With over 30 years’ experience in broadcasting and many awards under her belt, Flora is always on a mission to uncover and mentor new talent, and to bring stories made by local filmmakers around the world to an international audience. She conceived and ran Channel 4’s long running Unreported World, and was the founding commissioning editor of Witness, Al Jazeera English’s flagship documentary strand which transmitted to 280 million homes worldwide. Since leaving, she has run workshops for BBC Media Action with Libyan filmmakers, and acted as a mentor for IDFA Academy, East Doc platform, EsoDoc, Docs in Thessaloniki (with the EDN) and Medimed in Sitges. She is the Director of Global Short Docs Forum, and an Executive Producer and a mentor for the One World Media Fellowship.

Dominique is an Executive Producer in international documentary and factual programming. For many years she was Senior Commissioning Producer for the Witness, the observational documentary strand on Al Jazeera English, executive producing programming from Africa and the Middle East with an emphasis on developing young, regional documentary makers. She was also International Executive Producer at Zinc Network, a production and communications company specialising in social change campaigns, overseeing all international filmed output for online platforms.

Fiona is the Executive Producer for Witness, the flagship global documentary strand on Al Jazeera English (AJE). With a small but excellent editorial team, Fiona oversees the broadcast of more than 100 international documentaries annually for the strand. Witness has won numerous awards and has a loyal global audience with more than 1.2 million followers on social media. With more than 20 years’ experience working with documentaries for broadcast, Fiona has commissioned and executive produced films by independent filmmakers from across the globe. Prior to Witness, Fiona worked at the BBC, SBS and is an award-winning graduate of the prestigious Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS). Her career spans living and working in the United Kingdom, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Qatar, where she is currently based.

Horia is a filmmaker and documentary producer at Al Jazeera English, based in Doha. She has been with the channel since 2012. Horia’s films include A Marrakech Tale, Paris: Voice of the Suburbs, When Time Stopped at Sea, East End Undertakers, Undocumented and Under Attack and Out of Sight in Kashmir. Horia is interested in multi-layered, non-judgmental and impact-driven films that explore global issues through personal narratives.

Marianne commissions original digital productions within ARTE France Digital Department. Our objectives are to support creativity, innovation, and public service for digital ecosystems. Some recent coproductions include VR productions Gloomy Eyes and upcoming Battlescar and 4 feet high, fiction series Tu préfères, documentary series Fail in Love and The Internet of Everything.

Rosie is the Digital Documentaries Producer for BBC Arabic, and the founder of Mediadante; an award-winning independent production company making films about the Middle East region for a global audience. She is the producer of the multi award-winning The Workers Cup that premiered on the opening night of Sundance 2017. The International Emmy-award winning Escape from Isis which she developed for Channel 4 and PBS was referenced by the UK Prime Minister in a key speech and shown to the U.S. Congress. She exec produced a CINE Golden Eagle winning series following the rst Saudi woman up Everest, and she is the author of the award-winning book How to Avoid Being Killed in a War Zone (Bloomsbury, 2011).

Ahmed is an award-winning senior investigative journalist and producer at BBC Arabic Documentaries. He’s responsible for building up and strengthening a network of freelance investigative journalists, to produce important in-depth stories from the Middle East and Arab world, to give voice to more voiceless people. He was working with IMS, the Guardian Foundation and ARIJ, as an investigative documentary producer and trainer on a long-term project “Syria in Depth”. Ahmed has a journalism professional fellowship program managed by the international centre for journalists ICFJ, which is funded by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (USA, 2014).

Lesley fuses success in television and digital production with a passion for mentoring and inspiring the next generation of documentary filmmakers. As Executive in Charge of Production for CBC Docs at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Lesley created the award-winning CBC Short Docs – point of view documentaries available internationally on the CBC Docs Youtube channel, on the streaming service CBC Gem in Canada and regularly broadcast nationally on CBC Television. CBC Short Docs have premiered and won awards at festivals worldwide including TIFF, Hot Docs, IDFA, Sheffield, Sundance, DOC NYC and many more. Lesley is passionate about working with and highlighting the voices of filmmakers from underrepresented communities, and her commissions reflect that commitment – over 75% of CBC Short Docs are by BIPOC filmmakers.

Lindsay is Head of Documentaries at the Guardian where she commissions and curates the Guardian’s documentary films. Her core focus is the documentary strand for short films with character-led narratives about compelling, contemporary stories, including the Oscar-winning Colette. Lindsay is passionate about innovation in digital storytelling and has a strong journalistic as well as filmmaking background. Her work has been shown at festivals around the world and has been recognised with a number of prestigious awards.

Jess is Executive Producer of Documentaries and Features at the Guardian. Her documentary titles include; Our Iranian Lockdown, Divided Cities (5 x part series) and Crossing the Line (5 x part series). Her best known drama projects include; What has the ECHR ever done for uswith Partick Stewart and a series of scripted monologues entitled Brexit Shorts and Europeans. Prior to the Guardian, Jess produced and exec produced both documentaries and drama for television, cinema and online, including titles such as; McCullin, double BAFTA nominated feature documentary, Attacking the Devil about the Sunday Times editor Harold Evans which was the Sheffield Jury Prize Winner 2014, Radiator, micro-budget drama feature film exec’d by Rachel Weisz, Akram Khan: Homeland – More 4 one-off documentary on the dancer and choreographer Akram Khan, Rankin Presents; Collabor8te a four part series for Sky Arts exploring the craft of short filmmaking and finally ‘The Arbor’ BAFTA nominated docu-drama, directed by Clio Barnard.

Valeria began her career in photography and documentary producing multimedia and short films for the Italian photo agency Prospekt. In 2011, she joined Panos Pictures, producing, shooting and editing films in Afghanistan, DRC, Jordan, Malawi, Mexico, Mozambique, South Africa and Thailand among others, for online newspapers and magazines, NGOs, international organisations, and film festivals. She joined the Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2016 as a multimedia producer, where she covers humanitarian news and plays a key role in producing and editing the Earth Focus climate change series in partnership with American broadcaster KCET.

Martha started off her journalism career at ITV Wales and BBC Wales working as a researcher and producer for current affairs programmes in both the English and Welsh language. She moved to London in 2016 and freelanced as a video journalist in the indie sector and for the newly-launched Victoria Derbyshire Programme. In 2017, Martha joined the Channel 4 News newsroom at ITN working as a producer and reporter for the award-winning digital team, covering the Grenfell Tower fire, two UK elections, the EU Referendum and a number of terrorist attacks. She later took on the role of Team Leader of digital short form, leading a team to create viral digital campaigns around Channel 4 documentaries and series such as Dispatches and Unreported World. Martha joined the Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2020 to help set the new creative direction of the organisation’s long-form content and YouTube channel.

Shin joined NHK in 1997. He began his career in program-making at NHK Hiroshima Station where he wrote and directed documentaries about untold stories of Atomic Bomb survivors. In 2001, he moved to NHK Broadcasting Center in Tokyo where he continued to direct factual programs focusing on arts and culture. In 2009, he joined NHK’s international co-productions team and assisted the development of large-scale co-pros with international broadcasters as well as author-driven projects with independent filmmakers from around the world. Shin is currently a senior producer in the Media Design unit of Program Production Department, overseeing NHK’s half-hour documentary strand No-Naré while producing one-off specials with domestic and international partners.

Lianne is an award-nominated journalist with over a decade of experience producing and directing documentaries, news and feature content. Prior to her current leadership role at VICE World News, she spent over ten years at CNN International covering breaking news and producing films on human rights, business, the environment, technology and culture. In 2015 she launched CNN Style, overseeing a global team creating films across TV, digital and social platforms. She currently heads up the digital team at VICE World News in London and continues to direct her own independent documentaries.

Mélanie is a French investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker based in London. She has produced and directed short documentaries for The Guardian, NBC Left Field and Vice among others. Always seeking to let underrepresented communities and the story they want to tell guide her process, Mélanie has documented the diamond trade in the Central African Republic, pangolins trafficking in Cameroon, reported on the political crisis in Burundi, travelled with khat smugglers in Djibouti, and been smuggled herself behind army lines by activists in Sri Lanka. She was a nominee for the inaugural Mary Chirwa Award for Courageous Leadership.

Marta is a documentary filmmaker, photographer and writer of Armenian origin. Currently based in London, she continues to develop her independent projects whilst contributing to cultural magazines and working for productions of digital learning content. Her latest short film was about the aftermath of the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, which fuelled her interest in the issues of cultural heritage, identity and collective memory. She is currently developing a new film project in Armenia, which documents a revival of an abandoned scientific heritage site.

Daniel is an artist and filmmaker based in Glasgow. He immerses himself in the lives of his subjects creating work that is at once performative, factual and fictional. In 2017 he screened his debut film ‘The King and I’ about new town Edinburgh eccentric Graham Croan Bee. It has since screened at numerous festivals within the UK and abroad. He had his first solo exhibition ‘Glassmount’ at the Embassy Gallery in Edinburgh in 2018. Regularly collaborating with artists, he was approached by female performance group Stasis to collaborate on several projects including a music video named ‘Faux Pas’ which featured on Nowness in 2017.

Diego is a self-taught videographer, editor, and independent filmmaker from San Diego, California. Through his production company, Diego Lynch Productions, he provides videography services, amplifying the voices of social change-makers. Prior to starting work on “Democracy in America’s Little Baghdad” Diego was in New York – working as a news writer and videographer, after obtaining his M.A. in Journalism from New York University. Diego came from a writing and political-campaigning background before grad-school and received two B.A.s – Economics and Politics from the University of California Santa Cruz.

With a background in filmmaking and journalism, Miriam has always made films that celebrate everyday heroes whether it was a rat killer in Mumbai (The Rat Race), children choosing music over violence in an area known for gang warfare (Lyari Notes) or the unsung heroes of Indian cinema (Stuntmen of Bollywood). Now, she turns the spotlight on the valiant survivors of child sexual violence as they emerge ‘from the shadows’. Miriam’s films have premiered at IDFA, where they were nominated for awards, won the MIPDoc Co-Production Challenge at Cannes, and was nominated for the youth jury award at Sheffield. They have had theatrical release as well as been broadcast on channels like Arte, National Geographic Channel, and Netflix. Miriam is one of 18 mid-career filmmakers selected for the Global Media Makers Fellowship for 2020-21 by Film Independent and the US State Department.

Marina is an award-winning journalist and emerging self-shooting documentary filmmaker from Moldova. Most of her journalistic work is featured by NewsMaker. She was awarded the Senior Minority Fellowship with the UN Human Rights Office and the Sakharov Fellowship with the EU Parliament. She also worked with the UN in Chisinau and Geneva. Last year Marina won the Chevening Scholarship which allowed her to achieve her dream and study DocFilmmaking in the UK. Coming from an ethnic minority background and born in the small town Bessarabca, Marina is passionate about stories that diminish divisions between “us” and “them” and create solidarity among people.

Jeremy is an emerging Filipino filmmaker who earned his bachelor’s degree in Film at the University of the Philippines. He seeks to highlight underrepresented Filipino stories through his work, tackling themes on diaspora, geopolitics, and equality. His short film, Katong Gabii, received international acclaim, including being shortlisted for the 2018 BAFTA Student Film Awards and nominated for Best International Short Film at the 2019 Melbourne Documentary Film Festival. It was most recently screened at the 2019 Visual Documentary Project in Japan. Jeremy is an alumnus of Tribeca Film Institute and In-Docs’ If/Then 2020.

Prashun is a Delhi-based independent filmmaker and journalist. He has produced and co-directed long form documentaries and features for Al Jazeera, France 24, Channel News Asia, DW and ABC among others. A graduate of Delhi University, he has also contributed to pieces for The Telegraph (Calcutta), The Indian Express, USA Today, Le Monde and Los Angeles Times. His work deals with themes of human rights, personal journeys, culture and politics.

Eoin is an Irish-Scottish filmmaker and freelance journalist based in Mexico City. His first documentary, ‘Altsasu’, premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and he has worked for the Guardian, VICE, Al Jazeera, the Irish Times, the New Internationalist, the Herald, Middle East Eye, the Electronic Intifada, the Ferret and others. His work usually focuses on individuals and communities resisting injustices, particularly state violence. Eoin has worked in Mexico, Palestine, Jordan, Ireland and the UK.

Jessi is a Producer/Director with an MA in Documentary Journalism. Her graduation documentary – about the exploitation of Egyptian fixers by global news organisations during the revolution – was shortlisted for a One World Media Award. Part of the 2019 cohort for the International Federation of the Red Cross’ Production in Humanitarian Emergencies programme, she has produced and directed complex global shoots including at a sexual violence clinic in Bangladesh’s poorest slum, with Maasai tribes in Kenya’s savannas, and with ex-detainee asylum seekers in the UK. Most recently she was commissioned to make the 21st film for the Uncertain Kingdom – now released under the name ‘The Forgotten C’. She has several non-fiction projects in development that are all related to the climate crisis.

Joan Njeri has 6 years of experience in the media production and communication field. She is a Producer, Production Manager, and Co-founder of Neolight Productions Limited, a company that offers media production services to its clients by equipping them with products that will move their vision forward and connect them with their audiences. She is a stickler for logistics and planning. Joan believes in the use of media to tell Africa’s transformative stories by showing how we are changing our community’s narratives through social enterprises and businesses leading to positive social impact.

Born and raised in Brazil, Camila is based in Los Angeles, CA. Driven by her passion for storytelling, Camila is currently dedicating herself to projects like Heart of The Hinterlands, a short documentary shot in Brazil. Some of her recent projects include a 4-part series for NPR’s From The Top and various projects for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Her branded work includes pieces for major clients like Starbucks and Red Bull. Camila has been a part of prestigious filmmaking programs such as Film Independent’s Project: Involve, Tribeca Film Institute’s All Access, and Women In Film’s Mentoring Program.

Zara Meerza is an Indian-British filmmaker, journalist, and screenwriter based between London and New York. Previously she worked on projects for HBO, Vice, the BBC, BFI, Sky Arts, Arts Council UK, and Warp Films across feature films, festivals and TV. She has been chosen by the BFI, BAFTA, All3Media, Creative Skillset, and the National Film and Television School for various talent and development initiatives for diverse and underrepresented voices in film and TV. She was a 2018 Sheffield Doc Fest Future Producer and is also a co-founder of Women on Docs LA. She recently finished a stint on Axios on HBO, is currently a Producer at Vice News Tonight, and is directing three feature documentaries. Additionally, Zara serves on screening committees and juries for film festivals, fellowships and screenwriting competitions, including the True/False Film Festival, Camden International, Open City Doc Fest, Women in Film LA, and BAFTA.

Jesper is a Danish film editor and narrative consultant based in Copenhagen and Buenos Aires, but with the world as his workplace. His career started in fiction, but after editing his first documentary he got immediately drawn into non-fiction: “I got fascinated by the process of ‘editing without a script’. It allowed me as the editor to fully engage in the role as the storyteller, and to take on the challenge of transforming a narrative often based on a high level of information into a multilayered, purely emotional narrative, that I knew so well from fiction.” Today his focus is entirely on nonfiction and he has edited way over 100 creative documentaries. Many of them have been selected by festivals like IDFA, Sundance, Berlinale, HotDocs and CPH:dox and have received numerous awards including an international Emmy Award. Jesper also works worldwide as a narrative consultant and story editor, and is a regular tutor at rough cut and pitching workshops for fx., IDF Academy, EDN and IDF.

Sifiso is an award winning documentary filmmaker and archive researcher. Khanyile started his career working as writer and content producer on talk and magazine shows. Khanyile also worked as a local producer on numerous foreign productions, and produced for ABC News (America) for 4 years between 2012 and 2015. Khanyile’s feature debut ‘Uprize!’ has been in 20 international film festivals and has won Best Documentary. His short documentary on tennis player Arthur Ashe won Best Documentary at the 14th edition of Dieciminuti Film Festival in Italy. He recently won Best Director at Jozi Film Festival for his latest documentary ‘A New Country’. As an archive researcher, Khanyile has worked on several international film and television projects. He is a founding member of the Association for Transformation in Film and Television (ATFT) an organisation that aimed to empower, develop and inspire emerging filmmakers from disadvantaged communities. Khanyile is a judge for the South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTA) and has served as jury member for the International Emmys.

Karim is a London based filmmaker. He has produced documentary and current affairs films in close to 40 countries, from Pyongyang to Timbuktu. A versatile filmmaker, Karim’s work ranges from self-shot observational documentaries to undercover investigations. He regularly works for the BBC, Channel 4, Al Jazeera English and PBS Frontline. Karim was awarded a Foreign Press Award in 2016 and has sat on the jury for the Rory Peck and Royal Television Awards.

Eldar is a fresh graduate of Audiovisual Media BA program of Baltic Film and Media School, Estonia. He has made several short films and documentaries during his studies. He was involved in the creative field starting at a young age, working as a digital artist before discovering his passion for documentary films. Eldar is a part of the volunteer-based art project «Giant Steps», with the goal to shed light on the national cultures of the world. Eldar takes interest in exploring the socially underrepresented groups, subcultures and the deep nature of identity.

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Thaakirah obtained her BA in film production from the University of Cape Town (UCT) in 2013. During this time, two of the student films that she produced screened at major South African film festivals – including The Durban International Film Festival. The following year, she graduated with an Honours degree in the first class. After leaving university, she worked first as a production assistant then as a production coordinator specialising in feature films and still shoots. She has freelanced for numerous local service production companies and has worked on projects for the BBC, Netflix, and 20th Century Fox, to name a few. In 2021, she completed her master’s degree in Documentary Arts. A self-proclaimed cinephile, she continues to work in the film service industry while pursuing her passion for documentary filmmaking.

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Prasuna is a documentary filmmaker from Kathmandu. She works as a DocLab Coordinator at KIMFF. She is also one of the Mentors for the Camera Sika project run by British Council Nepal. Her recent documentary ‘Dolpa Diary’ (2019) was screened in many festivals in and outside of Nepal. The documentary was awarded the Best Adventure Film at KIMFF 2018 and Best Woman Filmmaker in Human Rights International Film Festival (HRIFF) 2019. Prasuna’s work broadly concerns collective memory and an in-depth account of personal experiences. Currently, she is working on a documentary which is an exploration of intergenerational ideologies of three women.

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Madeline is a writer, artist and filmmaker based in Buenos Aires and New York. She graduated from Barnard College, Columbia University with honors theses in Gender & Sexuality studies and Psychology. As a recent Fulbright scholar, she directed her first, self-shot documentary “A Meeting Point,” which debuted at festivals across Latin America and the US. She has previously published award-winning work as a social science researcher and now uses film to explore questions about personal and social change, resistance, truth and identity.

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Myriam is a Franco-British journalist, broadcaster and filmmaker from London. She has an academic background including a PhD from Oxford on islamic political movements and is a Research Associate at the SOAS Centre of Islamic studies.

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Sheida is a British-Turkish documentary filmmaker and musician based in London. She conducted research on women and migration during her BSc Social Sciences studies at UCL. This led to her MA in Documentary Film at LCC and position as production coordinator at award-winning charity Medical Aid Films, where she supports the production of health films for vulnerable women and children in countries such as Zambia, Thailand, and India. Driven by her passion for ethnographic storytelling, her most recent work focuses on documenting women in agriculture and their rights to land ownership. Through her experience of scoring for film, she often uses music as a tool to build narratives.

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Kagiso is an alumnus of the prestigious Big Fish School of Digital Filmmaking and the renowned Nemisa. Kagiso took his passion for both the art of filmmaking and the business sense necessary for a thriving brand and launched Canvus Productions. Canvus Productions prioritizes projects that are about promoting engaging and thought provoking conversations about various topics that influence who we are as individuals and as a society. Recently Kagiso directed and produced an SABC licensed documentary ‘Botshelo: Born In a Pandemic’ which is currently in post-production. His follow up production is ‘Unsung Heroines: Emelda Masango’, a 24 minute documentary in development.

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Chona is a documentary filmmaker interested in compelling ways of portraying the human experience, particularly those that touch on social inequality and cultural identity. She was a recipient of the Monbukagakusho Scholarship Award and finished her studies in Japanese language and Photography at Tokyo Visual Arts College. Her debut film IN SANTA ANA, about the only public institution for people with intellectual disabilities in the Philippines, won Best Film at the Sorok Short Film Festival and was nominated for Best International Short Film at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival. Her previous projects have been selected for development at Docs by the Sea and at Dok Leipzig’s Short n’ Sweet.

Lydia is a filmmaker based in Nairobi, Kenya. Her latest works include Sungura (rabbit), a short fictional film revolving around sexuality, disability and inclusiveness. The film was a finalist at the Interfilm International Short Film Festival’s Script Pitch Competition in Berlin. Her documentary, Utapata Mwingine (You Will Get Another One) was released in 2020 and has so far been selected to various festivals including Global Voices UN Women Film Festival; and has been nominated for prizes at two other festivals. Her other fictional short film Millet won the Kenyan scriptwriting competition, Shorts, Shots & Shots in 2018. In addition, Lydia is one of the writer/creators of Country Queen, a Kenyan/German co-produced TV series which was recently optioned by Netflix. Before becoming a filmmaker, Lydia was a journalist. She was awarded the Young Journalist of the Year Award in the print category by the Media Council of Kenya in 2014 and the Gender Reporting Award the following year.

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Ahmed is an Egyptian film writer and director. He recently graduated from Central Film School in London with an MA in Directing Fiction through Chevening Scholarship. He has over 7 years experience filmmaking, working in different formats including short fiction, commercials, music videos, digital content and documentaries in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and the UK. He’s passionate about increasing representation in the media and supporting narratives that focus on understanding human nature, removing cultural barriers and finding empathy.

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Achiro hails from Gulu, in Northern Uganda and she is an award winning writer, playwright and filmmaker. She has won numerous awards for her ‘Coffee shop’ TV series as creator and writer and ‘Yat Madit’ as head writer; and her short films; ‘The Surrogate’, ‘The Mineral Basket’, ‘Maraya Ni’. She is presently working on a documentary ‘Prison Talk’ in development as well as two feature narrative scripts – ‘The General’s Amnesty’ and ‘The Surrogate’. Telling stories is her life.

Instagram | Twitter | achiropolwoch.com

Nirupama is a filmmaker based in India. With special interests in psychology and philosophy, she aims to bring to light the rich layers in human stories with honesty and simplicity. She studied at the MET Film School in Ealing Studio’s, London and soon after made her first feature documentary ‘Their Last Weapon’ about hereditary folk musicians in Western Rajasthan. It was selected to be part of the 10th Jeevika Livelihood Documentary Festival, New Delhi and the Mumbai Women’s International Film Festival and the prestigious Rajasthan International Folk Festival. She has worked as a freelance writer, director and editor with various production companies, media and news agencies.

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Andrea is an independent documentary filmmaker. She attended USC School of Cinematic Arts for MFA in Film and Television and was awarded the prestigious Harold Lloyd Memorial Fund Scholarship and Irvin Keshner Fund for Documentary Filmmaking. Her films have been presented at Sheffield Meet/Market, Edinburgh Pitch, DMZ Docs Industry, and Docs By The Sea. She is currently a fellow of Scottish Documentary Institute’s Connecting Stories 2021. Her films focus on character-driven narratives especially on underrepresented communities. She is also working on films around Chinese-Indonesians, a topic still taboo and often erased in the history of Indonesia.

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Lucia is a Spanish journalist and documentary filmmaker based in London. She is passionate about using film as a means for changemaking and peacebuilding, and she embeds herself in the lives of her subjects to tell compelling stories of global importance through a personal lens. Lucia is a Staff Writer at The Calvert Journal, an award-winning magazine for culture in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and a co-organiser of The Calvert Journal Film Festival. Lucia holds an MFA in documentary filmmaking, and her latest project brought her to Armenia to tell the stories of those displaced by the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War.

Instagram | Twitter | luciadelatorre.com | Vimeo

Andrew is a senior commissioning producer at Al Jazeera English. He has experience commissioning, producing and editing films from all over the globe, for digital and for broadcast. He currently commissions films for Witness, Al Jazeera English’s broadcast documentary strand; “An inspiring documentary series that brings world issues into focus through compelling human stories.”

Barbara is a commissioning editor in the Digital Department of ARTE France. She oversees programs such as web series (non-fiction/fiction), VR/AR/XR experiences or narrative video games. Some recent coproductions include VR productions “-22.7°C” and upcoming “Missing Pictures”, the AR experience “Fortune”, documentary series “Fail in Love” and “The Internet of Everything”.

Adam is the Executive Producer on Our World, the BBC international current affairs documentary strand which runs on BBC World News, the BBC News Channel and BBC iPlayer. He is looking for engaging films about the way the world is changing – powerful human stories which give audiences the bigger picture. Our World broadcasts around 30 x 23’ films every year.

Lesley fuses success in television and digital production with a passion for mentoring and inspiring the next generation of documentary filmmakers. As Executive in Charge of Production for CBC Docs at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Lesley overseas the award-winning CBC Short Docs – point of view documentaries available internationally on the CBC Docs Youtube channel, on the streaming service CBC Gem in Canada and on CBC Television. Her commissions include Academy Awards-shortlisted Frame 394, Canadian Screen Award-winners Take Me to Prom and Sing Me a Lullaby, Sundance award-winner Fast Horse and viral Youtube success Finding Fukue. Lesley is passionate about working with and highlighting the voices of filmmakers from underrepresented communities, and her commissions reflect that commitment.

Katia a multimedia journalist based in Tbilisi, Georgia reporting on disinformation and authoritarian technology. She works at Coda Story where she is the multimedia editor. She is the series producer of Generation Gulag, 11 mini-documentaries uncovering the impact of Russia’s campaign to rewrite the history of Gulag survivors; and of Jailed for a Like, six films telling the stories of Russians who have been prosecuted or imprisoned for their posts, shares or likes on social media, which was shortlisted for the European Press Prize in 2018. Her journalism has appeared in the Guardian, NBC, the Atlantic among other publications.

Co-founder of Coda, Natalia is an Emmy-nominee and award-winning journalist. Originally from Tbilisi, Georgia she started her career freelancing in West Africa. Since then, she had been BBC’s resident correspondent in the Caucasus, Central Asia, Middle East, Washington DC and India. She has covered the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, the war in Eastern Ukraine and reported undercover from Burma, Yemen and Uzbekistan. Her investigations into human rights abuses in Central Asia, Iraq and the United States have won her a number of awards. In addition to a career in broadcast journalism, Natalia has also written for the Guardian, Forbes magazine and the New Yorker among others.

Born in Tokyo, Takahiro began working for NHK as a director in 1990. After working at the Hiroshima Branch of NHK, he was in charge of “Today’s Close-up” and “NHK Special”. In 2020, he studied filmmaking at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. Since returning to Japan, he has continued to produce, focusing on international co-productions. After the Great East Japan Earthquake, he produced “Journey to the Disaster Zone: Japan 311” which won awards at film festivals in New York and Chicago in 2012, and “My Atomic Aunt which won awards at the Hamburg Film Festival in Germany in 2013.

He has worked on more than 30 international co-productions, including “Stolen Lives”, “Nano Revolution”, “Spaceship Earth”, “Equator 360”, and “Music for Tomorrow.” The film he produced, “Mother of Change” (2019), won the ATP Grand Prize. He was the first Japanese to win the Doc Mogul Award at the 2015 Hot Docs Festival, and won the Prix Italia and the ABU Digital Content Award for his work on the 2020 “Experience Tokyo Megaquake “. The international co-production with South Korea, “Burning” (2019), won The Critics’ Prizes at Cannes, New York, and LA film festivals. Also, it was selected for Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards; the final nine-film shortlist. In recent years, he has continued to develop a platform for short documentaries; developing a 10-minute series project with Yahoo! Japan and bilibili (China) as well as NHK “Real Stories”.

Marc is the Head of the BBC’s Investigations Unit which is a newly created team, leading on global long-form investigations around the world. As the former Documentaries Editor for BBC Arabic TV and then Editor of BBC Africa Eye, Marc has a wealth of expertise in undercover documentary making, particularly in challenging or hostile environments. During his time his team’s investigations have led to change laws in Nigeria, released prisoners from illegal detention centres in Kenya and held soldiers to account for murder in Cameroon.

Zara is a British-Indian filmmaker, writer and executive who has worked for HBO, the BBC, Warp Films, Sky Arts, VICE and more. She served as Director of Acquisitions for the Short List on VICE News, has written for Industry on HBO, and has reported on areas such as finance, technology, politics, and healthcare. She has also served as screener and jury member for a number of festivals and organizations including Doc Society, True/ False Film Festival, the Camden International Film Festival, Open City Doc Fest, BAFTA, the Black List, Women in Film, and more. Her upcoming projects include a documentary about the Olsen Twins and a documentary-series about Venmo.

Mike is an Executive in Charge of Production at CBC Docs. In prior roles, Mike was an award-winning journalist covering topics from international development to pop culture, working in print, radio, video and online. He helped develop CBC Gems’s digital original strategy and worked on projects like Jensplaining, Farm Crime, A-Yi, and UFO Town. He also manages the CBC Docs digital team, helping to promote individual docs across a variety of digital platforms.

Horia is a filmmaker and commissioning producer at Al Jazeera English, based in Doha. She has been with the channel since 2012. Horia’s films include A Marrakech Tale, Paris: Voice of the Suburbs, When Time Stopped at Sea, East End Undertakers, Undocumented and Under Attack and Out of Sight in Kashmir. She is interested in multi-layered, non-judgmental and impact-driven films that explore global issues through personal narratives.

Charlie produces the new documentary strand on Vice World News. Previously he worked across Asia and Africa as a filmmaker and journalist for Al Jazeera, the Atlantic and the Guardian amongst others, creating ambitious investigative films focussing on human rights abuses that have challenged dictators and Nobel Peace Prize winners alike. A multi-award-winning producer, he collaborates with filmmakers around the world with all levels of experience, often working in remote and hostile environments. Charlie combines innovative forms of filmmaking with investigative journalism adapted for the latest digital platforms. He is looking from the next generation of talent for broad and untold film ideas, which are ambitious and international in scope.

Habak is a Syrian filmmaker who worked in Syria during the most difficult times and filmed six years of the war. He has worked with several international channels, such as the BBC and CNN as a cameraman and field producer. After living and documenting the siege of Aleppo, he fled to the UK in 2017. Habak lives in London, where he is building a career as a documentary filmmaker. His first short documentary, Her Stories, premiered in festivals in 2021 and is currently working on impact with the support of Heinrich Boll Stiftung, Beirut.

Astrig is a French-Armenian journalist and photographer, born in Marseille. After studying political science and journalism at Sciences Po Paris, she started freelancing as a reporter and camerawoman in France. After the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh, she started covering conflict zones in Karabakh, Armenia and Ukraine, focusing on human rights issues and how populations are affected in the long term by those events. Astrig focuses on the intersection between geopolitics, territory, marginality and memory in the post-Soviet space. She is currently mainly working in the Caucasus and Eastern Europe. Her work has been published by Agence Hans Lucas, Agence France-Presse (AFP), Radio Télévision Suisse, The Guardian, Le Figaro, Der Standard and others.

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Biswajit is a documentary filmmaker and animator based in Guwahati, India. Since 2011, he has directed short documentary films, short animation videos and a 13-episode documentary series for Doordarshan Arunprabha. He has also created various experimental films and has edited many documentary films and videos. He teaches filmmaking in various universities and workshops across the country.

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Chika is a multimedia journalist with a focus on reporting issues of national and geographical relevance. On radio, he co-hosts the breakfast show on Radio Now 95.3FM, a leading news and current affairs media outlet in Lagos state, where, on a daily basis, he reports on leading national and global stories by speaking with journalists, government officials, business leaders, and subject-matter experts. On television, he occasionally hosts Pivotal on Channels TV, while also hosting other national conversations, speaking with federal lawmakers on Open Square, and political aspirants on The Candidates.

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Elahe’s first film, The Doll (2021), is awarded as Best International Short at Hot Docs 2021, and nominated/selected for prestigious awards like International Documentary Association (IDA), Critics Choice Awards, Student Academy Awards, One World Media Award as well as prestigious festivals including more than 10 Oscar qualifying festivals such as Full Frame Documentary FF, Atlanta FF, Athens IFVF, Kerala IDSFFK and tens of other international festivals. She focuses on children’s and women’s rights, issues like child marriage, child abuse, neglect or violence by parents, rape, women-against-women, and social inequalities. She is an MA student in Directing at National Film and Television School, UK, and a BA Alumna from Tehran University of Art, Iran.

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Hussain is a Psychology graduate from the University of New South Wales. He is an aspiring filmmaker, having worked with satirical film team Sheno Ya3ni and their commercial branch Toledo Libre in roles of cameraman, editor and assistant director, with news channels Al Qabas as researcher and host of an investigative episode on prescription drug abuse in Kuwait. Other works have included making PSAs for Kuwaiti NGOs Human Line and Gray area. His interest lies in documentary filmmaking pertaining to social issues within Kuwaiti society.

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Keerti is an emerging journalist and documentary filmmaker from NYC. As a Fulbright-National Geographic Storytelling Fellow, she studied and documented climate action, adaptation, and resilience in Taiwan with an emphasis on youth and indigenous voices. She’s now working on a short documentary film highlighting efforts for climate action and cultural preservation in Taiwan’s Alishan mountains. Keerti’s last short film, on NYC first responders during the pandemic, premiered at the 2021 American Documentary Film Festival and won a Chicago/Midwest College Emmy. Keerti graduated from Northwestern University in 2021 and is now a fellow at the Solutions Journalism Network.

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Jasmin is a videographer and documentary filmmaker based in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. With experience working for major domestic newspapers and magazines, his works have been published in prestigious international outlets such as The Guardian and Le Monde Diplomatique. Jasmin is passionate about telling personal stories and creating documentary projects, having received multiple grants including Ex-changes and SEE New Perspectives. He is also interested in videography and documentary filmmaking, He was selected to participate in the Young Filmmakers for Peace project in 2014 and got Al Jazeera Balkans Film Festival SMARTDOC grant for his project Village is Mine in 2022.

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Liudmyla was born in Lviv, Western Ukraine. She holds a Bachelor of Culture Studies from the Ukrainian Catholic University. She worked as an assistant in the media archive of the City History Center, and is a co-author of reports in the Fall on Pluto 2.0 project. She is the literary editor at Pinzel AR, the second director and producer in the video reports about the pandemic in WE: Art Media Project. She worked as the coordinator of the information project in the Post to Stop War project and as producer and grant manager of Chronicles of War. She has produced reports and short documentaries about the war in Ukraine. She is the producer and co-dramaturge of the multimedia theatrical project Chronicles of War, Love and Hatred, which participated in international Theatre Festivals Divadelna Nitra, Slovakia and Urbäng! Festival, Germany.

Michael is a dynamic filmmaker from Accra, Ghana. With a background in engineering, he excels in the art of documentary filmmaking and is driven by a passion for storytelling. He aims to bring underrepresented perspectives to life in his work.

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Mithun is a Kolkata-based filmmaker and producer. He plays every role in the production process, including director, director of photography, producer, and editor. His work has been shown on channels like BBC, Al Jazeera, National Geographic, DW, Zinc etc. One of his films as a producer got a Gracie award in 2014. His recent film got the best documentary film award at the 14th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala 2022. His stories range from science to politics and human rights issues.

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Nancy is an independent documentary filmmaker based in Ecuador, with strong ties with New York and California. She focuses on stories related to social justice. In 2019, she directed and produced the micro documentary series Makana: women fighting against extractive industries and climate change. The series premiered at the Sguardi Altrove International Women’s Film Festival in Italy. She is currently in production of her first feature – As in Old Days. The project was selected for The Gotham Owning It Accountability Challenge program (NY), ACAMPADOC (Panamá) and Docs in Progress (Washington DC).

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Smriti is the Executive Director for Kathaharu Productions, a Kathmandu based production company. As the head of a successful company which produces commissioned documentaries, short films and advertisements, Basnet has wide experiences in producing communication products. Her hands-on experience in filmmaking is complimented by her previous profession as a writer and journalist. Basnet has worked as a reporter for multiple national and international publications, such as Economic Times, Nepali Times and ECS Media, among others.

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Toka is an Egyptian freelance multimedia journalist, documentary filmmaker, studio manager, and post-producer working with regional and international media entities, such as Egab, DW’s Eco Africa, and BBC’s People Fixing the World. She is also working as a teaching assistant at the American University in Cairo and has a Master’s degree in TV and Digital Journalism from the same institution. She is a DW constructive journalism ambassador, and her work focuses on individuals’ efforts for positive change and the challenges that come with big dreams. She usually works as a one-person crew and considers each story a new adventure.

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Valentin is an emerging documentary film director from Bucharest, Romania. Coming from a background in advertising, social photography, publishing and experimental hands-on documentary work, Valentin is currently studying the MA of Documentary Filmmaking at UNATC Bucharest. His work mainly focuses on raw observation of minorities in their true colours, always immersing himself in the story of the chosen subjects.

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An award-winning filmmaker, Vincent has produced more than twenty documentaries for international broadcasters and organisations, including Al Jazeera, BBC, NHK, Channel NewsAsia and the World Health Organization. His films have been screened at IDFA, Visions du Réel, CPH:DOX, DOC NYC, and other international documentary film festivals. As a producer, Vincent’s projects have received support from several prestigious film funds around the world, including the Sundance Documentary Fund, the IDFA Bertha Fund, the Netherlands Film Fund and the DMZ Documentary Fund. Vincent currently teaches filmmaking at the University of Sussex.

Lali is a British-Peruvian independent filmmaker and investigative journalist, currently based in Bogota, who specialises in observational documentaries for international networks such as the BBC, Discovery, Al Jazeera, Channel 4, Netflix and Vice News. An Al-Jazeera Witness regular contributor, his Dead Woman’s Pass that follows a female porter on the infamous Inca trail won awards at Palm Spring, Austin and Havana. In 2018, he was a Rory Peck finalist for Smuggling Dreams, a documentary that portrays the life of a young father and fisherman who enters the smuggling trade on the east coast of Venezuela. In 2014, Lali spent 8 months filming First Contact: Last Tribe of the Amazon for Channel 4 UK and Netflix, which follows the plight of two tribes coming out of isolation in the border lands of Peru and Brazil. The documentary won an RTS (Royal Television Society) Award for science and natural history program in the UK. During the pandemic he contributed for the film Convergence soon out on Netflix. 

Pavlo was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and studied at the Dokdokdok School of Contemporary Photography. In 2019, he directed his first short documentary film, Diary 1937, as part of the Documentary Film Lab. In 2021, he became one of the winners of the Odesa Photo Days competition with his documentary project Without a Hint of Art. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, he has been focusing on documenting events in his hometown of Kharkiv. His photographs have been published in many European publications, including Der Spiegel, and the American New York Times and New Yorker. In 2022, he won a grant from DOCUDAYS and the Goethe Institute to produce a short documentary, and his feature documentary METRO 2022 won the EFM award at the Ji.Hlava New Visions Forum 2022.

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Peter is the Development Executive Producer for BBC Africa Eye. He is a multiple award-winning Kenyan documentary director/producer focusing on hard-hitting social issues. His feature-length documentary I Am Samuel (2020) tells the story of a gay Kenyan man’s struggle for acceptance and has been shown at more than a dozen film festivals, including Hot Docs, BFI and Human Rights Watch. Peter has led numerous investigations for BBC Africa Eye including The Baby Stealers (2020), which exposed a child trafficking syndicate and led to multiple arrests, and Suicide Stories (2019), for which he won the Rory Peck News Features Award. He has made films in 30 African countries for major media outlets including Al Jazeera and Channel 4 News. His first major win was the CNN Africa Journalist of the Year Award for his intimate film about Female Genital Mutilation among his Kuria community, Walk to Womanhood (2004). 

Lesley fuses success in television and digital production with a passion for mentoring and inspiring the next generation of documentary filmmakers. As Executive in Charge of Production for CBC Docs at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Lesley overseas the award-winning CBC Short Docs – point of view documentaries available internationally on the CBC Docs Youtube channel, on the streaming service CBC Gem in Canada and on CBC Television. Her commissions include Academy Awards-shortlisted Frame 394, Canadian Screen Award-winners Take Me to Prom and Sing Me a Lullaby, Sundance award-winner Fast Horse and viral Youtube success Finding Fukue. Lesley is passionate about working with and highlighting the voices of filmmakers from underrepresented communities, and her commissions reflect that commitment.

Albertine Rae is an executive producer at whynow media. She has been at the business for three years, during which time she established their digital production company, and developed The Sunday Times Culture Show, a weekly arts magazine programme for Britain’s most prestigious news title. She now heads up the Great Big Story production team, commissioning global short documentaries for an audience of 14m followers across all platforms.

Lindsay is a multi-award winning documentary filmmaker and journalist who is passionate about innovation in digital storytelling and new platforms. She has produced a wide range of documentaries and multimedia interactives on subjects ranging from climate change to the First World War, the global garment industry in Bangladesh to the psychological impact of solitary confinement in American prisons.

Charlie is a documentary film commissioner, programmer, producer, and consultant. He commissions all short documentaries for Lyfta, an immersive learning platform for schools, featuring storyworlds about inspiring real human stories that spark curiosity, empathy and compassion. Charlie was previously the Head of Video at The Guardian, overseeing all moving image for the Guardian’s platforms, including the winner of the short documentary Oscar in 2021, and best short at the BAFTAs 2022. He is currently the main programmer for Folkestone Documentary Festival, was previously Deputy Director and EP Industry Participation at Sheffield Doc/Fest, and has led training programmes and mentored filmmakers across the world.

Lucia Torres is based in Spain and began her journalism career in 2017. She currently coordinates Mongabay’s global video team as Digital Editor. Before joining Mongabay, Lucia gained experience as a writer and producer in Spanish national media such as RTVE, Prisa Radio, Agencia SINC, etc. She has also worked for educational science TV and radio shows.  

Whitney heads our product team – handling audio, visual, and web content – and audience engagement strategy to maximise the reach and impact of our journalism.

Ciara Lee joined The New Humanitarian as Multimedia Editor after 13 years as a video journalist at Reuters. Ciara has a wealth of both field and desk-based experience in producing and designing stories to reach broadcast and digital audiences. Ciara leads efforts to further develop our multimedia offerings, and deepen our engagement with audiences across various channels and platforms.

Markus Stein, studied visual communication and is actually a designer. His love for visual explanations brought him to the German public broadcaster ZDF, where he worked from 2009-2018, producing explainer videos for national news and Germany’s most successful news magazine “heutejournal”. Since July 2018, he worked as a video editor with a focus on explainer videos at Neue Zürcher Zeitung – one of the preeminent news sources in the German-speaking world – and led the web video team since September 2018. In October 2020, he took over as head of the newly established department, “Video & TV” and has since led the video team as well as the documentary programme, “NZZ Format. 

Jacob Templin is an award-winning filmmaker and journalist. He is the head of video at the Thomson Reuters Foundation and was formerly an executive producer at Quartz and a senior producer at Time.

Andy is Series Producer of Unreported World, Channel 4’s flagship foreign-affairs documentary series. Andy works with commissioners at Channel 4 and independent filmmakers to select the most compelling stories to be turned into half-hour documentaries. The recently rebranded series has been seen by millions of viewers covering big issues and unique underreported topics across the globe, from food insecurity, the illegal drugs trade, sustainability and the climate crisis.  Andy has also produced numerous investigations for Dispatches and Channel 4 News.

Emily Wanja uses storytelling to drive social change. She is an award-winning impact producer of the campaign dubbed ‘We Can Fight Climate Change’ for the feature documentary ‘ Thank you for the Rain’ in conjunction with Docubox (East Africa Documentary Film Fund) and Ground Volume International. She works with Government agencies, Private stakeholders, Civil Society, and Communities, using film as a tool for advocacy and social change. 

Previously, she was the consulting in-house producer at Docubox (East Africa Documentary film fund). She has worked extensively with young farmers across Kenya through ‘Seeds of Gold’ TV show and the leading newspaper version for youth and agribusiness at Nation Africa Media Group. She has produced TV shows for numerous networks in Kenya and has worked on international fiction co-productions films. She leads the Climate Story Lab Africa edition, and is on the Story Board Collective Advisory, the Global Impact Producers Alliance Transitional Committee and a former member of Climate Justice Resilience Fund – Advisory Council. She works at Doc Society as the Director of African Programmes.

Treezer Michelle is an award-winning health and science journalist, who is currently a correspondent at Science Africa and editor at Root of Science Media. Her work has been featured on the World Solution Story Tracker. She has a degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from Kenya and a certificate in Science Communication from Stellenbosch University.

Ade is a creative and critical innovator who builds awareness about social issues through insightful documentaries; like his work covering the lives of special needs children in Nigeria, the exploitation of child domestic workers in Nigeria and an experimental awareness piece on the lived realities of people living with albinism in Nigeria. 

Lilys is an award-winning multimedia health and climate change journalist with Nation Media Group in Nairobi and a Reuters Institute-OCJN 2024 fellow. Her expertise includes breaking down complex topics for varied audiences and putting human faces on health and climate change issues. 

Nick is an award-winning narrative filmmaker who brings fresh perspectives to life through visuals and audio. An alumnus of the CinemadaMare film institute in Italy, he directed and produced ‘Street Dreams’ for BBC Africa Eye, for which he received a special mention in the 2022 OWM Feature Doc category. He has also worked on three other feature films for BBC Africa Eye. 

Melony is an award-winning multimedia journalist. Her debut film, #dontcuther, an investigation of female genital mutilation in Nigeria, was viewed by more than 20 million. Her work covers entertainment, social advocacy, education, health and politics. Melony trained in Nigeria, Kenya and with Radio Netherlands Training Centre.

As a freelance journalist, Tijani covers health, inclusive economies, education, and development for national and international media. He received the 2022 African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP) Prize for excellence in emerging health technologies reporting. He is currently the Africa Editor for a newly established Paris-based media outlet. 

Ken Kiunga is a Google News Initiative Teaching Fellow. He trains journalists and journalism students across Africa on digital tools useful for finding, verifying and telling stories. He has over a decade of experience in broadcast, print and digital media. 

Anthony Irungu is an accomplished mobile and digital journalism trainer with extensive journalism experience working for local and international media. With a strong background in digital video production, he has led multimedia teams at the BBC, developing innovative digital content strategies that resonate with young and underserved audiences.

Hellen Shikanda is an award winning science journalist who has been a reporter for five years with the Nation Media Group. She has been part of a number of regional and international fellowships such as the Women in News fellowship, the Climate Tracker COP27 fellowship and the National Press Foundation fellowship on Covering Rare Diseases, Thomson Foundation’s Bettina Fund Mentorship Program, the Oxford Climate Journalism Network, Africa Resilience Network , the Africa Academy of Open-Source Investigation, Internews Health Journalism Network and the Earth Journalism Network. She has received a number of local and international awards from the Media Council of Kenya, Covering Climate Now, IGAD media Awards, ICPAC Climate Awards for female journalist, Afidep Awards on Emerging Health Technologies and was recently the first African-based journalist to win the June L Biedler Award for Cancer Journalism.

She hosts a podcast called the Climate Voices Podcast. 

Arnoldo Cuéllar Ornelas is a journalist and editor of print and electronic media in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico, with a career that began in 1982. He is the founder of the Laboratory of Journalism and Public Opinion. He practices the genres of political columns, editorials, investigative reporting, and chronicles. He has won the National Journalism Award in 2021 and 2022.