She holds a BA in European Studies and an MA in Social Sciences and Cultural Studies. She has studied at the University of Portsmouth (UK), University of Charles (Prague), Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest), and Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium). She commenced her professional career in cinema as executive producer assistant at Origo Studios in Budapest in 2013. She has studied directing and cinematography and attended numerous workshops (Digital Production Challenge II 2019 and Documentary Campus Alumni 2020, among others). She has worked on international feature films as part of the director’s team or in production (Publieke Werken, 2014, dir. Joram Lürsen, NL/HU; Tsatsiki, 2015, dir. Lisa James Larsson, SE/GR; Interrail, 2018, dir. Carmen Alessandrin, FR/DE/HU/GR; Crimes of the Future, 2021, dir. David Cronenberg), and line-produced many incoming TV projects from China. For the last six years, she has been part of the production team of Argonauts Productions. Currently, she is developing two feature-length documentaries as a first-time producer (Dear Future by Christiana Chiranasgnostaki; and GingerELA by Thanasis Neofotistos) and is the International Coordinator at the Drama International Film Festival 2021. She has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021).
Υorgos Teltzidis has studied film directing and European culture and is a co-founder of the production company Long Shot Films. He is an alumni of the Berlinale, Sarajevo and Zurich Talent Campuses. Six of his scripts have been funded by the Greek Broadcasting Corporation and the Greek Film Center. In 2013, he received praise as well as the Panhellenic Film Critics Association award for his script Generator at the Drama International Short Film Festival (DISFF). In 2015 his short film Dye was nominated for the Hellenic Film Academy award, while in 2017 his short Film Dam won the Best Southeastern European Film award at the DISFF and was nominated for the Hellenic Film Academy award. He has served as member of Jury for the 41st DISFF (2018) and of the pre-selection committee for the 42nd DISFF. His first feature film Woof has been selected by the Mediterranean Film Institute and the Meetings on the Bridge platform and has won the Villa KULT Berlinale Residency award (Germany). In 2020 he won the Best Screenplay award at the DISFF for the film Vouta, directed by Dimitris Zachos. He has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021).
Io Chaviara is a visual artist (MFA Goldsmiths, University of London) and filmmaker. She is currently a PhD Candidate in Social Anthropology at the Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens. Her artworks and documentaries have been presented in exhibitions and festivals internationally. She has published articles in international journals, participated in international conferences and co-curated workshops and documentary festivals. She has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021).
Giannis Haritidis was born in Athens in 1982. He graduated from the Department of Applied Mathematics and Physical Science of the National Technical University of Athens and holds an MA in Digital Arts from the Athens School of Fine Arts. He has attended seminars in filmmaking and screenwriting. Since 2007 he has been working as a filmmaker on feature and short films, as well as on commercials and music videos. He has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021).
Christiana Chiranagnostaki was born in Athens. She graduated from the Department of Communication, Media and Culture of the Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens and holds an MA in Culture and Documentary Film Production from the University of the Aegean. She has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021). She has worked as a researcher and producer for the Greek documentary TV series Warzone. As a freelancer, she has researched and produced various projects on the Syrian refugee crisis, the Greek financial crisis, immigration, and other social issues, working with major media and production companies internationally (BBC, SRF, FRANCE 4, ZDF, VICE). In 2018, she directed the interactive documentary project The Beggar, a story about the vandalisation and restoration of a sculpture in the centre of Athens. She has also directed Second Floor, a short documentary about the electronic music scene of Athens and June notes, a short film exploring the ideas of loneliness and loss. In the past few years, she has been working on her first feature length documentary entitled Dear Future, a story about the importance of memory on our individual and collective identity, which raises the question of what needs to be salvaged and what forgotten.
Kostis Alevizos was born in Athens in 1988. He studied under a scholarship at the Hellenic Cinema and Television School Stavrakos. In 2017 his script for the short film Weight of the Sea was selected and funded by the «microfilm» programme of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation. The film premiered at the Drama International Film Festival, where it received an Honorary Distinction for Photography and an Honorary Distinction for Best Female Actor. In addition, the film won an Honorary Distinction at the 9th Athens International Digital Film Festival, an Honorary Mention at the 13th Larissa International Film Festival for Sissy Toumasi’s acting and was nominated for the 2020 Hellenic Film Academy Awards. The film was selected by the Athens International Film Festival, the Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Young People, the United Kingdom No Dialogue Film Festival, the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival, the Athens Marathon International Film Festival, the Patras Steps Film Festival and the Thessaloniki International Short Film Festival. In 2019 his first book, entitled Gios (The Son), was published by Vivliopelagos press. In 2020 his script for the short film Τhe Tooth and The Rock was selected and funded by Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation as part of the programme microfilm. He has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021).
Lydia Antoniou is a curator, filmmaker, and researcher on feminist film collections, based between London and Athens. Growing up with grapheme-colour synaesthesia, she developed a curiosity and interest in utilising theoretical concepts for the production of space through collective storytelling processes. Approaching her architecture and curatorial studies from a feminist perspective, she identifies the urgency to potentialise contemporary art and cinema through the collective performing of social and spatial relations in a way that transcends the binary divisions currently dominating these disciplines. Drawing on and incorporating cult figures from experimental music and poetry, her work is primarily citational and participatory. Populated by friends and influences from her immediate community, her works often cite and incorporate co-creative and collaborative processes and ideas. Having worked in production for the past five years, oscillating between cinema and modern art, she decided to employ moving image as a medium of storytelling in order to construct non-male gaze narratives . In this direction, her two short essay-films The Wife of the Above and Za’atar works towards the construction of an intersectional space of invention and difference; one that would welcome a plurality unconstrained by a binary opposition to maleness. She has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021).
Dimitris Armenakis is an animation director, born in Athens, Greece. He graduated from the Department of Audio and Visual Arts of the Ionian University, where he directed his first animated short film entitled Absorbed (2017). In 2019, he completed the MA Animation programme of the Royal College of Art in London. During his studies, he directed two animated short films: First Thirst (2018) and All You Can Eat (2019). All You Can Eat participated in more than 40 animation and film festivals around the globe, including: London Short Film Festival, ReAnimania International Animation Film & Comics Arts Festival of Yerevan, Berlin British Shorts Film Festival, Animateka (Slovenia), and Athens International Film Festival. The film was nominated for Best Sound Design at Watersprite Film Festival (London) and for Best International Animated Short Film at UWPG Film Festival (Canada) and at the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival, while it was awarded the Stratos Stasinos prize for Best Student Film in 2020. At the moment, Dimitris is working on the sequel of All You Can Eat. He has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021).
Eftychia Iosifidou is a Greek filmmaker. After gaining a degree in Fine Arts, she studied at the Department of Theatre Studies of the Athens and Kapodistrian University of Athens and at Freie Universität Berlin, where she completed part of her studies as an exchange student. She attended several film seminars and workshops and in 2012 she studied Digital Filmmaking at New School.Athens. She has worked for the Month of Performance Art in Berlin and in 2012 she was head of the Young Jury committee during the Athens International Film Festival. Her short films She (2013) and Heterotopie (2014) were screened across Europe. In 2016 she participated in an audiovisual installation shown at the Greek National Opera and in 2017 she attended a Screenplay and Set Design workshop at the Greek National Theatre. Her short film f, completed in 2020 with the support of the Greek Film Centre, was part of the Short Film Picks selection at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. Her documentary Iconoclast (2019) was selected for development by the Mediterranean Film Institute and subsequently secured the support of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation. In 2021, her essay-podcast My grandmother, Maro was selected and presented at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. Since 2015, she has been working as a director, researcher and editor for music videos and TVC, and collaborating with a number of artists and institutes. She has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021).
Konstanza Kapsali is an Athens based film maker. After completing her studies in Archaeology and Heritage studies (BA, MA) she worked in numerous excavations, cultural institutions and conducted archaeological and ethnographic research in Greece, Turkey, and the Netherlands. She went on to study Visual Anthropology and Documentary Film (MA). Her first short film “Girls In Flower” featured in acclaimed International film festivals in Greece and was awarded the NIGHT Award at the 18th Signos da Noite International Film Festival in Lisbon. She is currently participating in the art project “Narrative Archaeology” by Elevsis 2023 – European Capital of Culture and the “FINDS – STORIES” research project, documenting diachronic mobility in the Balkans through creative object biographies. She has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021). From March 2022 on, she will be a PhD candidate at the LUCA School of Arts in Belgium.
Her practice draws on observational cinema, sensory ethnography, and the archaeological metaphor. Her thematic focus varies, but the notions of memory, femininity, the sense of belonging, nostalgia and the unravelling of history are often recurrent.
Iris grew up in Corfu, Greece. She is a director and performer. As a performer, she has won the Grand Prix Europa 2015 with AndCompany&Co for the performance Orpheus in der Oberwelt and has performed in numerous international theatres and festivals, including: HAU Hebbel am Uffer (Berlin), Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt), Forum Freis Theater (Dusseldorf), Hippodrome (France), steirischer herbst (Austria), and Belluard Bollwerk International (Switzerland). She has also participated in documenta 14, in the performance Round-up by Mary Zygouri. A firm believer in the therapeutic potential of the performing arts, Iris expanded her knowledge by studying dramatherapy in Berlin. Goads, her first film as a director, has received numerous prizes and special mentions in a number of international film festivals, including: the Drama International Short Film Festival (Greece), the Athens International Film Festival (Greece) and the Trieste Film Festival (Italy), while it was named Best Short Film at the BUFF International Film Festival in Sweden. In addition, Goads was officially selected by the ZINEBI International Festival of Documentary and Short Film of Bilbao (Spain), the Riga International Film Festival (Latvia), the Go Short –International Film Festival Nijmegen (the Netherlands), and the Rhode Island International Film Festival (USA). She has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021). In her filmmaking practice, Iris is interested in examining the liberating power of trauma as an expression of the journey of our soul and of our human nature.
Ion Papaspyrou was born in 1987. I am not here right now, his latest short film, was screened in more than 15 international film festivals, including the ZINEBI International Festival of Documentary and Short Film of Bilbao; the REGARD – International Short Film Festival of Saguenay; and Concorto Film Festival. The film won the Best Screenplay award at the Athens International Film Festival and a special award at the Drama International Short Film Festival. He is an alumni of Torino Film Lab Extended (2019); Zurich Film Festival Academy (2019) and of the Mediterranean Film Institute Script 2 Film workshop (2020). He has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021).
Effie Pappa is an award-winning director and animator based in Athens and Europe. Her work explores characters and discusses universal themes depicting human concerns through allegory, absurdism and black humour. Her films have been screened and awarded internationally; with her stand out film My Stuffed Granny, which won twenty awards for best short film during 2014; (Edinburgh Film Festival, Tokyo Anime Awards, Palm Springs International Film Festival and International Film Festival of East Hampton, New York, amongst others) and nominated in hundreds. She has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021). She also directs for commercials and music videos —with the Wild World by Cat Stevens and The Little Elephant by George Hadjipieris being considered the most popular ones. She is currently writing and directing her most recent short film, a stop motion entitled In between. Her work has been featured in the magazines Rolling Stone, Metal Magazine, The Fader, and the media BFI Showcase, Short of the Week and ABC, among others.
Dimitris Tsakaleas is a director and film producer from Greece. He holds the Filmmaking Certificate from the London Film Academy (Short Courses) and has graduated from the School of Film Studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, specializing in Audiovisual Film Production. His research study focuses on the distribution strategies of the entertainment company A24 in the time of social media. He has worked as a producer in several short films, commercials and music videos, and on a feature film. He has attended Berlinale Talents (2020) and Sarajevo Talents (2016) campuses and was chosen to participate in the Sarajevo City of Film Fund (2018). His films have travelled to prestigious film festivals across the world (Toronto International Film Festival, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Clermont – Ferrand International Short Film Festival, Sarajevo International Film Festival, Thessaloniki International Film Festival, the annual convention Comic – Con IFF (USA), Gijon International Film Festival (Spain), etc.), while his feature film was independently distributed in Greece. He is an associate producer on Zacharias Mavroeidis’ upcoming film, The Summer with Carmen. He is part of a directing duo with Lida Vartzioti with whom they are currently working on their first feature film, and a member of the European Film Academy (EFA). He has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021).
After his BA in Psychology, he wrote and directed his first short film The Voice (2012). In 2013 he moved to London to study cinema, where he wrote and directed his second short “Simon Says” (2015), which was awarded Best Short Film in Athens International Film Festival, selected by various international short film festivals, and sold to a Japanese national TV network. He has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021). His third short film “Soul Food”(2020), was selected for script development by the EU funded Midpoint Shorts, funded by the Greek Film Centre and the French Centre National du Cinema, and won the awards of Best Director, and Best Male Actor at the 44th International Short Film Festival in Drama. Currently, he is in the screenplay development process of his first feature film, which was selected to participate in the MFI Script 2 Film Lab 2021, of the Mediterranean Film Institute.
Gabriel Tzafka was born in April 1986. He holds a postgraduate degree in film directing from the School of Film of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2010) and is a graduate of the Super 16 film school in Copenhagen. He is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents and Sarajevo Talents. His short films Oblivion, Sailor and Euroman have been screened in numerous international festivals, winning over 30 international awards. In 2017, Thorn, his first feature film (a Danish-Greek co-production) received the Eurimages Lab Projects Award. His second feature film, Ode To Joy, was developed with the support of Creative Europe’s MEDIA Program and of the Nipkow Programm (Germany) and selected to participate in Cinéfondation’s L’Atelier program. In 2019, The Right One, his second feature film, was selected to participate in Cannes Film Festival’s The Factory program and screened during Director’s Fortnight. He is a member of the European Film Academy, the Danish Film Academy and the Danish Film Directors’ Association. He has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2022).
Spyros Skandalos was born in Athens, Greece and has studied audiovisual arts at the Ionian University. He has been making short films and documentaries since 2014. In 2021, he co-founded the production company Assumed Position. His latest short, Horsepower, was funded by the Greek Film Center and has received a Best Actress award as well as a Golden Athena at the Greek Short Stories – In competition section of the Athens International Film Festival. In addition, Horsepower was awarded the Special Jury Award, the Cinematography Award and the Visual Storytelling Award of the Greek Society of Cinematographers at the Drama International Short Film Festival. Ilena, his first short film, which was also supported by the Greek Film Center, received the Best Short Fiction Award and the Audience Award at the 2nd Short Films Competition organized by the Onassis Foundation. His next short, Oxytocin, is funded by the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation’s Microfilm program. He has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2022).
Georgia Bardi is a 2D animation director based in London and Athens. She holds a BA in Graphic Design and Visual Communication from the University of West Attica and an MA in Animation from the University of the Arts London. Most of her films are autobiographical and stem from a desire to communicate her feelings. She aspires to create films which are more than a story, allowing space for people to identify with. In her latest film, entitled Watch me Vanish, she explores the notion of a past and a present existing simultaneously. Watch me Vanish is a 2D film shot frame by frame and animated on paper with the use of charcoal, in which the story unfolds through a succession of thoughts that do not follow a linear narrative structure. She has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2022).
Konstantinos Karamaghiolis was born in Athens in 1990. In 2012, he completed his studies in cinema as well as his first short film, Sphinx. The film was presented in 35 international film festivals, including: LA Shorts International Film Festival, Drama International Short Film Festival, Istanbul International Short Film Festival, Tirana International Film Festival, Cinema City in Novi Sad (Serbia), and Athens International Film Festival. In 2015, he completed The Iron Island, his first feature-length documentary which was screened in several documentary film festivals. He lives and works in Athens as a director (also of TV commercials) and screenwriter and has collaborated with the Greek TV network ANT1 and with the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, as a producer for one of the public radio stations. He is currently developing his second film, Subbuteo (scheduled to be filmed in 2023) and is writing his first feature-length fiction film.
Danai Anagnostou is a creative producer for film and artist moving images; and a doctoral researcher in production studies. In 2019, she co-founded Kenno Filmi, a production company in Helsinki which hosts projects by international filmmakers, researchers, and artists. Her work is shaped through the participatory, interdisciplinary, and intersectional production practices that stem from the collaborative aspects of filmmaking. In addition to her practice, she studies contemporary conducts and strategies for producing films; and works on her doctoral thesis undertaken at Aalto University in Finland with the support of Kone Foundation. She has completed a postgraduate degree in Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art at Aalto University, (2020), as well as a postgraduate degree in Architectural Design at Vakalo College in Athens (2016). She is an alumna of Berlinale Talents (2019); Platform for Feminist Leadership (2020); and Talents Sarajevo (2022). Her works have been presented in museums and exhibitions spaces such as the Finnish pavilion of the 58th Venice Biennale, Frestas – Trienal de Artes 2020/21 (Brazil); Μuseum of Contemporary Art Kiasma (Finland); Eye Film Museum (Amsterdam); Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM); and Gösta Serlachius Museum (Finland). She curates Society of Cinema, a recurring film program at the Museum of Impossible Forms in Helsinki since 2019. She has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by Artworks (2022).