Denise Fernandes (1990) was born in Lisbon to Cape Verdean parents and grew up in Switzerland. Her latest short film, «Nha Mila» (2020), premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, in the Pardi di Domani section. «Nha Mila» was a European Film Awards candidate and has been screened at over 40 international film festivals. It was nominated as Best National Short Film at the Sophia Awards 2021 and invited by MoMa and Lincoln Center in New York for the New Directors/New Film Festival. Hanami, filmed in Cape Verde, is her feature directorial debut.

Filmmaker Gerald Backhaus (56) has been studying the dialects of his old home state of Thuringia for quite some time, which has resulted in three documentary films entitled “Thuringia, Your Language.” From 2022 to 2024, the Berlin resident recorded how people in Brandenburg and Berlin speak in different regions and neighborhoods, paying close attention to their speech patterns. From Icke to Platt has been shown at venues including the Brotfabrik cinema in Berlin, the Astoria cinema in Wittstock, the Jüterbog monastery, in Templin, Kyritz, Lübbenau, the Oderbuch and the Potsdam Film Museum, as well as at the local university.

Til Anklam (18), Finley Otte (19) and Nico Csirmaz (18) were part of the 12th year group at Oberbarnimschule Eberswalde until mid-2025. Their film was created as part of a school seminar project that they developed and implemented together. The young people worked independently on their project for 12 months. The project was entirely self-financed and reflects their interest in filmmaking. They have now successfully completed their A-levels and are entering professional life. SEHquenz e.V. supported the three students from the Oberbarnimschule as part of its youth film project ‘FILMKNACK’.

Osman Cerfon is a French director of animated films. After studying graphic design and training at the Beaux-Arts school in Épinal, he completed his studies at the La Poudrière film school. After graduating, he worked on various projects as a screenwriter and technician. Since 2013, he has been working closely with Miyu Productions, an animation studio that produced his short film JE SORS ACHETER DES CIGARETTES, which has also won awards at numerous festivals (including Locarno).

Hsin-Yu CHEN is a filmmaker and artist currently based in Taipei, Taiwan. He works with experimental film, documentary, and moving image to explore the liminal space between seeing and being seen where subjectivity is implicated and constructed. Drawing on border landscapes, embodied knowledge and the notion of measurement and categorization, he examines the intersection of the viewing body and the political subject. Jessi Ali LIN is an artist working with and through sculpture, video, performance, and embodiment. Her work exploits the notion of positionality both in terms of physical position and the multivalence of identity. Lin’s multifaceted practice examines the relationships between the performance of the self, its fragmented nature, and its location within the social and built environment.

Filip Diviak is a Slovak film director and animation artist. He studied animation at Tomáš Baťa University in Zlín, Czech Republic. He focuses primarily on hand-drawn animation, but also works as an illustrator and designer of characters and environments. In 2021, he founded the animation studio Tri Pirogy in Zlín together with other animators. His main interest is in telling stories about relevant social issues, which he views through the eyes of a child.

Géza M. Tóth (1970) is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker, university professor with a doctorate, and head of KEDD Animation Studio. Since 1994, he has taught at some of Europe's most prestigious art colleges, including MOME - Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, the Royal College of Art in London, and the University of Theater and Film in Budapest. Since 2020, he has also been head of one of Eastern Europe's most successful animation film studios, KEDD. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Madeleine Homan is an animation director from the Netherlands. After attending the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague, Madeleine studied at the Netherlands Film Academy, graduating with her first short stop motion Swimming to the Moon. In 2022 she directed the 2D animation film Fur. Recently she graduated from the University of West England in Bristol with the 2D animation film The Creators.

Lena von Döhren, born in Berlin, Germany, in 1981, received her bachelor's degree in audio-visual communication from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam in 2007. She has been living and working in Lucerne since 2009. In 2011, she completed her master's degree in design, majoring in animation, at the HSLU (Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts). Her master's project, the animated film THE LITTLE BIRD AND THE LEAF (2012), premiered at the Berlinale. The three sequels to The Little Bird were also selected for the Berlinale. The Little Bird and the Caterpillar (2017) won the Golden Sparrow Award in 2018. Her animated films have been shown at numerous festivals and have won awards in Sapporo, Hiroshima, Ottawa, La Bourboule, and elsewhere. Eva Rus, born in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1986, received her bachelor's degree in visual communication, specializing in nonfiction illustration, from the HSLU (Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts – Design Film Art) in 2010. In addition to her work as an illustrator, she teaches at the SfG BB (School of Design Bern and Biel). Her picture books have been published by various publishers in Switzerland and abroad.

Maximilien Van Aertryck was born in Paris in 1989. He completed his film studies in Sweden. He has been a member of the Produktion platform in Gothenburg since 2013. Axel Danielson, born in 1976 in Vittskövle, Sweden, was a firefighter in Kristianstad before completing his film studies at the Valand Academy in Gothenburg. He has also been a member of Plattform Produktion since 2013.