Dustin Guy Defa has been making movies since he was eleven. His feature film Bad Fever premiered at the 2011 SXSW Film Festival and is currently distributed by Factory 25. Originally from Salt Lake City (where Family Nightmare takes place), he now lives in Brooklyn, New York.  

Susana de Sousa Dias, born in Lisbon, Portugal, is a filmmaker and university teacher. She is a lecturer in the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Lisbon, and has received a Master’s Degree in Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art and a Degree in Fine Arts and Painting from the University of Lisbon, a Degree in Cinema from the Higher Institute of Theatre and Cinema, as well as having attended the National Music Conservatory. Dias is also a PhD researcher in Aesthetics, Art Sciences and Technologies at the University of Paris 3, Sorbonne Nouvelle and the University of Lisbon, and is presently working in the field of the relationships between Cinema and Contemporary Art. She has been a guest participant in several events related with cinema and contemporary art, such as international congresses, seminars, and exhibitions. In 2001, she founded the production company, Kintop. Her film Natureza Morta (Still Life, 2005) has received a Premio Atalanta Films Award at DocLisboa 2005, and a Merit Prize in 2006 at the Taiwan Intenational Documentary Festival, and has been shown in festivals and screenings across five continents. Dias’s most recent film, 48 (2009), was awarded with the Grand Prix at Cinéma du Réel 2010 and the FIPRESCI award DokLeipzig, among others. Dias is presently working on Stilleben, an installation on three screens at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Lisbon and Luz Obscura (Obscure Light) a documentary feature.

Andrés Duque is a Spanish-Venezuelan filmmaker born in Venezuela. He is best known for his film Ivan Z, a portrait of the cult filmmaker Iván Zulueta, which participated in dozens of international film festivals and received a Goya Award Nomination. In 2011 he made his first feature film debut with Color Runaway Dog. The film premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and won the Audience Award at Punto de Vista International Documentary Film Festival. www.andresduque.com

Su Friedrich has produced and directed seventeen 16mm films and videos, including From the Ground Up, Seeing Red, The Odds of Recovery, Hide and Seek, Sink or Swim, Damned If You Don't, The Ties That Bind, and Gently Down the Stream. Friedrich is the writer, cinematographer, director and editor of all her films, with the exception of Hide and Seek, which was co-written by Cathy Quinlan and shot by Jim Denault. Her films have won many awards, including Grand Prix at the Melbourne Film Festival, Outstanding Documentary Award at Outfest and Best Narrative Film Award at the Athens International Film Festival. She has received Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundation fellowships, numerous grants from the Jerome Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the New York State Council of the Arts, and ITVS, as well as being a recipient of the Alpert Award in the Arts. Retrospectives of her work have been held at The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Rotterdam Film Festival, the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (BAFICI), the National Film Theater in London, and several others. Since 1998, Friedrich has been teaching film & video production at Princeton University. In 2007, a boxed set of her work was produced and distributed by Outcast Films.

Sylvain George is a French poet and filmmaker whose work has been presented and received special tribute in numerous national and international film festivals, as well as alternative, underground and militant networks, such as the Marseille Festival of Documentary Film (FIDMarseille), the Vienna International Film Festival (Viennale), and at the Anthology Film Archives to name a few. After studying philosophy, he spent five years working on poetical, political and experimental films regarding the theme of immigration and social movements, combining formal research and active commitment against the unjust policies that cross and shape societies. George has been awarded several prestigious festival awards, including Best International Documentary at the 2010 Filmmaker Film Festival and the 2011 Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (BAFICI) respectively, for May They Rest in Revolt (Figures of Wars I), and at the 2011 Torino Film Festival for The Outburst (My Mouth, My Revolt, My Name).

Isaki Lacuesta, born in Girona, Catalonia, Spain, studied audiovisual communications at the Universidad Autónoma in Barcelona and then pursued a Master’s course in creative documentary at the Universidad Pompeu Fabra, which he presently teaches. His work comprises of features, documentary, and a mixture of documentary and fiction. His feature The Double Steps (2011) was awarded the Golden Shell main prize at San Sebastian Film Festival, and his documentary El Cuaderno de Barro (2011) received a Golden Medal at the International Festival of Audiovisual Programs (FIPA) in Biarritz. Additionally, his documentary and fiction film La Leyenda del Tiempo (2006) was recognized as the Best Spanish Film of the Year by the Catalan Critics Association. Lacuesta is also an artist and has exhibited his works at such galleries as Metronom Gallery Barcelona, Arts Visual Institute of Leipzig, Spanish Academy of Roma, and the Frankfurt Book Fair, to name a few. Most notable is his video- installation Google Earth: Places that do not exist 1.0, about several hidden spaces in such countries around the world as Russia, Colombia, Australia and Spain. In addition, he regularly publishes articles about cinema, music and literature, as well as continuing to make short films without interruption.

Sebastian Lingiardi is an independent documentary filmmaker, editor, artist, and researcher who graduated from the University of Cinema in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 2006 Lingiardi produced and directed his first work, Follow Orders, which won best short film at the International Student Film Festival of Buenos Aires. Later he started researching the history and culture of indigenous natives, with a special interest in archiving myths and legends, as well as starting a project teaching intercultural bilingual audiovisual production with the Toba, Mocoví and Wichí communities in the province of Chaco, in northern Argentina. From this research Lingiardi completed two films that reflect the oral tradition and memory of these indigenous towns using cinema as a vehicle to share unique cross-cultural experiences. As a result, these films, The Clues - Lanhoyij - Nmitaxanaxac (2010) won Best Cinematography at Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (BAFICI), and Sip'ohi - Manduré Place (2011) received Grand Prix of the International Competition at the Marseille Festival of Documentary Film (FIDMarseille).

Minda Martin received an M.F.A. in film and video from the California Institute of the Arts, and a B.A. from the University of Arizona. She writes and directs personal, experimental, documentary, and narrative films that explore the underpinnings and disparities of social class in America, and her works have won many festival awards and been screened at various international venues including The Museum of Modern Art, RedCat, Viennale, Punto de Vista International Documentary Film Festival, New York Video Festival, Creteil Films de Femmes, and Mostra/OMNI Video Art Tour. Along with her collection of short films and videos, her features include Free Land (2009) and AKA Kathe (2000). Her most recent work,The Long Distance Operator, an experimental video made for the omnibus feature film Far From Afghanistan, is set to premiere this year. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Visual and Performing Arts department at California State University, San Marcos. http://mindamartin.org

Laila Pakalnina is a director and screenwriter born in Liepaja, Latvia. She graduated from Moscow University’s Department of TV Journalism in 1986, and later from the Moscow Film Institute’s (VGIK) Department of Film Direction in 1991. So far she has made 29 films (including 21 documentaries, 5 shorts, and 3 features), 2 children, 1 husband, 1 dog, 1 bicycle, and many ideas for new films. 

Lourdes Portillo is a director and producer, born in Chihuahua, Mexico, and raised in Los Angeles, CA. She has been making award-winning films about Latin American, Mexican, and Chicano/a experiences and social justice issues for more than thirty years engaging her signature hybrid style as a visual artist, investigative journalist, and activist. Portillo’s film Las Madres: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (1986) was nominated for an Academy® and Emmy® Award, and her feature-length documentary film Señorita Extraviada (2001) received a Special Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival, Best Documentary at the Havana International Film Festival, the Nestor Almendros Award at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, and an Ariel, the Mexican Academy of Film Award. Her work has screened at premiere cultural institutions and events around the world including the Venice Biennale, London Film Festival, the São Paulo International Film Festival, the Whitney Museum for American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as in the New Directors/New Films program presented by the Film Society at Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art. She has been honored with eight mid-career retrospectives, including exhibitions at the Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art, the Pacific Film Archives, and the Cineteca Nacional de Mexico, and she is the subject of the critical anthology, Lourdes Portillo: The Devil Never Sleeps and Other Films edited by Rosa Linda Fregoso (University of Texas Press, 2001). www.lourdesportillo.com

Ben Rivers was born in Somerset, England and graduated from the Falmouth School of Art in 1993. His practice as a filmmaker treads a line between documentary and fiction, often following and filming people who have in some way separated themselves from society. This raw film footage provides Rivers with a starting point for creating oblique narratives that imagine alternative existences within marginal worlds. He is the recipient of numerous prizes including the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize, and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists in 2010. Rivers’ recent exhibitions include Slow Action, at the 2010 Hepworth Wakefield, and the Hayward Gallery London, in 2011; and On Overgrown Paths, at the Impressions Gallery Bradford, in 2010. He has also served as an artist-in- focus at such festivals as the Courtisane Festival, London Film Festival, Punto de Vista International Documentary Film Festival, and Indielisboa. www.benrivers.com

Ben Russell is a media artist and curator whose films, installations, and performances foster a deep engagement with the history and semiotics of the moving image. His formal investigations of the historical and conceptual relationships between early cinema, documentary practices, and structuralist filmmaking result in immersive experiences concerned at once with ritual, communal spectatorship and the pursuit of a “psychedelic ethnography.” A 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship and 2010 FIPRESCI award recipient, Russell has had solo screenings and exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Rotterdam Film Festival, the Wexner Center for the Arts, and the Museum of Modern Art. He began the Magic Lantern screening series in Providence, Rhode Island, was co-director of the artist-run space BEN RUSSELL in Chicago, IL, has toured worldwide with film/video/performance programs, and plays the light-sensitive skull in a double-drum trio called BEAST. He is presently at work on a collaborative feature film with UK artist Ben Rivers concerning the romantic sublime, social utopia, and Norwegian black metal. He currently resides in Paris, France.

Sun Xun was born in Fuxin, Liaoning province, China. He graduated in 2005 from the Print-making Department of the China Academy of Fine Arts and in 2006 he established π Animation Studio. His work is mainly creating short animations as well as exhibiting individual cell drawings and other mixed media works, sometimes alongside his films. His series Shock of Time (2006) utilized media such as newspapers, books and other documentary material that served to highlight certain passages of history. In 21 KE (2010) Sun constructs a questioning and impressive world in black and white. And Clown's Revolution (2010), Beyond-ism (2010) and other new works on schedule incorporate the use of Chinese ink painting. He has received several notable awards including the Chinese Contemporary Art Awards: Best Young Artist and the 2010 Taiwan Contemporary Art Link Young Art Award, as well as the Civitella Ranieri Visual Arts Fellowship in 2011/ 2012. His wood printing animation film Some Actions Which Haven't Been Defined yet in the Revolution was nominated for the Berlinale Shorts at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival. He currently lives and works in Beijing.

Sami van Ingen is a filmmaker and visual artist, working primarily in video, film, installation and performance art. He started filmmaking with the London Filmmakers Co-op in the mid-eighties, and later, developed and ran the Helsinki Film-Collective for ten years. He is also a founding member of, and produced eleven projects with, the artist group Industrial Situations. His works have been screened at various venues, festivals, and museums including Avant09 in Karlstad, Sweden, European Media Art Festival in Osnabrück, London Film Festival, Shanghai MOCA, San Francisco Cinematheque and the Vietnam Film Festival in Ho Chi Minh City. Van Ingen has also curated programs of experimental film and video art for venues such as Avanto Festival, Diversions Festival, and Kiasma. He is currently completing his DFA at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts while working and living in Hankavaara, Finland.