Round table Discussion: “How Did You Get Here? A Case Study of the International Women Directors Participating in the Festival”

Date and time: Friday, Nov. 6th. 5:30 p.m.

Venue: Espacio Fundación Telefónica

Tickets: Free admission with prior registration at:

www.espacio.fundaciontelefonica.com

Simultaneous translation, in sign language and streaming.

Type of activity: Round table

Participants:

• Jennifer Alleyn (Canada): Director of "Kaïros"  
• Julia Thelin (Sweden): Director of "The Patron"
• Karin Junger (Belgium, The Netherlands): Director of "The Pupil"
• Indra Villaseñor Amador (Mexico). Director of "Adiós, amor"

Moderator: Elena Manrique (Spain), film director and producer and member of the Festival's Programming Committee.

Jennifer Alleyn (Canada).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.”

Julia Thelin (Sweden). 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 (Belgium). 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 Pupilis 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.

Indra Villaseñor Amador (Mexico). 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.