Marie-Hélène Cousineau (born Montréal) formed the collective Arnait Ikajurtigiit (Women’s Video Workshop of Igloolik, now Arnait Video Productions) in 1991. She is its coordinator/trainer as well as an active collaborating producer. Cousineau has written about the experiences of women making video in Igloolik and curated several exhibitions of their work. Her video work has been widely exhibited in Canada, the U.S and Europe. With an MFA in Communications from University of Iowa, Cousineau was also associate professor of Communications at Concordia University in Montreal (1997-1999). She co-directed Before Tomorrow and Uvanga, the first and second Arnait feature-length films, with Madeline Ivalu. new Before Tomorrow received numerous awards, including Canada’s Top Ten 2008 from the Toronto International Film Festival Group, Best Film at the 33rd Annual American Indian Film Festival, San Francisco, and the Public Choice Prize at the Trento Festival, Italy 2009. Cousineau lives in Igloolik and Montréal.

Joana Hadjithomas (born 1964, Beirut) and Khalil Joreige (born 1964, Beirut) collaborate as filmmakers and artists. For the last 15 years, they have focused on the images, representations and history of their home country, Lebanon, and questioned the fabrication of imaginaries in the region and beyond. Together, they have directed documentaries such as Khiam 2000-2007 (2008), El Film el Mafkoud (The Lost Film) (2003), and The Lebanese Rocket Society (2012) and feature films Al Bayt el Zaher (1999), A Perfect Day (2005), and Je Veux Voir (I Want to See), which premiered at Cannes in 2008 and received the Prix du Syndicat Français de la Critique 2009. Their films have been multi awarded in international festivals and enjoyed releases in many countries. Hadjithomas and Joreige’s artworks have been shown in museums, biennials and art centers around the world and are part of important public and private collections. They are the authors of numerous publications and university lecturers in Lebanon and Europe, members of the board of Metropolis Cinema in Beirut, and co-founders of Abbout Productions with Georges Schoucair. They live between Beirut and Paris.

Arthur Jafa (Tupelo, Mississippi, 1960), filmmaker and cinematographer, has contributed greatly to the creation of a Black cinematic culture. One of Jafa's projects, first elucidated in his essay "69" in Black Popular Culture (ed. Gina Dent, 1993), is the development of what he calls "black visual intonation." This is part of an ongoing commitment to the creation of a black cinema “capable of matching the power, beauty and alienation of black music.” To this end Jafa, along with Malik Sayeed and Elissa Blount Moorhead, has founded the film company TNEG. Jafa is the director of Slowly This (1995), Tree (1999), Deshotten1.0 (co-directed with Malik Sayeed, 2009), APEX (2014), Dreams Are Colder than Death (2014), and other films. His cinematography credits include Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust (1991, for which he won Best Cinematography at Sundance), John Akomfrah’s Seven Songs for Malcolm X (1993), Spike Lee’s Crooklyn (1994), Manthia Diawara’s Rouch in Reverse (1995), Numa Perrier’s Florida Water (2014), and many others.

Hassan Khan (born 1975, London) is an artist, musician and writer. Recent exhibitions include Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, (2015),  Kodak Passageway, D-CAF, Cairo (2014), Secession, Vienna (2013), SALT, Istanbul (2012), dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel (2012), Paris Triennial (2012) and the 2012 New Museum Triennial, New York (2012). For the Nuit Blanche Festival, Khan premiered Composition for a Public Park (2013), a large-scale multi-channel music and lights installation at the Parc du Belleville in Paris. He also regularly performs his own music live; recent appearances include Portikus, Frankfurt (2015), Forget Amnesia Festival, Stromboli (2014), Oslo 10, Basel (2014), L'eveil du Printemps, The Toulouse International Art Festival, Toulouse (2014), Klangzeit Festival, Munster (2014), Maerz Musik Festival, Berlin (2013), Ghetto, Istanbul, (2013), Auditorium du Louvre, Paris (2012), Teatro Fondamenta Nuove, Venice, (2012) and as the opening act for the 1st D-CAF Festival, Cairo (2012). Khan’s work is in public collections including the Gugghenheim Abu-Dhabi, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Fondation Pinault, Venice, Centre Pompidou, Mathaf, Doha, Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. His publications include The Agreement (2011) and Nine Lessons Learned from Sherif El Azma (2009). Khan lives and works in Cairo, Egypt.

Hala Loty (born 1973, Menoufeya, Egypt) graduated from the Cairo Film Institute in 1999. She worked as an assistant director in the Egyptian commercial television and film industry for two years until becoming fed up. She went on to make documentaries for Al-Jazeera and in 2010 co-founded the independent production company Hassala Films. Lotfy has made a number of short documentary films. Her first feature film, Coming Forth by Day (2012) won the FIPRESCI prize in Abu Dhabi and the Golden Lion at the 6th Oran Arab Film Festival. Lotfy is a member of the MEDIS South Mediterranean distributors network and is driving a movement to form an independent filmmakers’ union in Egypt. Hassala Films also organizes film production workshops in Upper Egypt.

Ulrike Ottinger (born 1942, Konstanz, Germany) is a filmmaker, visual artist, and theater and opera director. After working as a freelance artist in Paris from 1962 to 1968, she returned to Konstanz, where she founded a gallery and film club, then moved to Berlin, where she began her long filmmaking career. Ottinger’s production includes the Berlin Trilogy Tocket of No Return (1979), Freak Orlando (1981), and Dorian Gray in the Mirror of the Yellow Press (1984). Her series of films in the Far East including China. The Arts—The People (1985), Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia (1989), and the eight-hour documentary Taiga (1991). There followed fiction and documentary films of eastern Europe including Southeast Passage (2002) and Twelve Chairs (2004). She returned to Asia for Under Snow and other works, and is currently producing a six-film cycle on the Bering Sea. Ottinger’s films have won numerous awards and have been shown at the world’s most important film festivals and appreciated in multiple retrospectives, including at the Cinémathèque française in Paris and at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Throughout her career Ottinger has worked in photography, largely in parallel with the film works. She has taken part in major art exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale, Documenta, and the Berlin Biennale. Her solo exhibitions have been, among other places, at the Witte-de-With Museum in Rotterdam, the Museo Nacional Reina Sofia in Madrid, Kunst-Werke Berlin, and the David Zwirner Gallery in New York. Her artist’s books include Bildarchive (2005) and Floating Food (2011), a comprehensive collage of four decades of her artistic production. In 2011 she was awarded the Hannah-Höch-Prize.

Steve Reinke is an artist and writer best known for his work in video. As a Queer Nietzschean, he is interested in rhetorical strategies for draining meaning from the world. His work is in many collections including the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Centre Pompidou (Paris) and the National Gallery (Ottawa). He has had solo screenings and exhibitions at important venues worldwide, including Kino Arsenal, the Argos Festival, Lux, Thread Waxing Space, the Embassy of Canada to Germany, and many others, and has screened his videos at countless festivals. In 2009 he won Best Canadian Media Art Work at the Images Festival, and in 2006 he received the Bell Canada Video Award. His books The Shimmering Beast (2011) and Everybody Loves Nothing (2004) are published by Coach House. He has also edited several books including Blast Counterblast (with Anthony Elms, 2011) and The Sharpest Point: Animation at the End of Cinema ((with Chris Gehman, 2005). Reinke is an associate professor in the department of Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University. His work is archived at www.myrectumisnotagrave.com.

Laila Shereen Sakr (born 1971, Alexandria), aka VJ Um Amel, is a digital media theorist and artist working in computational art, live cinema, data visualization, and media activism. Her doctoral project used media analytics, visualization, and immersive storytelling techniques to map how participation in virtual worlds and networked publics have influenced the formation of a virtual body politic. This research led her to design the R-Shief media system for archiving and analyzing content from social networking sites. Shereen Sakr has shown in solo and group exhibitions and performances at galleries and museums across the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East, and has published extensively. She holds an M.F.A. in Digital Arts and New Media from University of California, Santa Cruz, an M.A. in Arab Studies from Georgetown University, and a PhD in Media Arts + Practice from the University of Southern California. As of July 2015 she will be an assistant professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies at UC Santa Barbara and living in Santa Barbara.

Mounira Al Solh (b. 1978, Beirut) studied painting at the Lebanese University in Beirut, and Fine Arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. Her visual practice embraces video, painting, embroidery and performance. Her art aspires to ask large questions in small places, operating according to Ginzburg’s notion of microhistory. As the editor of NOA (Not Only Arabic) magazine and noa language school, Al Solh collaborates with others to examine topics such as treason, arrest, fragmentation of language, and schizophrenia. Al Solh’s work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale; Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut; Kunsthalle Lisbon, Portugal; Art in General, New York; Homeworks, Beirut; The New Museum, New York; Haus Der Kunst, Munich; Manifesta 8, Murcia, Spain; The Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai; Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam; Al Riwaq Art Space, Manama, Bahrain; Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, and the 11th International Istanbul Biennial. In 2003 she was awarded the Kentertainment Painting Prize in Lebanon, and her video Rawane’s Song received the 2007 jury prize at VideoBrasil. She is Uriôt Prize winner at the Rijksakademie. Al Solh is represented by Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut and Hamburg. Al Solh opens her Beirut studio (Villa Fleming in Mar Mikhael Ennher) for hosting intimate and loose artists' talks and presentations.

Tariq Teguia (born 1966, Algiers) studied visual arts and philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris. Returning to Algiers, he worked as a freelance news photographer taught contemporary art history at the École des beaux-arts d’Alger, before turning to filmmaking in the late 1990s. With his brother Yacine he founded the production company Neffa Films in 2004. His films include Zanj Revolution (2013), Gabbla (Inland) 2008, Rome plutôt que vous (2006), Haçla-La Clôture (2002), Ferrailles d’attente (1998), Le Chien (1996), and Kech’mouvement? (1992). Teguia has received the FIPRESCI Prize at the Venice Film Festival and the Special Jury Prize at Jeonju Film Festival for Inland in 2009, the Special Jury Prize at Fribourg International Film Festival for Rome Rather than You in 2007, the grand prize at Entrevues Belfort for Zanj Revolution, and other awards. Teguia lives in Thessaloniki.

Ramon Zürcher (born in Aarberg, Switzerland, 1982) attended Bern University of the Arts, completing an art degree with a focus on video in 2005. That year he received the Kiefer Hablitzel award for visual arts for his video work. He is studying directing at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin and will finish this year. The Strange Little Cat, his first feature-length film, won the New Talent Grand Pix at CPH:PIX, Copenhagen.