Slovenian director and producer. He came to international prominence with his directing debut Class Enemy, which picked up the FEDORA Award at the Venice Settimana Internazionale della Critica (2013), was LUX Prize finalist and Variety Critics’ Choice selection (2014). His 2017 documentary The Family, filmed over the span of ten years, won the Grand Prix at the Locarno Critics’ Week and was shown at IDFA. In 2021 Rok presented his short film Penalty Shot in Locarno Corti d’Autore. Currently he is developing his third film as a director. In 2011, Rok founded his Ljubljana-based independent production company Cvinger Film with a branch office in Vienna. He was selected among EFP Producers on the Move in 2019. Among Rok’s productions are Sara Kern’s short Good Luck Orlo (Venice Orizzonti, 2016) and her debut feature Moja Vesna (Berlinale Generation, 2022). He co-produced Olmo Omerzu’s Karlovy Vary entries Winter Flies (2018, Best Director) and Bird Atlas (2021), and Darko Štante’s Toronto entry Consequences (2018). Cvinger Film currently has six projects in development and four in the post production stage.

Head of Cinema at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London (ICA) where he curates an annual film programme of 300 films, and each year, under the label ICA Cinema, leads the distribution operations of multiple theatrical releases for the UK and Irish theatrical and VOD markets. Through his curation over the years, he has consistently nurtured and championed under-represented, independent and experimental contemporary films; Nico is also the founder of FRAMES of REPRESENTATION (FoR), a laboratory and film festival conceived in 2015 to promote the presentation, production, and distribution of new visions for the cinema of the real. Nico is also currently a member of the selection committee of the Rome Film Fest. Nico has served on numerous international film festival juries including Sundance Festival, Venice Festival and Cinema du Reel and led workshops at the Cannes Film Festival, CPH:DOX, and elsewhere; he frequently contributes film reviews and essays to specialised film publications and academic film journals; he has lectured widely both in the UK and internationally being a regular guest lecturer at the University of Exeter, Falmouth University and at the International School of Film & TV (EICTV) in Cuba; he has served on grant panels for Sundance Documentary Institute and Proimágenes Colombia. Nico currently sits on the advisory board of the MA in film studies, programming, and curation at the National Film and Television School in London.

Author, researcher and curator. She studied Slavistics and Comparative Literature in Vienna, Moscow, Munich, Leipzig and Berlin. She has worked on the selection committees of DOK Leipzig and the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and has contributed to the programming of various other film festivals and cinematheques. She is currently a member of the selection committees of the International Berlin Film Festival and the goEast Film Festival. An expert on Eastern European film, she wrote her dissertation on Soviet educational film and has co-edited books on various subjects, including Dziga Vertov. Her research and educational focuses at Humboldt University in Berlin are Eastern European cultural studies, as well as film theory and history. She contributes to newspapers and magazines as a film critic.

He started his career as a screenwriter for both cinema and Tv. In 2010 he set up Dugong Films, focusing on the blurred line between documentary and fiction. Its films were selected and awarded in festivals as Venice, Toronto and Cannes, winning the David di Donatello 2012 for Tahrir by Stefano Savona, the EFA 2018 for the short The Years by Sara Fgaier, the Cannes Goldeneye Award 2018 for Samouni Road by Stefano Savona, the Go Short Award 2019 for That Which is To Come is Just a Promise by Flatform, the Luxembourg IFF 2022 with Atlantide by Yuri Ancarani.

After studying piano and composition, he graduated in History of Art and Drama at Sapienza University in Rome. He studied Film directing at Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia and, over the past few years, he collaborated as assistant director of Marco Bellocchio. His short film Notte romana (2021) premiered in competition at the Settimana della Critica of the 78th Venice Film Festival, was nominated for the David di Donatello and Nastri d’Argento. His latest short film Il Barbiere Complottista (2022) was selected in the official competition of the Cannes Film Festival and won the First Prize La Cinef.

Founder and co-artistic director of The Next Generation Short Film Festival, a short film and artist film competition. She is also co-artistic director of BIG Bari International Gender Festival dedicated to cinema and performing art and BIG Factory, a national and international project supporting performance and audio-video productions; the latest co-production Faccia di cuscino by director Saverio Cappiello was the only Italian short film in competition at Locarno Film Festival 2022. Her previous training and experience ranges from theatre to photography; she collaborates with several companies and her photographs have been exhibited in Palermo, Brussels, Coimbra, Bari.