Christina Zachariades - Brooklyn, New York
Christina is a researcher and filmmaker. Her curious spirit initially led her to a career in consumer ethnography, researching how messaging impacts attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors. After ten years in the field, she began transitioning her skills into non-fiction film with a focus on domestic cinema and home movies. Her short film Lavandaria Publica (2017) was screened in several international film festivals, and she was part of the 2020 artist residency at UnionDocs, working alongside other artists engaged in political media production for social movements. She is also on the screening committee at the Camden International Film Festival.
Christina holds an M.A. from the University of Texas in Austin and a graduate of the Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters Program, DocNomads (2018), where she studied at LUCA School of Arts in Brussels, Lusófona University in Lisbon, and the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest.
Aylin Gökmen - Zurich, Switzerland
Aylin is a Swiss-Turkish filmmaker and co-producer for Docs in Orbit. She holds a B.A. in Arts from Lausanne University and an M.A. in Documentary Filmmaking from the DocNomads program (2016 - 2018). Her films combine documentary and fictional approaches, often revolving around themes of memory, imagination and landscape. Her short film Spirits and Rocks: An Azorean Myth (2020) had its World Premiere at Locarno and went on to screen internationally in over 60 festivals including Sundance and Telluride. Aylin is also a member of the Executive Committee of SWAN (Swiss Women’s Audiovisual Network).
Hosein Jalilvand - Geneva, Switzerland
Hosein Jalilvand is an Iranian film director-scholar and contributor to Docs in Orbit. His films play with the intersections of history and cinema. He was born in Meymeh, a small town in the center of Iran, and has recently moved to Geneva. After completing his bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering, Hosein began pursuing his long interests in cinema with a Master’s in Film Studies at the University of Tehran and a Master of Arts in Documentary Film Directing from DocNomads (2016 - 2018).
His short documentary “Song of the Bell” (DocLisboa, 2018) won the best director award in the Green Years competition section. Since then, he has been researching a series of texts about colonialism and its manifestation in wildlife movies while developing a feature documentary on the topic.
Pranav Narayan Manandhar - Tallinn, Estonia
Pranav Narayan Manandhar is a multidisciplinary artist whose works explore the themes of mind, memory and South Asian philosophies through the mediums of film, music and photography. He is currently pursuing his masters in documentary filmmaking at Baltic Film, Media and Arts School, Estonia. He has a degree in Buddhist Studies from Rangjung Yeshe Institute and likes to explore the relation and friction of Buddhist philosophy with modern-day living. His short documentary ‘Portrait of MaNe’ won the Best Documentary Nepal Panorama at Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival (KIMFF) in 2019.
Emile Klein - Los Angeles, California
Emile Klein is a collaborative artist, sometimes journalist, exploring the formal and ideological transferals between painting and non-fiction durational media. His subject is simple–creating space to observe the structural implication of audio-visual language. His collaborations have been presented by institutions such as SFMoMA, NYFF, UnionDocs, Visions Du Reel, NPR, the New School, Radiophrenia, Veggie Cloud, and covered by publications including the NYTimes, the New Yorker, Vice, Mother Jones, and GQ. Klein currently lives in California.
Nnenna Onuoha - Berlin, Germany
Nnenna Onuoha is a Ghanaian-Nigerian researcher and artist based in Berlin, Germany. Her films and videos centre Afrodiasporic voices to explore monumental silences surrounding the histories and afterlives of colonialism across West Africa, Europe and the US. A second strand of her work focuses on archiving Black experience in the present to chronicle the practice of care and repair for ourselves and each other.
Nnenna is a doctoral researcher in Media Anthropology at Harvard University and Global History at the University of Potsdam. She holds a BA in History, Literature, and Anthropology from Harvard College, an MPhil in World History from the University of Cambridge, and an MA in Documentary Filmmaking from DocNomads (2016 - 2018).
She was a 2021 participant of the Goldrausch Künstlerinnen Projekt and Berlin Program for Artists. She is also a 2021 fellow in the project “Global Memories of German Colonialism” at the University of Hamburg.
Teyama Alkamli - Toronto, Canada
Teyama Alkamli is an award-winning Syrian-Canadian writer, director, and producer living in Toronto. She is an alumn of DocNomads (2014-2016), Hot Docs Emerging Filmmaker Lab, the Canadian Film Centre's Director Lab, and TIFF Talent Accelerator. Teyama's film, Hockey Mom (2021), was awarded Best Documentary Program at the 2021 Canadian Screen Awards. Her other works have been screened at international film festivals such as Doc Lisboa, TIFF, and the Berlinale. She was a co-writer for Concrete Valley (2022), a drama film directed by Antoine Bourges, and is currently working on a short fiction film I Never Promised You A Jasmine Garden as well as her narrative feature debut, My Name is Jala.
Venice Atienza - Manilla, Philippines
Venice is a filmmaker and co-producer of Docs in Orbit. Her first feature documentary, Last Days at Sea (2021) premiered at the Berlinale and screened in festivals around the world, including Visions du Réel, Hot Docs, and DMZ Docs. Venice is also the co-founder of Svemirko Film and Audiovisual Art Productions. Her projects have received support from the IDFA Bertha Fund and Sundance, among others. Venice has a Master of Arts from DocNomads . In 2023, she was invited to serve on the international jury for the 73rd Berlinale Generation KPlus competition.
Eka Tsotsoria - Tbilisi, Georgia
Eka is a filmmaker and co-producer of Docs in Orbit with a background intersecting between creative documentary, art history and education. She has a Masters Degree in Film History from the Shota Rustaveli Theatre & Film University in Tbilisi and a Master or Art from DocNomads (2016 - 2018). Eka has contributed to film criticism for Georgian cultural publications. More recently, Eka was the principal editor for the feature documentary film How the Room Felt (2021, IDFA) and Self-Portrait Along the Borderline (2023) which won the Jury Prize for best Medium Length Film at Visions du Réel.
Sean Van Wert - Toronto, Canada
Sean Van Wert is a visual artist based in Toronto, Canada and working across film and theatre arts. He studied visual arts at l’université du Québec à Montréal and holds a Master of Arts in Documentary Filmmaking from the DocNomads (2015 -2017), the European film school. He has worked on various projects including video installation at the Von Abbemuseum in Eindhoven and his short films and screened in several festivals both in Canada and abroad. Sean interests include holobionts, mesmerism, plant therapy and queer pop culture. He is currently in development on a project in southwestern France concerning end-of-life doulas.
Cristina Hanes - Oradea, Romania
Cristina is a filmmaker based in Oradea, Romania, and the co-founder of NoCut Film Collective based in India, Romania, and Italy. Her short film António and Catarina (2017) won the Pardino D'oro Award for Best International Short at the Locarno Film Festival. She also co-directed A Rifle and a Bag (2020) alongside Arya Rothe and Isabella Rinaldi which premiered at IFFR in the Bright Future Competition, earning a special mention before screening internationally, including at MoMI First Look (2020/2021). She completed her BA in Cinematography in Cluj-Napoca, Romania and is an alum of DocNomads (2014-16) and Aristoteles Workshop.
Kopal Joshy - Lisbon, Portugal
Kopal Joshy is a filmmaker and cinematographer currently living in Lisbon, Portugal where she is working on expanding one of her short documentary films into a feature-length with Terratreme Filmes.
Prior to moving to Europe, Kopal spent extensive time in Digital Video Production at Srishti School of Art, Design, and Technology in India. She received multiple scholarships to continue her studies in Europe where she explored photography at Edinburgh College of Arts, Edinburgh, Scotland and a Master of Arts in Documentary Directing through DocNomads (2016-2018) where she spent time immersing herself in three different countries (Portugal, Hungary, and Belgium) making films as an Erasmus+ scholarship student.
Macha Tsarenkov - Paris, France
Macha is an artist and filmmaker based in Paris. She has over five years of experience in editing promotional, commercial, documentary, fictional, and music videos for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Hugo Boss, Gagosian Gallery, Perrotin Gallery, Petzel Gallery, and the Food Network. Macha has a bachelor’s degree in Art History and English from the Institut Catholique de Paris, a private liberal arts university in Paris, France, and a Master’s Degree in Art Business from Sotheby’s Institute of Art in New York City. She is also enrolled in the Erasmus Mundus Master’s program, DocNomads (2023 - 2025).
Nayeem Mahbub - Stockholm, Sweden
Nayeem Mahbub is a Stockholm-based filmmaker with a background in documentary and animation. He is a graduate from DocNomads Documentary Directing Master’s Program (2012-14) and a 2019 Berlinale Talent. He is currently based in Stockholm where he works as an editor and makes music. He created the sound identity for the Docs in Orbit podcast.
Zanré Reed - Cape Town, South Africa
Zanré Reed is an interdisciplinary multi-platform storyteller and documentary filmmaker from Cape Town, South Africa. He holds a Master of Arts in Documentary Film Directing from DocNomads (2016-18) and is remotely teaching audio documentary and photography at the University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. With an interest in documentary work that deals primarily with memory, childhood, and family narrative, Zanré is particularly interested in films that transform personal histories into public installations.
Miguel Lopez Beraza - Madrid, Spain
Miguel LÓPEZ BERAZA is a documentary filmmaker. He studied Architecture and was educated at different art academies in Cuba and Spain. He is a graduate of DocNomads (2012-14), the EU-funded Master’s Program to study Documentary Filmmaking. His first short, Walls (2014) was awarded the Goya Award for Best Documentary Short and screened at DOK Leipzig, Hamburg, Sarajevo, Seattle IFF, DocsDF, among others winning multiple national and international awards. Since then, he has directed two short films, ‘JAN PEETERS’ (2015) and ‘WITH ALL OUR CAMERAS’ (2016) that screened at Rotterdam IFFR, Indielisboa or Documentamadrid. He is also a Berlinale talent and participated in the 2019 Berlinale Short Film Station.
Yvonne Nouwen - Amsterdam, Netherlands
Yvonne is a conscientious documentary filmmaker and editor. Prior to filmmaking, Yvonne worked with governments, law enforcement and human rights organisations working to combat sexual exploitation of children. She has a background in Anthropology and International Development and recent graduate of DocNomads (2017-19). Her first short documentary film, Painfully Beautiful is currently making rounds in the festival circuit and is part of Odense International Film Festival.
Krisztina Meggyes - Budapest, Hungary
Krisztina Meggyes is a freelance filmmaker and producer. She received her Master's Degree in Documentary Directing from the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest (SZFE). Since then she worked as a director and producer in several documentary films and series. She is also a lecturer at the University of Theatre and Film Arts (SZFE), teaching Ethics in Documentary Film.
Mariana Cadenas - Brussels, Belgium
Mariana Cadenas is a Venezuelan journalist, filmmaker, and film programmer for Peliculatina, the Latin American Film Festival in Brussels, where she is now based. Her recent project, Draw from Change: We Exist, We Resist premiered at Dok Leipzig and is an extended reality VR experience about femicide inspired by the work of Mar Maremoto, a visual artist in Mexico. She is a graduate of DocNomads (2014-16).
Alexandra (Sasha) Yakovleva - Amsterdam, NL
Sasha is a visual artist, filmmaker, animator, and photographer. She has completed her Bachelor's in still photography at FAMU University of Prague and for several years worked in the field of animation and video art in Israel. Working on the borders between film, animation, performance, and fine art she finds herself focusing strongly on aesthetics, trying to create visual and slightly bizarre stories through the power of images, movement and associations. She is a graduate of DocNomads (2018-2020).
Anna Savchenko - Brussels, Belgium
Anna Savchenko is a filmmaker from Belarus currently based in Brussels, where she graduated with an MA of Arts in Documentary Film Directing DocNomads (2013-2015). Anna worked in different production, film, and media education projects around the world, such as Youth Media, BBC World Service Trust, Adobe Youth Voices, Luksuz Produkcija. She directed and edited several short films exploring the poetic dialog between documentary and experimental genres. Currently, Anna is directing her feature-length documentary 72 Hours, which won the European Women Audiovisual Network talent award at Dok Leipzig in 2019. She is the editor for We Will Remember Them (2019).
Kristen van Schie - Cape Town, South Africa
Kristen is an award-winning journalist from South Africa and has worked at Johannesburg's oldest daily newspaper The Star, before joining the southern Africa bureau of global news agency AFP as a correspondent. She has filed dispatches from courtrooms and crime scenes, war zones and election queues, and a scientific research vessel on an expedition in the Antarctic. She was also part of the research team on Influence, an investigative feature film, and the first South African documentary to premiere at Sundance. Kristen is also a graduate of DocNomads (2019-2021), the European film school in Documentary Film Directing.