Shahrbanoo Sadat

Shahrbanoo Sadat, 1991, is a female scriptwriter, producer and director based in Kabul, Afghanistan. Her debut film WOLF AND SHEEP won the top award at Directors’ Fortnight 2016. The film was developed with the Cannes Cinéfondation Residency in 2010, Shahrbanoo was 20 years old at the time – the youngest ever selected for the residence. She premiered her second feature THE ORPHANAGE at the same section at Cannes Film Festival in 2019. Shahr studied documentary filmmaking at the Kabul workshop of “Atelier Varan” in 2009. Her first short fiction “Vice Versa One” was selected at Directors’ Fortnight-2011. In 2013, she opened her own production company “Wolf Pictures” in Kabul. Both WOLF AND SHEEP and THE ORPHANAGE are part of her pentalogy project (5 feature films) based on Anwar’s Hashimi autobiographical text of 800 pages. At the moment, Shahrbanoo develops the third part, KABUL JAN, a romantic comedy.

Daniel Borgman

Daniel studied directing at the Danish alternative film school Super16. His short films have premiered in A-list festivals, with Lars and Peter officially selected for Cannes in 2009 and Berik winning the Grand Prix in Cannes in 2010. His debut feature The Weight of Elephants premiered in Berlin in 2013. His second feature film Loving Pia had its world premiere in Berlin in 2017. These two feature films, are developed at Cannes and Berlin residency, with Daniel as one of the very few directors in the world, being selected for both. In 2019 Daniel completed his 3rd feature film Harpiks, his first mainstream Danish fiction with A-list cast. Harpiks is a co-production between Adomeit Film and Zentropa made with support from the DFI, TV2 and FilmFyn. Harpiks premiered at the Toronto International Festival and is nominated for 8 Robert Awards.

Sakaris Stórá

Sakaris Stórá was born in 1986 and grew up in the small island of Sandoy, on the Faroe Islands. After studying film in Norway, he moved back to his home town to make films. Believing in the importance of making films in the Faroese language, films that deal with the struggles of individuals in modern society, his first feature film “Dreams by the Sea” was shot entirely on his home island of Sandoy. His films have been rewarded for his portrayal of characters and his work with actors.

Kaspar Astrup Schröder

Award winning filmmaker, Kaspar Astrup Schroder, is one of Denmark’s most prolific directors. His international films have screened at many festivals, such as IDFA, NYFF, Chicago IFF, SFIFF, CPH:DOX, and Hot Docs. His first film ”The Invention of Dr. NakaMats” (2009) was nominated for more than 20 awards and opened up a Japanese world seldom seen, which led to his third feature length documentary ”Rent A Family Inc.” (Winner of The Golden Eye Award at Zürich IFF 2013). The film was picked up by one of the majors in Hollywood for adaptation.

Besides Japan, Kaspar has directed films in China, Thailand, Myanmar, USA and Denmark, all with strong main characters undergoing an existential experience at a crucial time in their life.

Kaspar has always made an effort not to distinguish between documentary and fiction. ”It’s all about storytelling and portraying a drama. Drama is character, whether it’s a true story or not, and sometimes it just turns out that reality exceeds our imagination”.

Sylvia Le Fanu

Sylvia Le Fanu  (b. 1990) is a Copenhagen-based writer/director with British roots. She graduated from The Norwegian Filmschool in 2020 with the graduation film “Om Litt” (“Before Long”).
Prior to this she has a bachelor degree in Film and Media Science from Copenhagen University alongside having attended 18FRAMES, The Independent Film School of Funen. This was where she made the short film “Abu Adnan” (2017), which was selected for a long list of international festivals among others Clermont Ferrand, Sundance’s sideprogram WINDRIDER and winning Heartland Filmfestival’s INDY SHORTS long- listing it for an Oscar. The film was also nominated for the Danish Robert prize.

Illum Jacobi

Jacobi comes from a background in mountaineering and long expeditions into the Arctic and Amazon. He worked as a high altitude cameraman before launching his own expeditions to remote mountain ranges concluding in a 2.500 km long traverse of the North Coast of Greenland. Later he studied Cinematography at the Danish Film School and began to make films with scientists and artists studying our relationship to nature. This theme is now continued in the form of fiction with a series of feature projects in development based on his own experiences in the wilderness.