| 1 Giant Leap
1 Giant Leap is a concept band and media project consisting of the two principal artists, Jamie Catto (Faithless founding member) and Duncan Bridgeman.
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| Cédric Anger
Born in 1975. He has worked as a film critic for Cahiers du cinéma till 2001 but meanwhile has also been active as an assistant director. Before stepping up into the director's chair, he has been involved with screenwriting: he was a co-author of Xavier Beauvois’ several films, for example the Le petit lieutenant (Bad Faith).
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| Antti-Jussi Annila
Born in 1977 in Helsinki, and studied at the Tampere Polytechnic School of Art and Media in Tampere, where he made a series of five short films called Hard Student IV: The Ultimate Battle.
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| Andrew van Baal and Mark Flanagan
Andrew van Baal (left in the picture) was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He left for California at age 19, studied film production at San Diego State University, and worked as an editor in New York City before arriving in Los Angeles in 2004. Largo is his first feature-length film.
Mark Flanagan (right in the picture) is from Belfast, Ireland. After emigrating to the United States he studied psychology in Boston for a few years, then made his way out to Los Angeles. In 1994 he took over Café Largo on Fairfax, dropped the ‘Café’ from its name, and nurtured its development into one of LA’s premiere live performance venues.
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| Kasper Barfoed
Born in 1972 in Copenhagen, he holds a B.A. in comparative litterature from University of Copenhagen, has extensive experience with filmmaking from working on several Danish features and directing numerous commercials. His first two features, My Sisters Kids in Egypt and The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar, are family adventures, and were both critically acclaimed and box office hits. |
| Taylan Barman
Born in 1968 in Istanbul. He directed L ́Amour du despoir together with his friend Mourad Boucif. Au-del à de Gibraltar (2001) was his debut feature, competed, among others at Flanders Festival and was awarded the Audience Prize at Mons Festival Cine de Amor (Belgium).
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| Neil Burns
Born in Edmonton, he studied fine art in Halifax and in Vancouver. Neil’s first animated short is 1991’s Fettered, which was followed by 1997’s Grace Eternal, which won the Award of Merit at the Chicago International Film Festival. Burns has also worked in advertising. In 2008, his short film The Nose is also being released as well as Edison and Leo, his first feature film.
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| Yung Chang
Born 1977, he is a Canadian filmmaker based in Montreal. His first documentary, Earth To Mouth, won praise for its beautifully crafted meditation on food production and migrant labour. His first feature-length documentary, Up the Yangtze, was honoured at several international film festivals.
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| Thomas Clay
Born 1979 in Brighton, United Kingdom, Clay studied film at the CFU in London. He made the student piece Motion at the age of 19. His debut The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael caused quite the controversy due to its graphic violence. Clay lives in Thailand.
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| Denis Côté
Born in 1973 in New-Brunswick, Canada. He produced and directed around 15 low budget short films, screened in many international film festivals. From 1999 to 2005 he worked as a radio show host. His first feature film, Drifting States won the Golden Leopard Award at the Locarno International Film Festival, All that She Wants received a Silver Leopard at Locarno in 2008.
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| Leon Dai
Leon Dai was born in 1966 in Taiwan. He has worked in the theatre since 1990, and participated in the shows of Godot Theatre Company and Ping-Fong Acting Troupe. From 1993 he started to act in films. He also writes modern poems.
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| Jean-Xavier de Lestrade
Born in 1963 in Mirande, France, studied journalism and law in Paris. He began his career in European television news, before moving into documentary film. For many years he has collaborated with Denis Poncet, and the two founded Maha Productions. His filmography includes the Oscar-winning Murder on a Sunday Morning (2001).
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| Arnaud Desplechin
Born in 1960 in Roubaix, France, and graduated from L’Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques in Paris. He is the writer-director of several features, including The Sentinel, My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument, Esther Kahn, Kings and Queen, L’Aimée.
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| Walter Doehner
He has written and directed Íntimo terror (1992) and The Blue Room (2002). He is the winner of the Silver Precolumbian Circle of the Bogota Film Festival and the Silver Goddess for best first work in Mexico for The Blue Room. For Teo’s Voyage he won the Special Mention Prize of the Ecumenical Jury in Montréal World Film Festival in 2008.
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| Jacques Doillon
Born in 1944 in Paris. He began his film career as an assistant editor with Alain Robbe-Grillet and made several short films before directing his first feature-length film, The Year 01 (co-directors: Alain Resnais and Jean Rouch).
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| George Dorobantu
Born in 1974 in Romania. He is an indie filmmaker without the traditional film school training. To this day, he shot several digital short films, a couple of musical videos and some commercials. His first feature is Elevator (based on an award-winning stage play written by Gabriel Pintilei). He is currently in development with his second feature, scheduled to be shot in the spring of 2009 through his production team, Keep Movieng.
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| Olaf de Fleur Johannesson
Born in 1975 in Iceland, and studied physics in Reykjavik. After graduating in 1995, he participated in several film and television projects. Later he founded the independent production company Poppoli Pictures in 2003. Olaf de Fleur's first feature was a Cinderella story with a transsexual character. The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela received the Teddy Award at the 2008 Berlinale.
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| Matteo Garrone
Born in 1968 in Rome, where he attended art school, worked as an assistant cameraman and dedicated several years to painting. His sixth feature film, Gomorrah was the winner of the Grand Prix Award at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.
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| Henrik Ruben Genz
Born in 1959 in Gram, Denmark. He graduated in 1995 from the National Film School of Denmark. That same year, Crossroads won Best Film and Best Screenplay at the Munich International Film School Festival. Of his documentaries and short feature films, the most successful has been Theis & Nico, which brought him an Oscar nomination and a Glass Bear at the Berlinale. Genz’s first feature, Someone Like Hodder was honoured by the juries of several festivals.
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| Koji Hagiuda
Born in 1967, he was as an assistant director for Masashi Yamamoto’s Kumagusu and Naomi Kawase’s Suzaku, and a set designer for the Ishinha theater group while attending Wako University. He made his directorial feature debut in 1993 with I Am Glad You Are Happy. His 2004 film Going Home won the Best Young Director Award at the Takasaki Film Festival.
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| Rouhollah Hejazi
Born in 1979 in Iran, he directed and produced a number of short films. His short film The Moon Faced was honoured at the Minsk International Film Festival in Belarus in 2006. Among the Clouds is his debut feature.
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| Manijeh Hekmat
Born in 1962 in Arak, Iran, she began her career as an experimental filmmaker in 1978 and has worked as an assistant director and production manager for more than 25 feature films. Hekmat’s debut feature film Women`s Prison (2002) has been screened at more than 80 international film festivals and has received several prizes. Social themes and women characters dominate her works.
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| Scott Hicks
Born in 1953 in Uganda. Hicks graduated in film from Flinders University of South Australia. Despite striking gold and earning 7 Oscar nominations for Shine (1996), Hicks chose not to move to Hollywood, preferring his home in Adelaide, Australia where he lives with his wife since 1971.
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| Barry Jenkins
He was born in Miami and studied at Florida State University. He worked as a director's assistant for Harpo Films in Los Angeles, and now lives in San Francisco. Medicine for Melancholy is his debut feature.
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| Margarita Jimeno
She was Born in Bogotá, Colombia in 1975. She moved to New York city in 1997 to attend the School of Visual Arts. Jimeno's film and video work have been screened at several international film festivals. While working on Gogol Bordello Non-Stop, she started developing a feature fictional script about Colombian Guerrillas in the 1980s.
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| Radu Jude
Born in 1977 in Bucharest, he graduated from the Filmmaking Department of the Bucharest Media University in 2003. Apart from working as an assistant director for feature films shot in Romania, such as Amen and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, he has shot several short films, tv-series and over 100 commercials. He is currently developing his new feature film project Principles of Life, written by Razvan Radulescu and Alex Baciu.
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| Steven Kastrissios
Born 1982 in Brisbane, Australia, he has been making films in his free time since the age of fourteen. At eighteen, Kastrissios began work on a 50 minutes short film, The Park that had a budget of only $600, a running time of 50 minutes and several elaborate action sequences. The Horseman won Best Australian Film and Director at Melbourne Underground Film Festival in 2008.
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| Baltasar Kormákur
Born in Reykjavík. His first film, 101 Reykjavík (2000), shared the Discovery Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. His 2006 film Jar City won the Breaking Waves Award of the 15th Titanic International Film Festival in 2008.
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| Derek Kwok Chi-kin
Born in Hong Kong. He worked extensively as script writer and second unit director. His debut feature, The Pye-Dog made him known at film festivals outside of Asia. The Moss establishes him as one of the greatest young talents working in Hong Kong.
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| Rune Denstad Langlo
Born in 1972. He has been working since 1998 as producer on documentary films for Motlys Film. His first documentary was Too Much Norway, made in 2005 to commemorate Norway’s centenary. His second feature-length documentary 99% Honest was about hip-hop band United Minorities. North is his feature debut.
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| Maïwenn Le Besco
Born in 1976 in Les Lilas, France. She began acting at the tender age of five, after her mother, actress Catherine Belkhodja, pushed her to become a child star. This unhappy experience later inspired Maïwenn to write and direct I’m an actrice, a film based upon her childhood in front of the cameras.
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| Guillaume Malandrin and Stéphane Malandrin
The Malandrin brothers were born in Paris, Guillaume in 1968, Stéphane in 1969. While Guillaume studied film at INSAS in Brussels and started directing short films, Stéphane studied philosophy in Paris. They have been working for the last ten years together writing screenplays, and Hand Of The Headless Man is their first film with a shared director’s credit. Guillaume is also active as a producer with his company Le Parti Production (which made the internationally acclaimed Aaltra in 2004), while Stéphane writes children’s books.
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| James Marsh
Born in 1963 in Truro, England. After graduating from Oxford University, Marsh worked as a researcher and then a director for the BBC. His breakthrough documentary, Troubleman, chronicled the last years of soul singer Marvin Gaye and his murder. He made his feature film debut in 2005 with The King starring Gael Garcia Bernal and William Hurt.
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| Hitoshi Matsumoto
Born in 1963 in Amagasaki, Japan. He made his acting début in 1983 on the television comedy Downtown. Since 1990, he appeared in numerous popular television comedies. In 1998, he published Visualbum, a collection of stories. Dainipponjin is his first film as director in which he also stars.
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| Toshifumi Matsushita
He was born in 1950 in Japan. After graduating from Doshisha University, in 1979, he came to the United States to study filmmaking at New York University. He started his career as a producer, later he founded Dolphin Productions to make documentaries and TV programs.
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| Steve McQueen
Born in 1969 in London, and studied at Chelsea School of Art and Goldsmiths College, after which he spent a year at the Tisch School of the Arts in New York. His art has been shown in museums around the world including the Guggenheim, the Tate and the Centre Pompidou. Hunger marks his filmmaking debut.
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| Greg Mottola
Born in 1964 in New York. He teamed up with Judd Apatow (the producer of Superbad) and Seth Rogen (who co-wrote the film) to direct several episodes of the Fox television show Undeclared. He has also directed episodes of Arrested Development and HBO's The Comeback. In addition, he is an actor and has appeared in Woody Allen's Celebrity and Hollywood Ending.
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| Celina Murga
Born in 1973 in Paraná, Argentina. She studied at the Universidad del Cine, in Buenos Aires. Ana and the Others, her first feature film, won prizes at Venice, Buenos Aires, Thessaloniki, Vienna, Anonimul and Punta del Este. Director Martin Scorsese was so impressed with her movie A Week Alone, that he invited her to spend 7 weeks on the set of his Shutter Island as a guest observer.
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| Wolfgang Murnberger
Born in 1960 in Wiener Neustadt. He studied directing, screenwriting and editing at the Vienna Film Academy. His graduation film Heaven or Hell gained awards both at home and abroad. His two earlier films based on Wolf Haas’ novels with detective Brenner, Come, Sweet Death and Silentium were both highly successful in Austrian cinemas, the latter was sold to eight countries and invited to numerous festivals.
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| Hong-jin Na
Born in 1974 in South Korea, he graduated from the Korean National Academy of Arts. His first shorts brought him international acknowledgement. His feature film debut The Chaser premiered in Cannes in 2008. Warner Brothers has picked up remake rights in English.
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| Udayan Prasad
Born in India, Prasad came to Britain at the age of 9. After attending art school in Leeds and the National Film and Television School, he made a number of documentaries. He directed a number of high-prestige dramas for BBC, working with Britains’s top writers. His first feature was the critically acclaimed Brothers in Trouble. His second feature, My Son the Fanatic, was selected for Director’s Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997.
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| Pete Riski
Born in 1974 in Rovaniemi, Finland. Studied at the Tornio College of Arts and Media from 1992 to 1996. Won several international and Finnish awards for his commercial and music video work. Dark Floors is his debut feature.
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| Gaylen Ross
Born in 1950 in Indianapolis. An actor, writer, producer and director, she graduated with a B.A. in literature from The New School for Social Research in New York. She is the director of several documentaries.
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| Michael James Rowland
Born in 1964 in Australia. He worked as Artistic Director of the Adelaide Festival of Arts (1987–94). He completed his studies at the Australian Film and Television School in Sydney in 1997, graduating with the short film Flying Over Mother (1996), which was acclaimed at festivals all over the world. Rowland has continued to make shorts over the last seven years, when he also wrote screenplays and directed features, documentaries and commercials.
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| Diego Sabanés
Born in Buenos Aires. Since 2000 he teaches directing at the San Antonio Film and Television School in Cuba and since 2004 at the Observatorio de Cine in Barcelona.
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| Akhan Satayev
Has been known earlier for his works in the sphere of video-advertising. The Racketeer marks one of the first Kazakhstani commercial film-making experiences. |
| Makoto Shinkai
Born in 1973 in Nagano, Japan. He studied Japanese literature in university. He worked as graphic designer for Falcom, a video game company. After three award-winning short and two feature length animation films, he has often been called as “the new Miyazaki”.
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| Santosh Sivan
He grew up in the city of Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, India. He graduated from the Film and Television Institute of India in 1984. He is a founding member of the Indian Society of Cinematographers. As a director, his third film The Terrorist won him four international film festival awards. After viewing The Terrorist, actor John Malkovich adopted the film as an executive producer.
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| Steven Soderbergh
Born in 1963, in Atlanta, Georgia. At the age of 15, he enrolled in the university's film animation class and began making short 16-millimeter films. After graduating high school, he went to Hollywood, where he worked as a freelance editor, continued making short films and writing scripts. In 1987 he filmed Winston, the short-subject film that he would later expand into Sex, Lies, and Videotape, a film that earned him the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or Award. In 2000, he directed two major motion pictures: Erin Brockovich brought the award for best actress for Julia Roberts and for Traffic he won the Oscar for Best Director. Since then Soderbergh has made big-budget Hollywood films as well as art-house independent films.
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| Hannes Stöhr
Born in 1970 in Stuttgart. After studies in European law, he studied at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin. Since 200, he works as a director and scriptwriter in Berlin.
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| Nacho Vigalondo
Born in Cabezón de la Sal, Spain in 1977. He directed the Academy Award nominated short film 7:35 in the Morning. Overall he has been awarded more than 70 national and international prizes for his short films.
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| Connie Walther
Born in 1962 in Darmstadt, Germany. She studied at the German Film & Television Academy in Berlin; her graduation film, The First Time, was recognized as the best graduation film from a German Film Academy in 1996. Her tv-movie Life is the Main Thing was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1999.
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| Daryl Wein
Born in 1983 in Santa Monica, he studied drama and film at NYU Tisch School of the Arts and USC School of Film and Television. At age 16, his first short film, Life is a Train, won Third Prize at the International Young Filmmaker’s Festival in New York. As an actor, he was the guest star on the season finale of Law and Order, and has appeared in Ed, Comedy Central movies, various stage productions, and over 10 national commercials.
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| Ulrik Wivel
Born in 1967. Former principal dancer, Ulrik Wivel danced with the Royal Danish Ballet 1986-92 and with North American companies from 1993-98, among others the New York City Ballet.
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| Chi Zhang
He was born in 1977 in Peking, and studied film direction at one of the most prestigious drama schools in China, then worked at the Chinese national television company CCTV from 2000 to 2004. The Shaft is his directorial debut on the international festival circuit. |
