Competitions

lIaria Di Carlo is an Italian filmmaker and a visual artist living and working in Berlin since 2009. She graduated in Scenography from the Fine Arts Academy in Rome and holds a Master’s Degree from Central Saint Martin’s College of Art in London. She has worked extensively as director, actress and scenographer for theatre and performance before she started directing her own films. Her filmography includes short films The Black Book of L, The Divine Way and Sirens. Her films were screened in more than 50 countries, in over 170 international film festivals.

María Vallecillos Soldado, born 1994 in Madrid, Spain, studied Sinology and Empirical Cultural Studies at the University of Tübingen. In 2022, she completed her Master's degree in Cultural Management and Cultural Studies at the University of Education in Ludwigsburg. She is co-director of the Tübingen film festival CINELATINO since 2023 and is also responsible for the film competition of the NaturVision Film Festival. Her interest in films, sustainability and educational work enabled her to be part of the "Green Horizons Award" jury at the Braunschweig International Film Festival in 2022.

Director, author, curator. Goggo Gensch realized a portrait of Samuel Beckett or the films 30 Jahre danach, Nai hämmer gsait – Der Widerstand gegen das Atomkraftwerk Wyhl, Stuttgart, ich hänge an dir. From 2001 he directed the series Schätze der Welt (SWR), from 2015 to 2017 also Eisenbahn-Romantik. From 2017 to 2019, he directed the SWR Doku Festival and the German Documentary Film Award. Since 2020, he curates the "Dok Premiere" film series on behalf of the Haus des Dokumentarfilms and the "HFM x ARTHAUS" series for the Haus für Film und Medien Stuttgart. Goggo Gensch is a member of the AG DOK and section chair of the documentary film section of the DAfF.

Film and theater director, film consultant, media educator, cultural mediator. Born in Freiburg. Studied at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, graduated in directing with a film about the artist Charlotte Salomon. Collaboration with broadcasters, cinema operators and educational institutions. Theater productions, documentaries and short films, performances, advertising (including "Wir können alles. Außer Hochdeutsch."). Active in the AG DOK. Founding member of docfilmpool e.V. – association for collective film projects. Involved in Coronography – interactive, cooperative film map. Currently working on the long documentary LAUF!.

www.sabine-willmann.de, www.do-q.de

Nina Kormann (b. 1996) was born and raised on La Réunion. She completed her international Master studies in film and media in Lyon, France, Weimar, Germany, and Utrecht, Netherlands. Since 2020 she has been studying Television Journalism at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. In her work, she is particularly interested in the relationship between humans and nature and climate justice.

Charlotte Maria Kätzl (*1993) graduated her studies of art as master-class student at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Braunschweig in 2022. Together with the artist Conrad Veit, their work has been featured at various group exhibitions (among others Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Mönchehaus, Goslar) and at the Berlinale, the Dokfest Kassel, European Media Art Festival Osnabrück and internationally via the Goethe Institut or the British Film Institute. In 2017, she won the "2 Minutes Short Film Award" and in 2020 the "Teamwork Award" (in 2020) at the Stuttgarter Filmwinter.

Conrad Veit (*1987) graduated his studies of art as master-class student at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Braunschweig in 2022. Together with the artist Charlotte Maria Kätzle, their work has been featured at various group exhibitions (among others Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Mönchehaus, Goslar) and at the Berlinale, the Dokfest Kassel, European Media Art Festival Osnabrück and internationally via the Goethe Institut or the British Film Institute. In 2017, he won the "2 Minutes Short Film Award" and in 2020 the "Teamwork Award" (in 2020) at the Stuttgarter Filmwinter.

Louis Stiens, choreographer, was born in Munich and studied dance at the Heinz Bosl Foundation and the John Cranko School in Stuttgart. He was a member of the Stuttgart Ballet from 2011 to 2022. Stiens has worked both as a dancer and choreographer in the classical, neoclassical and contemporary dance scene. Important projects include his collaboration with Marco Goecke for Dancer in the Dark (2012) and his choreography for the Stuttgart production of Die sieben Todsünden / Seven Heavenly Sins and the premiere of Tal for Ballett Zürich in January 2023. For the 35th Stuttgarter Filmwinter, he created the work In my room (2022) together with Shaked Heller.

Katja Spiess (*1963 in Stuttgart) graduated with a Magistra Artium in German Studies, History and General and Comparative Literature from the University of Stuttgart. From 1998 to 2001, she was co-director of the FITZ Theater animierter Formen in Stuttgart (together with Helmut Pogerth) and has been theater director of the FITZ since 2001. Katja Spiess is a member of the international theater festival of animated forms IMAGINALE since 2008 and was artistic director of the anniversary edition of the international puppet theater festival FIGURA in Baden (CH) in 2012 and a member of the Goethe-Institut's theater/dance advisory board from 2015 to 2020.

Lisa Birke is a Canadian artist whose work is the result of the collision of video, performance art, and expanded media. Absurd yet insightful performative acts become entangled in installations that trouble viewer expectations in the mixing of referents from art history, popular culture and the everyday. Recently, Birke has been exploring immersive approaches using special effects, AR, and 360 video. Her award-winning video work has seen more than 100 screenings and installations at film festivals, and in galleries/museums internationally, including Vancouver International Film Festival, Slamdance Film Festival, Florida Film Festival, International Short Film Week Regensburg, Torrance Art Museum, and the Remai Modern. Birke is Assistant Professor of Digital and Extended Media at the University of Saskatchewan.

Website: http://lisabirke.com/

Bernd Oppl, born 1980 in Innsbruck, studied painting and graphic arts at the Art University Linz and video and video installation at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. He lives and works in Vienna. He has presented his works in solo exhibitions, as well as at international group exhibitions and film festivals. Bernd Oppl received the Award for Contemporary Art of the Province of Tyrol 2008, the RLB Art Price 2012, the Art Award of the City of Innsbruck 2015, the Residency Scholarship 2018 in WIELS (Brussels), the Austrian State Scholarship for Fine Arts 2019, The Residency Scholarship 2021 in BANFF (Canada) and The Best Austrian Animation Award for the Film Warten in the Category "Best Experimental Work" 2022.

Website: https://berndoppl.net/

Maja Stark is a studied art scholar with a focus on the use of extended reality (XR) as creative tool in art and culture. Since 2018, she has been leading exciting EU-funded research projects at HTW Berlin. These projects are always about the transfer of knowledge on XR technologies (such as augmented and virtual reality) to Berlin’s independent cultural scene, cross-sectoral networking and, on this basis, the collaborative and interdisciplinary development of innovative XR cultural formats. Maja accompanies these productions both as project manager and researcher sharing her knowledge through lectures at XR workshops at HTW Berlin, talks, and academic publications.