Gábor Daróczi is an expert in social inclusion, equal opportunities in education, and human rights, as well as a civil society leader, researcher, and trainer. He has over twenty years of experience in designing, implementing, and evaluating programmes supporting Roma communities and other disadvantaged groups. He is currently the Executive Director of Human Dignity in Action (HDiA), a Belgium-based organisation operating in several countries.
Previously, he served as Ministerial Commissioner for the Educational Integration of Roma and Disadvantaged Children, and as Executive Director of Romaversitas and the Chance for Children Foundation. Throughout his career, he has gained extensive leadership and policy experience in public administration, civil society, and international expert collaborations.
He has participated in numerous EU-funded and other international programmes as a project manager, expert, researcher, and trainer. His work covers educational and housing inequalities, digital skills development, energy poverty, combating discrimination, and promoting community engagement and social participation.

Asia Dér is a Hungarian-Slovak documentary filmmaker recognized for her intimate, character-driven work and long-term observational approach. Alongside her filmmaking, she is passionate about teaching and mentoring emerging filmmakers, and researching sustainable practices in documentary production, focusing on how the field can better support filmmakers and the protagonists. She is an active advocate for independent filmmaking in Eastern Europe.

Judit Sára Elek is a documentary filmmaker based in Budapest. After studying film theory and history, she began her MA studies in documentary film directing in Budapest. However, due to the political situation and the loss of university autonomy, she completed her degree at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. She has experience as an assistant director, producer’s assistant, archive researcher, and cultural event organizer. Her short films have competed at festivals such as BIDF and Verzió. As a director, she explores human connection and the beauty that can emerge even in the most difficult circumstances.
 

Máté Fuchs is a Budapest-based film documentary director. A graduate of the University of Theatre and Film Arts (SZFE), he is a doctoral (DLA) student at MOME. His film Hatchery screened in competition at Verzió and won the Docs in Progress Award at Astra Film Lab. With the investigative newsroom Direkt36 he made The Trap and The Dynasty, the latter winner of a special prize at the 44th The Hungarian Film Week. Other films: Unprocessed, Wash Our Hands.

Nikolaus Geyrhalter is an Austrian filmmaker, cinematographer and producer known for his precise observational documentaries. Since founding his production company in 1994, he has made films including Pripyat, Our Daily Bread, Homo Sapiens and Matter Out of Place.

Anna Gyimesi graduated from the University of Theatre and Film Arts and the DocNomads Master's program in documentary film directing. Her work has been featured in programs at the Sarajevo- and the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festivals, MIDPOINT Feature Launch, CineLink, and the Jerusalem Film Lab, among others. In 2023, her short documentary Falling won the Heart of Sarajevo Award for Best Student Film. She is currently a PhD student at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, where her research examines the relationship between fiction and representation of the past in documentaries.

Fanni Hatházi is a director, TV producer, and creative producer from Budapest, Hungary. She holds a BA in Television Production and an MA in Documentary Directing from the University of Theatre and Film Arts. Her MA graduation film, Almost Fine, premiered at the Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival. She has worked across various fields of the audiovisual industry for more than 15 years, from entertainment television to news production and filmmaking. In 2023, she served as Production Supervisor for the Budapest session of dok.incubator, after which she joined the organization as its Head of Production, based in Prague. Following a year with dok.incubator, she returned to Budapest, where her debut fiction short film, Pretty Yellow, was released in 2024. She also served as creative producer on Edgar Hagen’s feature documentary The Roots of Madness, which premiered at Visions du Réel in 2026. She is currently a board member of MADOKE, Head of Verzió DocPro, and is developing her first feature-length fiction film while continuing to work on documentary projects and a range of freelance film and television productions.

Péter Horányi is a film aestheticist and a curator at the Verzió Film Festival. His research focuses on the intersections of documentary film, digital media, and the cinematic representation of modern warfare with a particular emphasis on the impact of digital technologies on the depiction of reality and authenticity as well as on Eastern European cinema. He earned his doctoral degree in 2026 from the Doctoral School of Art Theory at MOME (Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design).

Péter Juhász is a civic activist, a co-founder of the "One Million for Press Freedom in Hungary" (Milla) movement, and a prominent figure in the demonstrations organized for press freedom in Hungary; he also served as the leader of the Együtt (Together) party for two years. Previously, he worked for the Roma program of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (TASZ) and was a program contributor at Tilos Rádió for nearly 20 years, with only brief interruptions. His public work focuses on exposing corruption, holding those in power accountable, and highlighting social injustices. He currently continues his public engagement as a creator of video content.

Timea Junghaus is an art historian and contemporary art curator whose work has been central to establishing Sinti and Roma contemporary visual art as a critical field of European cultural production and art-historical inquiry. She was the founding director of Gallery8 – Roma Contemporary Art Space and the European Roma Cultural Foundation (ERCF) in Budapest, and the founding Director of the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC) in Berlin. Junghaus has been a catalyst and producer of numerous radical and groundbreaking cultural initiatives, from advancing Roma inclusion in the Cannes Impact programme and initiating the Romani PEN Centre within PEN International Writers Associations, to landmark interventions across visual arts, including RomaMoma, RomArchive, the Roma Pavilions at the Venice Biennale, Manifesta 14, RomaMoMA at documenta fifteen, the Milan Triennale, and the Berlin Biennale. Her practice brings together critical theory, institutional critique, feminist thought, knowledge production and more than two decades of institution-building.

Sakir Khader is a Palestinian-Dutch documentary photographer and film director based in the Netherlands. His main focus is the relation between life and death in conflict zones, especially across the Arab world. Known for his raw yet intimate cinematic signature style, Sakir always seeks to illuminate the poetic sorrows of everyday life.

Mark Maina Maingi is an award-winning Kenyan filmmaker, director, editor, and founder of Mgreen Entertainment. An alumnus of Film Akademie Baden-Württemberg, he gained international recognition with his short film Neophobia, selected for the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. His credits include major African productions such as Netflix’s Blood Sisters and The King’s Horseman, as well as several acclaimed television series. His documentary #The People Shall (2025), chronicling Kenya’s youth-led uprising, won multiple awards, including Best Documentary at the Kalasha Awards and the 2026 Kitale Film Week. With over a decade of experience across Kenya, Germany, and Nigeria, Mark is committed to socially engaged storytelling, mentoring emerging filmmakers, and amplifying African voices through cinema.

Gabriela Manuli is the Director of Special Projects at the International Press Institute (IPI), leading key initiatives to strengthen IPI’s global network. Before that, she was the Deputy Director of the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) and co-founder of GIJN Women. Originally from Argentina and based in Hungary, Manuli has been a journalist for more than 20 years. She speaks at international journalism conferences and sits on several international journalism juries.

Ross McClean is a Belfast-born filmmaker who studied creative documentary through the DocNomads programme in Canada, Hungary, Portugal and Belgium. His short films Hydebank, Echo and No Mean City have premiered at major documentary festivals, while Magilligan is his debut feature-length documentary.

In 1998, while working at the Roma Press Center, I began writing journalistic articles, initially just as a hobby alongside my regular duties. It soon became clear that this was my true passion, and I have focused on it ever since. My career has included stints at Magyar Narancs, Manager Magazin (2006–2007), and Index (until 2020). From 2020 to 2023, I worked at 444, followed by a period at Direkt36, and since 2024, I have been with Partizán. In addition to producing studio interviews on politics and public affairs, I work on in-depth investigative pieces.

Domi Milanovich is a psychologist and journalist, and the editor-in-chief of WMN. In her new portrait series, Életünk ("Our Lives"), she conducts in-depth conversations exploring the life stories and social experiences of her guests. She holds degrees in psychology from ELTE, Gender Studies from CEU, and sports psychology from Semmelweis University. She spent several years teaching psychology and working with human rights organizations (Budapest Pride, the Hungarian LGBT Alliance, and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union/TASZ). She has been a full-time journalist since 2018.

Bill Morrison is an American filmmaker whose work is deeply rooted in archival and found footage. He is best known for Decasia, Dawson City: Frozen Time and Incident. His films explore memory, history and the material life of images; Incident won the International Documentary Association’s Best Short Film Award and was nominated for an Academy Award.

Judit Moskovics has been a journalist for 30 years. She spent 25 years working for the RTL program Házon kívül ("Outside the House") and joined Partizán a few weeks ago. She produces reports on politics, public affairs, and social issues focusing primarily on the workings of power and the stories of those vulnerable to it, with a particular emphasis on child protection. She uncovered the abuses at the Bicske children’s home, and in her documentary Babák ("Babies"), she shed light on the case of the juvenile detention center on Szőlő Street. Her work has been recognized with numerous professional awards, including the Hégető Honorka Award and the László Szente Award.

Joci Márton is a Roma LGBTQ+ activist whose work lies at the intersection of culture, representation, and social justice. A qualified teacher with a specialization in Romani studies, he also participated in the CEU Roma Program. He has written extensively on arts and culture, focusing particularly on the representation of minorities, and has curated exhibitions centered on Roma LGBTQ+ themes. Together with Boglárka Fedorkó, he created the anthology These Roma Are Queer, which filled a significant gap in Hungarian literature by bringing the stories and experiences of Roma LGBTQ+ individuals to the forefront.
Joci is a co-founder of "Ame Panzh," an informal Roma group that shapes public discourse on minorities through social media content, addressing contemporary social issues from a feminist/queer Roma perspective.

Inela Nogić was born in Sarajevo in 1976 and has lived in Amsterdam since 1994. In 1993, during the siege of Sarajevo, she was crowned Miss Sarajevo, an event that later gained international recognition through U2's song Miss Sarajevo. More than three decades later, Inela shares her story in her autobiographical book Miss opkoljenog Sarajeva (2026) and the documentary Miss Sarajevo Returns. Through her own words, she reflects on war, identity, personal resilience, and what it means to reclaim a story that has long been told by others.

He was born in Hidas, in a Roma settlement, into a family of Beás Roma. He first encountered the Hungarian language at the age of five. During his primary school years, he failed the seventh grade; subsequently, he worked as an unskilled laborer for a long time before eventually completing his secondary education and earning a diploma as a Waldorf teacher.
Prior to this, he was actively involved in local public life through the Roma minority self-government, focusing primarily on supporting Roma youth in pursuing further education. From 2004, he worked at an equal-opportunity school in Alsószentmárton, and in 2007, he became one of the founders of the Dr. Ambedkar School in Sajókaza an institution that has since expanded to operate in Miskolc as well. He serves not only as a founder and one of the school’s leaders but also as a teacher. The school provides young people who have struggled in the traditional education system and often come from backgrounds of extreme poverty with the opportunity to earn a secondary school diploma and acquire a professional trade, despite a hostile legal and social environment. Furthermore, the school teaches them the values ​​of humanity and democracy.

Piotr Pawlus is a Polish cinematographer, documentary director, photographer and painter. He worked as cinematographer on Sergei Loznitsa’s The Invasion and Champ de Mars, and co-directed In Ukraine (2023), which premiered at the Berlinale. His work often combines observational documentary practice with a strong visual sensitivity to landscape and aftermath.

Chico Pereira is a Spanish filmmaker and researcher working as an Assistant Professor in Documentary Film at Aalto University, Finland. Chico's debut feature-length documentary, Pablo’s Winter (2012), won awards at DOK-Leipzig, IDFA, and Full Frame, and it opened the 2013 MoMA Documentary Fortnight in NYC. Donkeyote (2017) premiered at 2017 International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) and won several awards including Best Feature Documentary Film at 2017 Edinburgh International Film Festival, and the 2017 International Documentary Association (IDA) Creative Recognition for Best Writing. His latest feature documentary, 11 Underground, (2025) mixes documentary reenactment, experimental ethnography and art as social practice in a former mining town and won the Best National Feature ad DocPoint Helsinki, and the Best Practice Research Award (BAFTTS, UK). Pereira holds a PhD in Film, Digital Media, and Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and currently directs the Master’s Programme in Documentary Film at Aalto University, Finland.

Free-lancing cultural researcher, film historian, art writer and university lecturer. She has been active in the field of critical Romani studies since her PhD and published a book about it in 2017. Her academic activities are devoted to building cultural resistance through critical film and cultural studies. She has been involved in several art events as a curator. From 2016 until present she has been doing research in memory and archival studies. Her publications appear in cultural and academic journals. Recently she started to do research in Kenya that will be resulted in a narrative non-fiction book aiming “sustainable cultural repair.

Petro Rusanienko is a Ukrainian Roma c and cultural manager based in Berlin. He holds a Master's degree in Acting from the Karpenko-Kary National University of Theatre, Film and Television in Kyiv (2014-2020). In 2017 he co-directed and produced the short film Remember, dedicated to the Roma Holocaust in Ukraine, and received the Roma Pride Award from the Chiricli Foundation. He has appeared in numerous films and TV series, including the lead role in the Roma film CHACHO (dir. Vitalii Havura), which received an award at the Odesa International Film Festival.
In 2020-2021 he studied Gender Studies at Central European University in Budapest. After the full-scale invasion in 2022 he relocated to Berlin as a fellow of the Artist Protection Fund. Since 2023 he has been working at the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC) as Community Coordinator and Project Manager.
He is a Board Member of the European Film Academy, elected to the first-ever board seat representing transnational minorities, where he represents Roma and Sinti filmmakers.

Afsaneh Salari is an Iranian documentary filmmaker, editor and producer based between Tehran and Paris. She is the co-founder of Docmaniacs and an alumna of La Fémis, Berlinale Talents, IDFA Academy and DocNomads. Her previous documentary The Silhouettes premiered at Visions du Réel, where it received a Jury Special Mention.

Anton Shtuka is a Ukrainian documentary photographer and filmmaker based in Kyiv. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, he has documented stories from Ukraine for international media including The Guardian, Reuters, AP, Bloomberg and The Times.

Psychologist, child rights expert, and professional lead at the Hintalovon Child Rights Foundation. Her work focuses on the realization of children’s rights, as well as their safety and well-being. She places a special emphasis on community-based child protection, children’s mental health, and how the adults and institutions surrounding children can create a safe, supportive environment for them.

Albie Swingler is a creative producer and director. For the past six years, he has been working in documentaries for broadcast TV, independent feature film, digital media, and podcasts, pitching, developing, and producing content for a range of platforms and channels: BBC, Channel 4, BFI Doc Society, Channel 4, Netflix, A24, Prime Video, and Apple TV.
During this time, he has traveled worldwide, working on a range of access-led documentaries in Europe, the US, Mexico, and Panama. Albie has successfully gained access to a wide range of individuals and institutions - from some of the most notorious prisons in California, to cult members, to politicians, and the world’s first all-trans female football team.
Albie received BFI Doc Society Made of Truth funding to direct a short film, ‘Miss Sarajevo Returns,’ about the winner of a beauty pageant held during the Bosnian War. This has been acquired by The Guardian and will run at the festival later this year. His second short documentary, ‘The Garden We Made’, is the winner of the 2026 Netflix Documentary Talent Fund. Albie is also one of Broadcast Magazine’s Hot Shots 2025.

He holds a degree in Cultural and Visual Anthropology from the University of Miskolc. In the early 2000s, alongside his work as a reporter and editor, he directed several low-budget documentaries; he later founded the Budoku Budapest Documentary Film Festival, serving as its program director. He has led film clubs and organized unique, event-centered screenings. For the past 15 years, he has been a member of the organizing team for the Verzió Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, focusing primarily on the student program and related events; in recent years, he has also served as a program curator, selecting films for the international and Hungarian competition sections. He leverages his experience in community-based cinema as the head of Kinedok Hungary, where film clubs established across the country host hundreds of screenings annually, bringing people together to watch and discuss documentaries. Currently, he is a DLA student at the Doctoral School of the University of Theatre and Film Arts and is in the process of filming his first feature-length documentary.

Barna Szász is an AR director based in Budapest and San Francisco. A graduate of Stanford’s MFA Documentary program, he founded Stanford’s first AR Storytelling class and teaches in its Art Department. His documentaries were acquired by The Guardian and PBS, Staff-Picked on Vimeo, and screened at DOC NYC and DOK Leipzig. His XR work was at the IDFA and NewImages markets and CPH:LAB. He is now making If These Streets Could Talk, a site-specific AR documentary in Budapest’s former Jewish quarter.

With an MA in Art History and German Literature (ELTE, Budapest), Katalin was a curator at Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art between 2008 and 2013. She is a PhD candidate in the Doctoral Program in Film, Media and Contemporary Culture at Eötvös Loránd University. Her field of research includes new media practices in the Neo-Avant-Garde in Hungary and Central and Eastern Europe, and institutional critique in the CEE region from the early 1960s to the present. Since 2014, she has been a member of the curatorial team of OFF-Biennale Budapest, the largest independent, grass roots arts initiative in Hungary. Since November 2015, as Creative Program Officer at Blinken OSA, she has curated and coordinated exhibitions and other public programs.

Olivér Márk Tóth is a Hungarian journalist and documentary filmmaker. He has worked as a video journalist for Hungarian and German media outlets and has been making documentaries since 2017, often focusing on rebellious and unconventional characters. His work has received the Hégető Honorka Award, and Meant to Be is his first feature-length documentary.

Katalin Törley was born in Budapest in 1969. She earned her degree in French language teaching in Pécs and, after working as a translator and interpreter for several years, taught French language, literature, and civilization at Kölcsey Ferenc Secondary School in Budapest for 23 years. In autumn 2022, she was dismissed from her teaching position with immediate effect due to her participation in the civil disobedience movement. Since then, she has worked full-time for Tanítanék (I Want to Teach), a movement she co-founded and has been actively involved in since its establishment in 2016. She represents the movement in public forums, organizes events, writes and edits texts, delivers speeches, and gives interviews. sFor several years, she also worked with the Irány az egyetem! (On to University!) programme of the Romaversitas Foundation. Alongside her work with Tanítanék, she is currently a member of Együttnevelés Szövetség (Alliance for Inclusive Education), an organization dedicated to promoting equal educational opportunities for Roma students.

Olha Zhurba is a Ukrainian film director, screenwriter and editor. Her latest feature documentary, the internationally acclaimed Songs of Slow Burning Earth, premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, received numerous international awards, and was nominated for the 38th European Film Awards. For her debut documentary, Outside (2022), Zhurba received the Japan Prize Award of Honor and the Willy Brandt Documentary Film Award. She holds a degree in film directing and an MA in Future of Heritage: Culture, History and Literature, a joint programme of the Ukrainian Catholic University and the University of Nottingham.

Dorottya Zurbó is a Bódy Gábor Award-winning documentary filmmaker and assistant professor. Her films have premiered at prestigious international film festivals, including Sundance, IDFA, and Locarno. Her latest feature documentary, Agent of Happiness (2024), co-directed with Arun Bhattarai, premiered in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at Sundance, screened at over 100 international film festivals, won numerous awards, received nominations for the IDA Documentary Awards and the Grierson Awards, and was theatrically released in more than 20 countries. Her previous films include The Next Guardian(2017, IDFA) and Easy Lessons (2018, Locarno Critics’ Week). Her work explores questions of identity, cultural encounters, and human relationships through intimate, character-driven storytelling. She graduated from the international DocNomads Joint Master programme, where she later taught documentary filmmaking for over a decade. She also holds a doctoral degree (DLA) in Film Arts from the University of Theatre and Film Arts (SZFE) in Budapest, where she currently teaches documentary directing. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the European Film Academy, and a co-founder of the Hungarian Documentary Association (MADOKE).