Boryana Puncheva is producer, director, screenwriter and actress. She graduated from the Bulgaria’s National Academy for Theatre and Film in 1983 with the documentary film “Kindergarten”, which received several awards at Bulgaria’s National Documentary Film Festival. Until 1989, she wrote and directed a series of documentary films, including “Portrait of a Heroine”, “A Game for Tomboys”, and “Genko”, which was honoured with the Special Award at the Golden Rose Film Festival in 1993. As an actress, Puncheva has performed in leading and supporting roles in more than ten feature films. In the 1990s, together with fellow actors, she created the popular television comedy show “Club UFO”, which she also directed. Between 2010 and 2020, she served as Head of Film Production at the Bulgarian National Television (BNT). She co-wrote and co-directed the documentary “The Long Way Home”, which was selected for numerous prestigious European film festivals and received the Best Director Award at the Guangzhou Documentary Film Festival in China. She is currently editing her latest documentary “Restoring Memory”.
Daniel Kötter is a theatre and documentary film director whose interdisciplinary and collaborative practice spans more than two decades. His work explores social, urban and environmental transformations through documentary, performative and research-based formats. Kötter has developed projects across Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Europe, often in collaboration with local artists and communities. Between 2018 and 2021 he created the series landscapes and bodies, examining the impact of mining on people and territories through performances and VR films. His documentary works include Yu Gong, awarded Best Documentary at Achtung Berlin 2020, and the trilogy Hashti Tehran, Desert View and Rift Finfinnee. His feature documentary Landshaft received the German Film Critics’ Association Award for Best Documentary Film in 2023.
Elene is a filmmaker and screenwriter born in Georgia in 1988. She spent most of her life in Brussels, Belgium, where she studied Political Science and earned an MA in Eastern Europe and Caucasus Studies. After completing film criticism courses and working in various fields of cinematography, she returned to Georgia in 2016 to focus on directing her own films. Naveriani has worked as a programmer for the Tbilisi International Film Festival and is an alumna of prestigious international training programs including IDFA Academy, EAVE, EurasiaDOC and goEast. Her projects have received support from major international funds such as CNC, the Belgium Film Fund, the Doha Film Institute and the Hubert Bals Fund. Her debut feature documentary Blueberry Dreams premiered in the Next competition at CPH in 2024.
Kerem Soyyilmaz is a filmmaker born and raised in Beşiktaş, Istanbul. After building a career in commercial filmmaking, he directed his first feature documentary, Searching for Rodakis, a project supported by the Danish Film Institute. The film received 14 awards and distinctions at festivals in Turkey, Greece, Germany and Bulgaria, including Best Documentary Film at the 30th Adana Golden Boll International Film Festival and Best Mid-Length Film at RIFE. His work focuses on themes of migration, belonging and identity, often exploring connections between cultures and communities. Living and working between Copenhagen and Istanbul, Soyyilmaz develops international projects that bridge Denmark and Turkey while continuing work on his upcoming film productions.
Liza Boeva is a screenwriter, director, art historian and university professor with a PhD in Art History. Her practice is interdisciplinary, spanning cinema, literature and the visual arts, and she has developed her own authorial lecture-film format. She and actor Itzhak Finzi co-founded “Filizi 33”, an educational platform dedicated to author-driven films and online courses in art and cultural history. She is the author of numerous documentary and educational projects aimed at promoting cultural heritage and visual culture. Boeva is a member of the European Film Academy and actively participates in international cultural and educational initiatives.
Vitezslav Chovanec is a film professional specializing in documentary cinema, festival strategy and international promotion. He works at the Czech Film Center, a division of the Czech Film Fund, where he is responsible for the international promotion of Czech documentary and short films. He also runs Mad Reels, an initiative dedicated to festival distribution for feature documentaries. In addition, Chovanec serves as an advisor to the programming team of the One World Human Rights Film Festival in Prague, one of Europe’s leading documentary film events. Alongside his industry work, he regularly writes about cinema for the Czech film magazine Cinepur, contributing critical analysis and insight into contemporary documentary and arthouse filmmaking.