Nadège ABADIE
Nadège Abadie is a photographer and director. Born in Paris in 1988, graduated from ENS Louis-Lumière, she is constantly developing tools and forms that allow her to support the fragility of the subjects she films. Her photographic works have been exhibited in galleries, arts center, festivals and published at Éditions La Martinière, Paris, and Éditions d'en bas, Lausanne. She directed the documentaries 32 boulevard de Magenta (2013), The dew point (2017) and Des mots à la figure (2018).
Hanna HASSOULINE
After a bachelor's in History (Sociology and History of Africa), she did a Master 1 at ESJ, specializing in audiovisual media. She has participated in numerous projects within the First Lines production box and has been an investigator for the program Cash Investigation. In 2017, she worked as a Special Envoy on the attacks of November 13. She collaborated with Georges-Marc Benhamou and Michael Prazan on a documentary project on anti-Semitism in France. She is the autor and director of a documentary film on a movement of Israeli and Palestinian women: Les Guerrières de la Paix broadcast in May 2019 on PUBLIC SENATE and LCP, and awarded with the Special Mention of the Jury at FIGRA 2019.
Fanny CORCELLE
& Juliette GUIGNARD
Fanny Corcelle and Juliette Guignard have crossed paths on several occasions in their journey: At the university, they studied at the master DEMC of Paris 7, then they carried out within the collective La Sierra Prod a series of six documentaries, real practical and technical school where the idea of working together was consolidated. Both of them were trained in image and light (at INA or at the Gobelins) then by assisting various cinematographers (Laurent Fénart, Pierre Boffety or Vincent Ferey). When they don't make common paths, Fanny Corcelle was artistic director of the Silhouette festival, jury in several short film and documentary festivals, and joined the Blogothèque team. As for Juliette Guignard, she was the coordinator of the association La Sierra Prod (film and social), and of the filmmaker collective Captive (film and art). Today, they are developing their respective documentary projects, one in Brazil, the other in the Creuse ...
Eve-Chems DE BROUWER
A theater and film director, Ève-Chems De Brouwer entered filmmaking with a passion for the work of cinematographer and actor direction. It was in Canada that she made her first film, Montreal, in the national competition of the Brest European Short Film Festival. Her second film, Sous l'arbre, purchased by Arte, won numerous festival awards (best short film at the Cabourg Film Festival, jury prize at the FFIF Namur) and post-production assistance from the CNC. The body occupies a central place in her work. Her films explore the question of the quest for freedom, loss, the relationship with the mother, and reconstruction. In each project, she approaches strong and emotionally charged female characters in an intimate and sensory way, and attempts to resonate with the unconscious part of the viewer. She is writing her first feature film and is developing a project on the taboo of infertility in Africa.
Olivier DUVAL
Olivier Duval studied Cinema at The Sorbonne and at the ECAL (Lausanne’s cantonal school of Arts, in Switzerland). In parallel, he has been a director, script-writer, actor, chief-operator on different projects. In particular, he worked with Jan Cvzarlewski on L’Ambassadeur et moi (2011), L’Amour bègue (2013), nominated for many festivals, and then on Training (2014) for Camper ©.
Vincent Elbaz started up Comedy with the Cours Florent, practising theatre for two years. He performed in several plays : L’ouest le vrai by Sam Shepard, Le Bouc (1993) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. He became one of the most promising young french actors by landing his first role in a big screen film, Le Peril Jeune, by Cédric Klapisch. After that, his comedies were quite a success, though he didn’t hesitate to impersonate darker characters. He was awarded the Jean Gabin prize in 1998. Between 2002 and 2007, he acted in two theatre plays, directed by John Malkovich, Good Canary and Hysteria. He then starred with Marion Cotillard in the romantic comedy Ma vie en l’air. He was the main character of the Luc Bessons’ action series No limit, but still remains faithful to the big screen, and sometimes even goes behind the camera.
Audrey GORDON
Historian by training and graduate journalist, Audrey Gordon cut her teeth in the written and audiovisual press before embarking on documentary filmmaking. She is particularly interested in History and the transmission of memory. Her first film, Kinderlekh, tells the story of the tour of a fourth grade class playing the story of Izieu's children, deported in 1944. In 2014, she met a former resistance fighter and, based on her story, approached fiction with the short film Edith & Lucile. In 2016, she shot her first feature-length documentary in the United States.
Originally from Normandy, Marie studied Literature before pursuing Film studies at the Sorbonne. Varou (2021), inspired by an old Norman legend, was her first produced film. She writes and co-writes several fiction projects, mainly oriented toward the uncanny and the fantastic, and in 2025 she directed her second short film, All parents have to die, which received Second Prize at the Moulin d’Andé Screenwriting Competition and was developed within the Sofilm Genre Residency and the Création en Cours program of Les Ateliers Médicis.
Artem IURCHENKO
Artem Lurchenko, born in 1987 in Kiev, student of the workshop of engraving and printing art of National Polytechnic University of Ukraine. Upon his arrival in France in 2008, he completed a Master 2 in Art Media at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Angers, where in 2013 he directed his first film, Pustinki-Hlinitzi. Then did a Master 2 in documentary filmmaking at Lussas in 2014 and on this occasion directed Atelier #5, a short documentary film which prefigures The Cursed Days.
Born in Paris, Delphine moved to London at an early age to seek a multidisciplinary education. She graduates with a degree from the London and International School of Acting, and has been leading ever since a career of actress, writer and stage director. In theaters as well as in cinemas, she acts in a wide range of registers, from Shakespear to spy movies. Having played in England, in the United States and in France, she notably worked with artists such as Michael Lonsdale, Denis Lavant, Matt Damon or Miou Miou. In addition to her career, Delphine also commits to charity by going to Bangladesh with the association Clowns Without Borders.
She takes her first steps as a movie director when she creates Décroche. She has since directed three shorts and three movie ads. She acquired a residence at the Napoule Castle, and a writing aid from the PACA region in order to write Someone’s knocking at the door !
Being a father is her first feature film.
Benjamin Loniewski was born in Aubagne, in the south of France. After studying international business and taking on various odd jobs, he honed his sensitivity to light and image by working as a camera operator and gaffer for directors such as Abdellatif Kechiche (Mektoub My Love) and Joan Chemla (If You Saw My Heart).
Alongside this work, he directed a self-produced documentary and developed several fiction projects, including The lonely child, which was selected for the Aubagne Festival Meetings, the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, the La Ruche screenwriting residency, and the WIPP Festival for films in development. He also developed L’Odeur du béton frais as part of the 2021 La Ruche program, with mentorship from Virginie Legeay.
Self-taught, Alexis and Jeremie Lopez are making a start in the world of directing by taking part in the Media France tv contest of 2013. Their short documentary about their tree-surgeon brother caught the eye of Coline Serreau, president of the jury, who gave them the main prize. Following this, they decided to give up their studies and shoot their first short film : Inlove. An ironic tale about love, in which they tackle a theme that is dear to them : social violence. In 2020, they directed their first documentary: To another world. Currently, they are in preparation for making a second short movie.
Sara OLACIREGUI
In 2006, after graduating in Numerical techniques and 2d animation, Sara olaciregui, started a career as an editor, and worked on Pile Poil which won the Cesar in 2020 for the best short film, among others. In 2020, she finished directing her first documentary, Mohamed, which won the Nouvelle Aquitaine Film Workout 2019. Sara currently works on the development of two projects, one of which has received the Brouillon d'un rêve award, of the SCAM 2019. She is also responsible for the image on the film 316 North Main directed by Sonia Ben Slama which is being shot in the United States. In parallel, she has joined in 2016 the LABEC association Plus loin, in which she still helps and teaches the young authors/directors in filming and editing films.
Shola Lynch was born in Austin, Texas, in 1969 and grew up in New York. She graduated from the University of California Riverside with a master’s degree in history, and from the University of Columbia with a master’s degree in journalism.
As a successful athlete, she has won numerous races. In 2004, she directs her first film Shirley Chisholm’72 Unbought & Unbossed, followed by Free Angela And All Political Prisoners in 2013.
Nicolas Peduzzi grew up in Italy, where he began studying theater and film. He later moved to the United States to attend Susan Batson’s evening classes and went on to make several self-funded short films before his first feature, Southern Belle, which was released in France in 2018. The film was shown at numerous festivals, included in the Best of Doc selection of the 2019 “Mois du documentaire,” and won the Grand Prize at FID Marseille. Nicolas then directed Ghost Song, selected by ACID in 2021, awarded at the Seville Festival, released theatrically in 2022, and shortlisted by Vice in the United States. On the Edge, a SCAM Star 2025, winner of the Jury Prize at CPH:DOX 2023, and presented at ACID Cannes 2023, is his third feature. His next feature, I Should Have Killed My Father, is currently in production.
Gil RABIER
Gil Rabier studied philosophy and gave lectures in Japan. He produces historical and topical documentaries : his movies often touch on medical and social issues. Author of the book L'Annonce, dire la maladie grave, he also produced the movies Les Derniers Mots, Fukushima, Des particules et des hommes and Humaniser l'hôpital. More recently, Gil Rabier directed a trilogy of documentaries on the Second World War, produced by GoGoGo Films and Arte: The Nazis and Money, Stalin’s Factories facing Hitler’s Armies, and the final installment, The Carpet-Bombing Strategy, just completed.
Hugo SOBELMAN
Born in 1988, Hugo Sobelman is a french movie director based in Paris. He started his career as a stage assistant on movie sets such as Queen of Montreuil (Venice Days, Mostra de Venise 2012). He then worked as a freelance cameraman and editor in Paris and London for Ad Vitam, Agat Films, Rectangle and The Bureau.
He made his debut as a movie director from 2014 by working on a dozen of musical clips for the independent label X-Ray. Between the years 2018 and 2020, Hugo directs his first two feature films, both documentaries : Golda Maria, which aired in world premiere at the Berlinale 2020, and Soul Kids, which won the Jury price of the F.A.M.E. Festival and was elected best musical documentary by the SACEM. Completed in 2025, his third documentary paints a portrait of a group of young people from Belleville in Belleville Beats.
Eva TOURRENT
Graduated from the Bordeaux Aquitaine School of Journalism (IJBA), Éva Tourrent worked in a first place as a journalist for the radio and the television (France Inter, France Ô, France télévision), before taking the master degree documentary production in 2006-2007 at the Lussas school / Grenoble University. Along with writing and directing her films, she supervises image education workshops, then works as an assistant director and general manager for film shoots, mainly in office. Since 2018, she is the artistic manager of the SVoD Tënk platform. Lisière is her first feature film.
Dhia Jerbi is a Tunisian filmmaker, born in 1991 in the United Arab Emirates, where he grew up. He returned to Tunisia in 2003. After his baccalaureate and a year in an engineering school, he changed direction and enrolled at the Institut Supérieur d'Art Multimédia de la Mannouba (Tunis) where he obtained a degree in film directing and writing. At ISAMM he directed several school films, including Marhouja. He then went to France to enrol at the Lussas Documentary School where he made three films including Au pays des oranges tristes. Documentary and fiction are often intertwined in his films.
Dhia JERBI
Dania BDEIR
Dania Bdeir is a multi-award winning writer-director who has an intense love/hate relationship with her home country, Lebanon. It is in this country that she finds both her greatest sorrow and her deepest inspiration. Dania has a Master's degree in filmmaking from the Tisch School of the Arts in New York. Her graduation short film, In White, which received support from the Spike Lee Production Fund, had its world premiere at the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival and has screened at the BFI London Film Festival, the Uppsala International Short Film Festival, and over thirty other festivals around the world. In February 2019 Dania was selected for Berlinale Talents and participated in the Berlinale Short Film Station with her short film Warsha. She currently lives between New York and Dubai and is developing her first feature film, Pigeon Wars which was selected for the DFI Hezaya Screenwriting lab organised in collaboration with Torino Film Lab.
Lucile HADZIHALILOVIC
Born in Lyon, Lucile Hadzihalilovic spent her childhood in Morocco until the age of 17 and became very early interested in American and Italian genre cinema. She studied at ESEC, then at IDHEC where she directed her graduation film, La Première Mort de Nono, in 1986.
After this first film, she founded the film production company Les Cinémas de la Zone with Gaspar Noé.
She is a member of the 50/50 collective, which aims to promote equality between men and women and diversity in the cinema and audiovisual sector.
Bérenger THOUIN
After training at the ENS Louis Lumière, Bérenger Thouin wrote and directed several short films, including Guillaume le désespéré, La Course and Le Zoo de Monsieur Vanel. His work focuses on history and archive images. His first feature film, produced by GoGoGo Film and titled Golden Age, tells the story of a fearless young woman, played by Souheila Yacoub, who journeys through the twentieth century in search of fortune and freedom.
Caroline BRAMI
Caroline Brami holds the agrégation in Modern Literature and teaches at a high school in Paris’s 19th arrondissement. A literary critic for Les Inrockuptibles in the 1990s and a former lecturer at the Sorbonne, she divides her time between teaching and writing in its many forms, including songwriting and screenwriting. In 2021, she co-directed the short film The Inspection with Frédéric Bas, which follows a teacher confronting her own approach to teaching the Holocaust. The film was selected for numerous festivals, notably the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, the Namur International Francophone Film Festival, and the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
Myriam EL HAJJ
Myriam El Hajj was born in 1983 in Beirut. She holds a Master’s degree in Film Directing and Audiovisual Creation, as well as a Master’s degree in Theatre Studies and Performing Arts from Université Paris 8–Vincennes–Saint-Denis.
She gained recognition with her first feature-length documentary, Trêve (2015), which follows her uncle and his friends, former militiamen from the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990).
Her second film, Diaries from Lebanon (2025), tells the recent history of Lebanon through an intimate lens, following three characters between 2018 and 2022. The film premiered at the Berlinale and subsequently screened at more than 50 festivals worldwide.
Alongside her filmmaking work, Myriam El Hajj has been Artistic Director of the Fondation Liban Cinéma since 2015. She is also a founding member of the association Rawiyat – Sisters in Film, which supports women filmmakers from the Arab world and the diaspora.
Etienne CHAILLOU
Étienne Chaillou is a French director born in 1981. A graduate of the Arts Décoratifs de Paris in animation, he has been co-directing films with Mathias Théry since 2006. Together, they seek new narrative forms to explore the incessant questions they engage in in their films. Beyond science, they address sociological themes such as family and the heated debate surrounding the law on marriage for all with the film The Sociologist and the Bear, released in theaters in 2016, which was a huge critical and audience success. Their new film, The Tie, was released in theaters in 2020.
Samuel Suffren is a Haitian producer and filmmaker, and the Artistic Director of the Rencontres du Documentaire en Haïti.
He directed a trilogy of short films inspired by his father’s American dream, which has received numerous awards and screened at major international festivals. In 2022, Agwe, the first installment, was selected for the Official Selection at the Locarno Film Festival and won the Best Diaspora Film Award at FESPACO, before being distributed at around fifty festivals worldwide.
In 2024, the second film, Dreams in Paper, was selected for the Official Competition at the Sundance Film Festival and went on to win more than twenty awards, screening at nearly one hundred festivals. Blue Heart, the third and final chapter, had its world premiere at the Directors’ Fortnight at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and is currently continuing its international festival run.
Hector Boudot was born in 1999 in Nancy. In 2016, thanks to the Zellidja travel grants, he embarked on his first solo journey to Norway, where he documented encounters and artistic explorations through photography, writing, and drawing.
In 2019, Hector completed a BTS diploma in Sound Engineering in Metz. He then continued to travel alone, developing an interest in documentary practice. In 2022, he joined the Master’s program in Documentary Filmmaking at the École Documentaire de Lussas.
Sea Graves is his first short film, produced by Gogogo Films. It follows the daily lives of three Senegalese and Guinean men exiled in Morocco, who are forced to work in a cemetery for Europeans.
Born in 1992, Iris Chassaigne lives and works in Paris. A graduate of FAMU, the Film and TV School of Prague, and of Paris VIII University, she directed her graduation film Les gens qui roulent la nuit in 2018, which was selected at the Côté Court Festival in Pantin and the Go Short Festival in Nijmegen.
In 2021, she wrote and directed Swan dans le centre, which was selected for the Cannes Critics’ Week in 2022 and screened at numerous French and international festivals, including the Minimalen Festival in Norway, where it won the award for Best Short Film.
In 2023, she co-directed Stranger, a musical short film made in collaboration with Jehnny Beth, presented in a Special Screening at the 2023 Critics’ Week. She also works as a script supervisor on short and feature films.
Trained at IDHEC, Mariana Otero has developed from the start a rigorous approach to documentary filmmaking, notably directing Non Lieux and La Loi du collège, Arte’s first documentary series.
Her cinema has gained recognition with films such as Entre nos mains (nominated for the César Award for Best Documentary in 2010) and Histoire d’un regard, devoted to photojournalist Gilles Caron and nominated for a César in 2020.
Alongside her work as a filmmaker, she has been deeply involved in teaching and mentorship. In 2011, she was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters.
We are currently producing her new documentary, D’un corps à l’autre, which explores the learning of dance through the experiences of ten adults who are visually impaired and living with psychiatric disorders.
Trained in cinema at Université Paris 8, Julien Gaurichon began his career in 2000 with Fools upon the Hill, a documentary about singer Willy DeVille, co-directed with Frédéric Bas. Their collaboration continued with Yes We Catch!(Arte, 2012), exploring the history of professional wrestling, and Deux rêves noirs (France 5, 2015), focused on Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
He has also directed several films on cinema itself, including Le Mépris by Jean-Luc Godard, La Voie lactée by Luis Buñuel, and Rêves de singe, tracing the history of Chinese animated film.
Between 2008 and 2022, he co-directed around twenty films for the Mystères d’archives collection (INA), as well as the web series History Catchers, dedicated to news cameramen.
Today, he reunites with Frédéric Bas to direct Truman Capote & The Murder of Holcomb and A stranger beside me – Ann Rule & Ted Bundy.
Frédéric Bas is a history and geography teacher at a middle school in the 19th arrondissement of Paris. He is the author of several documentaries for France Culture, France 5, and Arte. He also makes films for the Face à l’histoire series, broadcast on Blow Up, Arte’s cinephile website. In 2021, he co-directed the short film The Inspection with Frédéric Bas, which follows a teacher confronted with her approach to teaching the Holocaust. In 2024, he co-directed his first true-crime documentary with Frédéric Bas, Truman Capote & the murer of Holcomb before continuing in the genre with A stranger beside me – Ann Rule & Ted Bundy, broadcast on Arte in 2026.
Clotilde Nogues, born in the suburbs of Paris, is a documentary filmmaker who also works as a camera operator and assistant on various productions. She approaches each subject with sensitivity, aiming to convey certain realities faithfully while seeking an innovative and aesthetic form that serves the story. Her work focuses on individuals shaped by systems beyond their control. Through singular stories, often silenced or overlooked, she explores the intimacy and complexity of each journey as a way of giving meaning to our shared humanity. She is currently writing her first two films, which bring to light forgotten women’s stories and examine the impact of the prison system, both in the 1960s and today.