Rintu THOMAS

Rintu Thomas is an Academy Award-nominated and Peabody Award-winning Indian director and producer, whose work sits at the intersection of storytelling and narrative change. Her double Sundance-winning Writing With Fire (2021) is India’s first Academy Award-nominated feature documentary. A recipient of the President’s Medal of India and the International Documentary Association's Courage Under Fire Award, Thomas is also a Skoll Stories of Change Fellow, a Logan Elevate Grantee and a South Asia Fellow with the Japan Foundation. Thomas’s critically acclaimed work centers on creating powerful, socially engaged films that amplify underrepresented voices. She is a co-founder of Black Ticket Films, an award-winning production company dedicated to the transformative power of storytelling. Her award-winning shorts include Dilli (2010) and Timbaktu (2012). In 2023, she co-founded the Himalayan Story Lab, an incubation lab for indigenous filmmakers from the Himalayan regions of South Asia, fostering ambitious storytelling with strong regional roots and global relevance.

KIM Taeil

Kim Taeil began his career at PURN Production, a documentary production circle. Starting with Special Song of Wonjin Factory (1993), a documentary addressing the occupational disease incident at Wonjin Rayon, he has consistently explored Korea's painful history and the lives of those at the margins of society in works such as 9th April (2000) and Annyong, Sayonara (2005). He later founded Sanggu-ne, a family-run production house, where he works with director Ju Romi to complete the People's World History project, spanning No Name Stars (2010), Wellang Trei (2012), All Live, Olive (2016), and Again the Wind Blows (2022). By excavating the lives of individuals whose records were erased amid the massive currents of history, his work continues through Raining Dust (2025), a documentary about the last coal miners. Kim has received the Woonpa Award at the Busan International Film Festival for Annyong, Sayonara, and the BIFF Mecenat Award for Raining Dust.

ZHOU Hao

Zhou Hao worked as a media journalist for a decade before making his directorial debut in 2001 with Houjie Township, a documentary focused on migrant workers. He went on to direct such acclaimed works as Senior Year (2006), Using (2007), Cotton (2014), and The Chinese Mayor (2015), exploring the lives of ordinary people, urban transformation, and social realities through a restrained, observational lens that captures the multifaceted nature of the contemporary society. He has won the Golden Horse Award twice, for Cotton and The Chinese Mayor, and his films have screened at prestigious international festivals including the Sundance Film Festival and the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. In 2020, he was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.