Cristiana Paşca Palmer is the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity of the United Nations. She served as Romania’s Minister for Environment, Waters and Forests from November 2015 to January 2017. Ms. Pașca Palmer is the former Head of the Climate Change, Environment and Natural Resources Unit within the European Commission. She holds a PhD in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, being a multidisciplinary practitioner and academic in international development with a strong focus on green economy and environmental sustainability. A social activist at heart, she was the founder and president of Green Cross Romania and was Country Director Romania for Fauna & Flora International.

Jean-Guy Henckel is the director and founder of Cocagne Network, and France’s top organic farmer. He studied education and sociology. He was working in a homeless shelter when French society found itself in socioeconomic upheaval as unemployment and poverty rates skyrocketed in the late 1970s. He began making plans for the first Cocagne Garden despite a complete lack of agricultural knowledge. Since the 1980s Jean-Guy has had a profound influence on government policies regarding social and professional inclusion of the most excluded, including most recently the Grenelle de l’Insertion, the national consultation initiated by the Government of French President Nicolas Sarkozy in November 2007 to redefine public policy on Social Integration.

Dana Bunescu is a Romanian film editor, sound editor and director. She has collaborated with some of the most famous Romanian filmmakers.   For Călin Peter Netzer’s film Ana, mon amour, Bunescu received the Silver Bear for technical achievement at the 2017 Berlin International Film Festival. She is also known for editing Cristian Mungiu’s films 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) and Tales from the Golden Age (2009), which screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

Antonin Haddad is the director and programmer of Fredd Film Festival (Film, Research and Sustainable Development) of Toulouse, France. He is trained in engineering, specializing in rural development of periurban areas and their links with the urban commercial networks project.

Valeriu Nicolae is a human rights activist and communications trainer with extensive experience. He worked for the Romanian government and his work includes social policy and social services, national programmes for children rights, social inclusion, and poverty policies. He founded the Policy Center for Roma and Minorities, a Bucharest-based think tank; he also co-founded the European Roma Policy Coalition, which includes some of the most active NGOs in the field of human rights. He is a regularly invited lecturer for Amnesty International and many universities and intergovernmental institutions. In recent years Valeriu has dedicated a good part of his time to working with schoolchildren in Bucharest’s worst ghetto (educational and sports activities).

Andreea has gained good social and professional experience by taking part in volunteering activities in several organizations. She is eager to actively participate in her community, and this motivated her to become a member of the Fresh Perspectives Jury.

Evelina is a ninth grade student at the Grigore Moisil High School and an active volunteer. The passion for art, the care for nature and an open personality have prompted her to be part of the Pelicam festival.

Anda is a student at Grigore Moisil High School. She has participated in a creative writing workshop at the Super Film Festival and is interested in the impact of visual culture and the benefits it can have for contemporary society.

Alexandru is a 11th grade student at Grigore Moisil High School. His passion for film and the environment guided him to various projects, such as Erasmus + “Kids Against Plastic Pollution”, a project on the topic of plastic pollution, or the Pelicam festival.

Mihaela is a student at the George Georgescu High School of Arts where she studies the acting. Being very interested in cinema, she decided to gain insights in the roles visual media and film has in contemporary society and to be part of Fresh Perspectives jury.

Born in 1953, Kurt Langbein holds a degree in Sociology from Vienna University. Between 1979 and 1989 he was a documentary filmmaker and feature journalist with ORF (Austrian Broadcasting Corporation) and since 1992 he is a CEO, producer and director at Langbein & Partner Media. In 2011 he was awarded the Leopold Ungar Prize for his TV documentary The Sense of Endowment, and in 2013 he received the Axel Corti Award for Service Excellence in Broadcasting and TV. His film Utopia:Revisited will be screened in the Fresh Perspectives competition.

Alexandra Westmeier studied theatre and film making at the Drama Academy in St. Petersburg and Moscow. She has lived in Germany since 2001. She initially worked as a reporter for television, then began to concentrate on making documentary films. Lost Reactor is her most recent film that premiered at IDFA (2018); the documentary is part of the Black Sea Docs competition.

Andriy Lytvynenko received a degree in film and theatre directing from the Karpenko-Kary Theatre, Film and Television University in 2012. He was the author of the idea and one of the directors of the Beyond the Euro film almanac about the Euro-2012 World Football Championship. He has participated in the anthologies Ukrainian Voices, Euromaidan. Rough Cut, and Kyiv from Dusk till Dawn. In 2013, he received a Gaude Polonia grant and studied at the documentary studio of the Wajda School in Warsaw. He came up with the idea for The Trial. The State of Russia vs. Oleg Sentsov. His latest documentary, Askania Reserve, is part of the Black Sea Docs competition.

Cem Hakverdi was born in Istanbul, in 1982. He received his BA in Television Journalism from İstanbul Bilgi University.  In 2012, he recieved his MA degree in Cinema from Marmara University. His MA research topic was Propaganda and Popular Cinema.  In 2018, he recieved his PhD in Cinema. His thesis topic was Alienation Reflected on the Movie Screen. He is now working as a lecturer in İstanbul Bilgi University. He has also been working on audio-visual projects as a film editor and director of photography. His most recent work, Dog Movie, will be screened in the Black Sea Docs competition.

His film work focuses on social issues, development and the environment. He collaborates for ten years with the production structures: Lapilli Films, Films de la Castagne and with the association of film education La Trame. His work on deforestation and renewable energies in the Sahel (1999/2007) led him to carry out missions of international expertise in communication on energy and the environment.

François-Xavier Drouet, born in 1980, has done a MA degree in documentary filmmaking at Lussas, after studying social sciences. He lives and works on the Millevaches plateau, where part of The Time Of Forests was shot. He is also co-author with Teboho Edkins of Gangster Project (2011), and Gangster Backstage (2013).

Attila Szőcs is a young peasant and the president of the Eco Ruralis Association – In Support of Peasant Farming. Being concerned with the impact of industrial agriculture on the environment and the deterioration of rural space, at Eco Ruralis, Attila studied the problem of land grabbing in Romania and Eastern Europe, and coordinates the association’s programme on peasants right to land. With master studies in environmental protection in agriculture, Attila brings forth the Eco Ruralis’ mission to promote peasant agroecology as a practical and political solution to feed mankind, in a green and fair manner.

Author of investigations, Jean–Baptiste Malet collaborates with Le Monde diplomatique. He has directed several books and documentaries, including a survey of Amazon (In the Amazon) and another on the geopolitics of industrial tomato concentrate (The Empire of Red Gold), translated into several languages. The latter has received the Albert London Prize in 2018 and is the basis for his documentary film, together with Xavier Deleu.

François Dulac is from the French laboratory LSCE on environmental and climate sciences. He is also the coordinator of an international programme on atmospheric chemistry and its impact in the Mediterranean Region.

Anamaria Pravicencu is a co-founder of The Half Full Association (Jumătatea plină), promoting musical and sound experiments through constant and varied programmed (Sonic Saturday, Semi Silent, Her Voice, Sound Week, Sonic Future Residencies) and creating soundtracks.

George Vlad is a sound designer and a composer who is travelling around the world recording sounds. He is involved in projects on ecology, nature conservation and wildlife protection. He lives in Scotland, UK.