She studied Philosophy and Literature at the Ruhr Universität in Bochum, in Germany. From 1992-1998 she was in the team of the Documentary Film Festival in Duisburg and the International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen. From 1999 to 2014 she made many projects, films and installations together with Harun Farocki.
She has worked in curatorial proyects such as Labour in a Single Shot, Venice Biennale (Venice, 2015); Haus der Kulturen der Welt, (Berlin, 2015), MUAC (Mexico City, 2014), Tel Aviv Museum for Contemporary Art (Tel Aviv, 2013), Lumiar Cité (Lisbon, 2013), Max Mueller Institute (Bangalore, 2013), Muzeum Sztuki (Lodz); Between Eye and Hand. Former Hotel Pythagoras(Samos, 2012); Serious Games. War – Media – Art, Mathildenhöhe (Darmstadt, 2011); The Image in Question. War – Media – Art, Carpenter Center for Visual Arts (Cambridge); Mass (2010); Harun Farocki. 22 films, 1968–2009, Tate Modern (London, 2009); Cinema like never before (with Harun Farocki), Generali Foundation (Vienna, 2006), Akademie der Künste, Berlin 2007.
She has published Web Catalogue Labour in a Single Shot; Serious Games. War – Media – Art(co-editor), (Ostfildern, 2011); Harun Farocki. Against What? Against Whom? (co-editor), (Köln, 2009); Cinema like never before (co-editor), (Cologne, 2006); Geschichte des Dokumentarischen Films in Deutschland, Vol. 2, Weimarer Republik (co-editor), (Stuttgart, 2005).
Born in London and raised in France, Claire Simon began her career with short films (Scènes de ménage starring Miou Miou in 1992) and documentaries - among which Récréations and Coûte que coûte had a theatrical release, which appeared as a giant step forward for documentaries within French cinema. Her first fiction feature (A Foreign Body, 1997) appeared in the parallel section of the Cannes Festival.
She then directed documentaries (800 KM de difference / romance, 2001; Mimi, 2002), a half-fiction, half-documentary movie at the European parliament (Ça c’est vraiment toi, Grand Prix for documentary and fiction, Belfort Film Festival), a theater play (Objets d’amour), and two fiction films both presented at the Director’s Fortnight in Cannes (Ça brûle, 2006, Les Bureaux de Dieu, 2008), a film on family planning services, starring famous French actresses (Nathalie Baye, Nicole Garcia, Béatrice Dalle, etc.). Les Bureaux de Dieu received the SACD award at the Director’s Fortnight. In 2013, she released both a fiction (Gare du Nord, starring N. Garcia, Reda Kateb, François Damiens and Monia Chokri), and a documentary (Géographie humaine) movies about the Gare du Nord station in Paris.
Since then, she has made two feature-length documentary films: Le Bois dont les rêves sont faits(release scheduled early 2016) and Le Concours (release scheduled autumn 2016).
Javier H. Estrada is a film critic and programmer. He is a member of the editorial boards of the magazines Caimán. Cuadernos de cine (former Cahiers du cinéma España) and Secuencias.Revista de Historia del Cine. In addition, he is the author of several book contributions, includingCinema Filipinas (Cines del Sur-Granada Film Festival, 2010), Historia Mundial del Cine I. Estados Unidos II (Madrid, Akal, 2012), Thomas Heise. Fragmentos de búsqueda/Fragments of Seeking(Olaf Möller, coord., Navarra, Punto de Vista International Film Festival, 2013), World Film Locations: Barcelona (Bristol, Intellect Books, 2013), Nagisa Oshima (San Sebastián Film Festival, 2013), Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East (Saint Andrews Film Studies, 2014) and Nuevo cine independiente japonés 2000-2015 (San Sebastián Film Festival, 2015). In addition, he was the curator of a series of film programmes, such as Relatos del Bósforo. Estambul en el cine turco contemporáneo (Tales of the Bosporus: Istanbul in Contemporary Turkish Film, Casa Árabe, Madrid, 2010) or Amir Muhammad (Punto de Vista International Seminar, 2012). Since 2013, he has programmed the Lima International Independent Film Festival in Peru. Mr Estrada is co-founder and programmer of FILMADRID-International Film Festival, held in Madrid, Spain.
After studying Film at USC and UCLA, he joined the Cali Group along with Carlos Mayolo and Andrés Caicedo, founders of the Cali Film Club and the Ojo al Cine magazine in the 1970’s. He has directed 2 full-length fiction films—Pure Blood (1982) and Breath of Life (1999) — and has made 7 full-length documentary films, as well as around twenty short documentary and fiction films, such as The Vampires of Poverty (1977), co-directed with Carlos Mayolo; Andrés Caicedo: A Few Good Friends (1986); The Supreme Uneasiness: Incessant Portrait of Fernando Vallejo(2003); and A Paper Tiger (2007). His work has received awards at the Oberhausen, Biarritz, La Habana, Sitges, Bilbao, Lille, Miami, Lima, Caracas and Toulouse international festivals. His work has been exhibited at the Tate Gallery, the Reina Sofía Museum, the Georges Pompidou Centre, the Jeu de Paume, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Dokumenta Kassel. His most recent film is It All Started at the End (2015). He is currently directing the Cali FICCALI International Film Festival.
Graduated in History of Cinema at the University of Florence, Maria Bonsanti initially worked in the field of art exhibitions and for independent films productions. In 2000, she started her collaborations with film festivals. Since 2012, she is the artistic director of Cinéma du Réel - International Documentary Film Festival in Paris, based at Centre Pompidou. Prior to leading Cinéma du Réel, she was the co-director of the Festival dei Popoli in Florence, one of the oldest events in Europe dedicated to documentary. Between 2000 and 2008, she collaborated with Locarno Film Festival where, among many tasks, she worked as a coordinator for the section called “Play Forward” featuring experimental films and video art. She has acted as a member of the jury and panel in several festivals like Busan International Film Festival, Karlovy Vary, CPH:DOX, Torino Film Festival, IndieLisboa, DocAviv, RIDM – Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal.