Ehsan Khoshbakht is an Iranian filmmaker, curator and author, based in London. His debut feature Filmfarsi (2019), about the lost Iranian cinema of the Shah’s era, was released in the US by Gunpowder/Criterion, and screened at over 50 film festivals and cinematheques around the world. He has also made several archive documentaries for BBC Persian, including Duke Ellington in Isfahan (2021), which was selected for Telluride. Khoshbakht is co-director of Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, the world’s premier festival for film history and restoration.

Sahra Mosawi-Mani is an award-winning documentary flmmaker, university lecturer and the founder of the Afghanistan Documentary House. She started working in media in 2001 with the goal of using media as a catalyst for good. She has got her Masters Degree in Documentary Filmmaking from the University of the Arts in London. She focuses on creating documentaries centered around her country of origin, Afghanistan, which lacks democracy and equality.

Born in Tehran, Firouzeh Khosrovani settled in Italy to pursue her artistic studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera. After graduating in 2002 she returned to Iran and acquired her Master’s degree in Journalism. She now lives between Tehran and Rome. Her debut film, Life Train (2004), is a documentary on the ‘play’ therapy provided for the traumatized children of the earthquake in Bam. In 2007, she directed Rough Cut, a film about mutilated plastic mannequins in the shop windows of Tehran, which won thirteen international film festival awards. Her last work, Fest of Duty, follows two adolescent girls as they transition into adulthood, eight years after their official Fest of Duty. The film won the OXFAM award at IDFA in 2014.