional intelligence.”

Winner of a Goya Award in 2000 for her short film Siete cafés por semana, she was nominated for the Goya Award for Best New Director in 2010 for her feature debut, Planes para mañana.

She has directed seven feature films: Planes para mañana (2010), Embarazados (2016), Bajo el mismo techo (2019), Fuimos canciones (2021), El favor (2023), Las chicas de la estación (2024) and Looking for Michael (2025), as well as nine short films, which have received more than 50 national and international awards. She is currently in pre-production on her new feature film, Hasta que los niños nos separen.

For television, she directed the series MADRES, produced by Alea Media for Telecinco and Amazon Prime Video, and LAS ABOGADAS, produced by MOD Producciones and RTVE. In 2002, she founded the production company TEOPONTE P.C., and in 2015, she launched her new project, FEELGOOD MEDIA, together with Juan Moreno and Guillermo Sempere.

She is the author of 24 palabras por segundo. Cómo escribir un guión de cine, published by IORTV.

She served as Vice President of CIMA, the Association of Women Filmmakers and Audiovisual Media, for six years, during which she led the CIMA MENTORING programme (2013–2019) and the WOMEN IN ACTION! award. Both initiatives focused on supporting emerging female talent.

Judith Colell was born in Barcelona in 1968. She holds a PhD in Communication from Ramon Llull University (URL), a degree in Art History from the University of Barcelona (UB), and a Certificate in Film from New York University. In addition to directing several television films, she has directed the feature films El dominio de los sentidos (1997) (Collective); Mujeres (2001), which received awards at the Sitges, Lorca and Vitoria Film Festivals, among others; 53 días de invierno (2007), which premiered at the San Sebastián Film Festival, won Best Actress at the Toulouse Film Festival, and was nominated for 10 Barcelona Awards; and Elisa K (2010), which won the Special Jury Prize at the San Sebastián Film Festival, a Special Mention from the Jury in Nantes, and the National Culture Award from the Government of Catalonia, and was nominated for 5 Gaudí Awards and for the Goya Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, among other accolades. In 2021, she directed 15 Horas, a Dominican production filmed entirely in Santo Domingo, which won the SIGNIS Award at the Málaga Film Festival and Best Screenplay in Marseille, France. She has been President of the Catalan Film Academy since 2021. She previously served as Vice-President of the Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences and is a founding member of CIMA, the Association of Women Filmmakers and Audiovisual Media.

Júlia de Paz graduated in Film Directing from ESCAC. Her graduation short film, Ama, became the basis for her debut feature of the same name (2021), distributed by Filmax and awarded at the Málaga Film Festival. The film screened at festivals including San Sebastián, SEMINCI and Amsterdam, and received nominations at the 2022 Goya and Feroz Awards. In 2021, Variety named her one of the ten Spanish talents to watch. In 2024, she directed La buena hija, developed through the Spanish Film Academy's Residency Programme and based on her short film Harta, which won awards at festivals including Clermont-Ferrand, Málaga, Alcine and the Gaudí Awards, and was distributed by Marvin & Wayne. She co-directed the series The Long Shadows (Disney+, 2024) alongside Clara Roquet, and is the co-creator of Querer, directed by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa for Movistar+, which premiered in late 2024.

Julia Thelin is a writer and director from Stockholm. In 2017, her short film Push It was selected for the official competition in Cannes and Toronto before its subsequent festival tour. Short film Tweener premiered at Berlinale Generation in 2018. Sorry Not Sorry won the audience award at Startsladden in Gothenburg and met its international audience in competition at Clermont-Ferrand. Her experimental short Little Olle opened the Stockholm international Film Festival in 2019. Julia is a two-time Bergman estate resident and took part in the International Filmmaking Academy masterclass in 2023. 

Karin Junger started out her career as a documentary filmmaker with the prestigious Joris Ivens Award at IDFA for her film Birthplace Unknown (1988). Karin went on to make multiple documentaries, many of them for Dutch broadcasters, and fiction films. Her short film Great! (2003) won the Silver Bear at Berlinale. Her first feature Bolletjes blues! (2006) was shown at New York Film Festival, Netherlands Film Festival and Cairo Filmfestival. Her latest fiction film (10 Songs for Charity, 2021) had its world premiere at Giffoni Film Festival. Her work has a strong sense of urgency and social commitment and inventiveness in style and themes. Her latest documentary, Free Space, released in 2024 on broadcaster NTR (Uur van de Wolf), is about cancel culture in the arts. The Pupil is her third feature film. 

She grew up in (French speaking) Belgium and lives presently in The Netherlands. She studied French language & literature & mass communication at the University of Amsterdam, specializing in film science.

Mabel Lozano is a Spanish writer, filmmaker, actress and activist advocating for women’s rights. Her documentary work has focused particularly on denouncing sexual exploitation, prostitution and the trafficking of women and girls. After studying film and specializing in social cinema and human rights, Lozano began her career as a documentary filmmaker in 2007. Her works include Voces contra la trata de mujeres, La teoría del espiralismo, Las sabias de la tribu, Madre and Chicas nuevas 24 horas, the latter of which was nominated for the Goya Awards and the Platino Awards.

In 2018, she released El proxeneta, one of her most significant works. The documentary features the first-person testimony of a human trafficker and traces the evolution of prostitution and human trafficking in Spain since the 1980s. The story also inspired a non-fiction book that won the Rodolfo Walsh Award. Among her most notable accolades are the Goya Award for Best Documentary Short Film in 2021 for Biografía del cadáver de una mujer and in 2024 for Ava, a documentary about a minor who was a victim of human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

After completing her studies in acting and working at theatres in Dinkelsbühl, Stuttgart and Frankfurt, Margarethe von Trotta appeared from 1967 onwards in numerous films of the New German Cinema, including films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (for example, The American Soldier, 1970), Herbert Achternbusch (for example, Das Andechser Gefühl, 1974) and Volker Schlöndorff, with whom she also co-wrote several films (for example, Strohfeuer, 1972) and co-directed The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975).

Her first solo directorial film was The Second Awakening of Christa Klages (1978). This was followed by such widely debated works as The German Sisters (1981), Rosa Luxemburg (1986) and The Promise (1995), as well as the multi-part television adaptation of Uwe Johnson’s Jahrestage (2000). Her films consistently return to an interest in reflecting on the past, both on an individual level and in its political and social dimensions, and in attempting to approach it critically.

In 2003, she directed Rosenstraße and, following the psychological drama I Am the Other Woman (2006), returned to a historical subject with Vision (2009), devoted to the life of Hildegard von Bingen. The film portrays the life and development of the legendary mystic, renowned both for her medical knowledge and for being an early advocate of women’s rights.

In addition to her extensive filmography, Margarethe von Trotta has regularly directed theatre productions at venues across Europe.

Maria Sødahl is a Norwegian film director and screenwriter known for her intimate, emotionally resonant storytelling and nuanced exploration of human relationships. She made her feature directorial debut with Limbo (2010), a drama set in the Norwegian expatriate community in Trinidad in the 1970s. Sødahl gained international recognition with Hope (Håp, 2019), a deeply personal drama inspired by her own experience of being diagnosed with a brain tumour shortly before Christmas. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was selected as Norway’s entry for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. In addition to her work in film, Sødahl has directed television and has established herself as one of Norway’s notable contemporary filmmakers.

Mariela Besuievsky is a Uruguayan film and television producer. She is a partner at the production company Tornasol. Her credits include more than 150 films as a producer and executive producer, including The Secret in Their Eyes by Juan José Campanella, winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film; The Last Circus (Silver Lion at the 2010 Venice Film Festival) and The Oxford Murders by Álex de la Iglesia; Tetro by Francis Ford Coppola; and The Man Who Killed Don Quixote by Terry Gilliam. In television, she was part of the production team of Four Seasons in Havana, which received the 2017 Platino Award for Best Ibero-American Miniseries. Between 2019 and 2021, she worked as executive producer on the documentary miniseries Who Killed María Marta? and The Photographer and the Postman: The Crime of Cabezas, both released on Netflix. In 2021, the series Ana Tramel. El juego premiered on RTVE. In 2024, the series Detective Touré aired on RTVE. She has recently been elected the new president of the Spanish Association of Film Producers (AECINE), which brings together nearly 60 independent production companies from across Spain.

Marta Díaz de Lope Díaz was born in Ronda (Málaga) and currently lives in Barcelona. She graduated from ESCAC with a degree specializing in Directing. During her time at ESCAC, she wrote and directed, among other projects, the short film Menopáusicas (2011), which won the Best Director Award at the IAJ Short Film Competition, held as part of the Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival.

She was the director and screenwriter of one of the sequences in the feature film Los Inocentes (2013), made in collaboration with the other directors from her graduating class and premiered at the Sitges Film Festival. Her graduation short film, Y otro año, perdices (2013), was selected for the Valladolid International Film Festival (Seminci) and won the Best Director Award at the Medina del Campo Film Week, among other distinctions at numerous festivals.

Los pestiños de Mamá (2016), premiered at the Málaga Film Festival, was her second short film produced by ESCAC Films. In 2018, she made her feature-film debut with Mi querida cofradía, which won the Audience Award and the Biznaga de Plata for Best Supporting Actress (Carmen Flores) at the Málaga Film Festival, as well as the Audience Award for Best Comedy at the BCN Film Fest. Los buenos modales (2023) is her second feature film, produced by Escándalo Films, Atresmedia Cine and Movistar Plus+, and distributed by Warner Bros. Since 2015, she has taught screenwriting and directing in various courses at ESCAC. In 2026, she premiered her third feature film, Pioneras. Solo querían jugar, which was selected for the Official Competition of the Málaga Film Festival.

Marta Figueras Cardona has been a film producer since 1994. She began her career with La Moños. In 2021, she produced Chavalas, directed by Carol Rodríguez, which received the Audience Award and the Movistar Award for Best Film at the Málaga Film Festival. In 2022, she produced Mi vacío y yo, directed by Adrián Silvestre, which received the Silver Biznaga – Special Jury Prize at the Málaga Film Festival. In 2025, she worked as executive producer on Isabel Fernández’s documentary film about Carmen Laforet, Por qué no escribo nada, presented at the 2026 Barcelona Film Festival.

Since 2024, she has been working as a producer at Alba Sotorra’s production company, now known as Oceanika. She has produced Salen las Lobas, directed by Claudia Estrada, and Holly Wood Dust, directed by Victor Kossakovsky, which was presented at the 2026 Venice Film Festival. She also made her directorial debut with Descubriendo a José Padilla.

Marta Matute holds a degree in Audiovisual Communication and a diploma in Dramatic Arts. In 2020, she was selected for the Spanish Film Academy Residencies with her debut feature Yo no moriré de amor, which received the 2021 Julio Alejandro SGAE Screenwriting Award. The project has also taken part in the Ventana CineMad, CDPAI, Ventana Sur, and ECAM La Incubadora development labs.

Nina Knag is a Norwegian writer-director whose debut feature Don’t Call Me Mama (Se meg) premiered at the 2025 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where Pia Tjelta won Best Actress. The film received outstanding reviews both nationally and internationally, and opened the Bergen International Film Festival before its theatrical release in Norwegian cinemas. Knag has directed episodes of NRK’s Rumours and several award-winning shorts (The First Days, It’s Alright). With a background from Westerdals and the Ivana Chubbuck Studio in Los Angeles, and extensive experience as a casting director, she brings a strong understanding of performance and storytelling. She is currently developing a new drama series and several feature projects.

He is one of Spain’s most acclaimed and internationally renowned filmmakers. He began his career with the award-winning short film Mama. In 1990, he was awarded a scholarship to pursue a Master’s degree in Directing at New York University.

His feature debut, Torremolinos 73, was the breakthrough film of 2003–04. It received four Goya Award nominations, including Best New Director, as well as four awards at the Málaga Film Festival, including Best Film. Blancanieves premiered at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, where it received the Special Jury Prize. It was the big winner at the 2013 Goya Awards, winning 10 awards, including Best Film. It also received nominations at the César Awards and the European Film Awards, and represented Spain at the Academy Awards. In 2015, he was appointed a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government.

Abracadabra was shortlisted to represent Spain at the Academy Awards. He also received his third Goya Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. The film received seven further nominations at the awards. Since 2018, Pablo Berger has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Robot Dreams premiered in the Official Selection of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. Among other accolades, it received awards at Annecy, Sitges and Bucheon. It won the Goya Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Animated Film, as well as an Annie Award and a European Film Award. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and was a major box-office success worldwide.

In 2024, he received the Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts.

Paloma López Carrillo has built a distinguished career as an editor, honing her storytelling skills over 15 years of collaboration with some of Latin America’s most renowned directors. This experience fostered in her a deep understanding of narrative structure, rhythm and the emotional power of visual storytelling—elements that now inform her approach as a director.

With her directorial debut, Say Goodbye, Paloma explores the importance of rhythm and space as emotional catalysts within the cinematic language, using them to delve into the complexity of the human experience.

Piluca Baquero began producing films at the age of 19. Her first feature film, Ojala Val del Omar, was presented at the Venice Film Festival. Since then, she has produced more than twenty feature films and documentaries. In 2017, she made her only foray into directing with the animated documentary El silencio roto, which premiered at SEMINCI. She is currently also Executive Producer at Ramen Studio, where she is developing several fiction formats and is currently co-producing Each of us, a feature film starring Diane Kruger, which is currently in production. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Spanish Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, specializing in production. She was Executive Producer of the 39th Goya Awards, held on February 8 in Granada. She is already preparing for the 40th Goya Awards in the same role.

Rodrigo Martínez Torres (b. 1992) is a Mexican composer, producer and sound artist. His work explores the internal architecture of sound and its resonances with the mind and space. He has also focused on the abstraction of popular music as a tool for creating new musical works. A multi-instrumentalist, he performs across different genres and styles. Rodrigo has received grants and fellowships in the United States, Mexico and Spain. His practice encompasses broadcasting and radio production, performing in rock bands, writing for orchestra, and composing for film and theatre. Rodrigo is part of the first cohort to receive an MFA in Sound Practice from Dartmouth College (New Hampshire, USA). He currently lives and works in Madrid, Spain.

Samantha Hudson is a singer, songwriter, producer, screenwriter, actress and all-around icon. She is one of the most emblematic figures of contemporary counterculture, a status she has achieved through a critical and avant-garde voice, together with a musical career that challenges the paradigms of gender and freedom of expression, with her striking live performances as its greatest strength.

Samantha has received numerous international awards, including the 2023 MTV EMA for Best Spanish Act, the Ídolo Award for Best Digital Content Creator, and the Rainbow Award from the Spanish Ministry of Equality for her work in support of the LGBT community, among others.

An actress, singer and producer, she has portrayed more than 100 characters in 24 films, 27 theatre productions and 32 television series, receiving 18 awards.

Her film credits include performances in La conspiración, directed by Pedro Olea; Amor, curiosidad, Prozak y dudas(Best Actress Award at the Málaga Film Festival); La madre muerta, directed by Juanma Bajo Ulloa; and La Bala, directed by Carlos Iglesias, among others. Her television credits include Perfil Falso, La encrucijada, Merlí: Sapere Aude, El secreto de Puente Viejo, Velvet, Gran Hotel, Gran Reserva – El origen, Cuéntame, Ana y los siete, Manos a la obra, Canguros and Turno de oficio, segunda enseñanza.

In theatre, she has worked under the direction of Xavier Albertí, Andrés Lima, Miguel Narros, Juan Carlos Pérez de la Fuente, David Selvas, Adolfo Marsillach, Ignacio García, Yayo Cáceres, Jaime Chávarri, Natalia Menéndez, Peris-Mencheta, Víctor Sánchez Rodríguez and Amelia Ochandiano, among others. She has starred in productions including The Glass Menagerie, Yerma, Doña Rosita la soltera, A Doll’s House, La gran Sultana, El Gran Mercado del mundo and The Importance of Being Earnest, among others.

In Te quiero, eres perfecto, ya te cambiaré, 24 horas en la vida de una mujer, L'Emperadriu del Paral·lel, Victorina, La Florida and Blues & Roots, she developed her work as an actress and singer, receiving the Gresol Award and nominations for the Musical Theatre Awards and the Valle-Inclán Award.

Screenwriter, director and script consultant. She has written for fiction series such as Los hombres de Paco, HKM and Generación dF, and is the co-screenwriter of the feature film ROBOTA MML by Itziar Barrio, recently screened at e-flux Screening Room in New York and at Matadero Madrid. As a director, she has carried out various audiovisual projects for the agency Volando Vengo and has just directed the short film Ruth. She has served on the ICAA Age Rating Committee. She currently works as a script analyst and consultant for various organizations and production companies, including Pecado Films, and serves as a project mentor at Coofilm, a residency programme for women filmmakers.

She is a distributor, screenwriter and director specializing in the distribution of short films on the festival circuit. She worked in distribution for four years and began her career as a screenwriter and director with No es coma in 2018. In 2019, she took part in the Noka mentoring programme with the documentary El Peso, and her second short film, Txango, was made with the support of the 2021 Mendi Film Festival Grant. Two years later, in 2023, she co-wrote her first theatre piece, Un 6 y un 4 y una curva parabólica. That same year, her latest short film, Prioridades, was selected for the Kimuak catalogue.

Vanessa-Tatjana Beerli is a Swiss-Canadian filmmaker, screenwriter and producer specializing in genre cinema. Her first professional short film, TV Dinner...Burp!, was nominated for a Genie Award in Toronto as one of the four best Canadian short films of 2005.

She has built an important international career as a programmer and curator through Ciné Tapis Rouge, an organization that has collaborated with more than 45 countries across five continents over many years. Through this work, she contributes to the international promotion of numerous Quebec films and regularly serves as a jury member at international film festivals.

She later returned to directing and founded Productions Les Montagnes Hallucinées to develop ambitious genre films that rely heavily on practical special effects. The short films she writes, directs and edits have been selected for nearly sixty international festivals and have received more than twenty-five awards. Vanessa is currently preparing to shoot her first feature film, Hypoxia, a thriller about survival in the ocean. She is also developing a second science-fiction feature that will explore the UFO phenomenon in greater depth.

With more than ten years of experience in film criticism, as well as editing and photography in the film and television industries, she has been immersed in the Moviementarios project since 2016, where she has also collaborated with Revista Mutaciones. She is a sponsor of CutreCon, the International Trash Film Festival, and occasionally appears on the podcasts ParImparand Prohibido contar ovejas on esRadio, as well as on Vivir de cine on Intereconomía. Another place where you can hear and see her is Holocausto Zinéfago, a humorous programme where she regularly discusses the Sitges Film Festival and the now-defunct Muestra Syfy.

A molecular biologist by profession and a film enthusiast by nature. She has served as a Critics’, Méliès d’Or and Youth Jury member at the Sitges Film Festival, as well as at other national festivals such as Americana, BCN Film Fest, TerrorMolins, L’Alternativa, Sant Cugat Fantàstic, L’Atlàntida Mallorca Film Fest, Som Cinema, TaShort Fest and Sabadell Film Festival, among others. She is the director of the “Mutacions Cinèfiles” section of El Cinèfil, and is a member of ACCEC and the Dones Visuals collective. She is currently taking an RTVE course in film fiction screenwriting and is working on a film-related project focused on Nordic culture.

With a background in acting and contemporary dance, Zoe Stein has developed her artistic career across Spain, the United Kingdom and Germany. She studied at the City Academy in London and later in Berlin, where she took part in theatre projects with the P14 group at the Volksbühne. She began her film career with the short film Forastera, directed by Lucía Aleñar. She later landed a prominent role in Carlos Vermut’s feature film Mantícora, a performance that earned her several nominations for national awards, including the Goya Awards, Gaudí Awards and CEC Medals in the Best New Actress category. Her most recent feature films include Forastera, directed by Lucía Aleñar Iglesias, La sospecha de Sofía, directed by Imanol Uribe, and Danke für nichts, directed by Stella Marie Markert. On television, she has appeared in the series La caza: Tramuntana for Netflix and La chica invisible for Disney+.