Born in Rasht, Iran, Milad Alami, a Swedish director, graduated from the National Film School of Denmark in 2011. Since then, he has made short features like Void and Mini among others. They were both nominated for the Danish Film Awards Robert Prize in 2015. Void premiered at Directors Fortnight in Cannes in 2014. Alami’s first feature The Charmer (2017), premiered at San Sebastian, and won several prizes at festivals around the world, including the Fedeora Award at San Sebastian, the Silver Hugo Prize at Chicago, NDR Film Prize at Lübeck and Best Film at Warsaw. It was also nominated for the Dragon Award. Alami was the conceptualizing director for the series When the Dust Settles, released in February 2020. It was critically acclaimed and sold worldwide. His second feature, Opponent premiered at the Berlinale earlier this year.

Dennis Hopper, the quintessential Hollywood rebel, came to prominence in 1955 when he played a part in Rebel Without a Cause. Blacklisted from Hollywood in the early 1960s due to his recalcitrance, he made his way back when he married Hollywood royalty in the form of Brooke Hayward, a childhood friend of Peter Fonda. Together with novelist Terry Souithern and a few oothers, Fonda and Hopper wrote a road movie that changed Hollywood: Easy Rider. Made for very little money, it grossed more than $60 million, opening the studio doors for other young directors, like Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, and Elaine May (to name only three). Along with Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider heralded the birth of the New Hollywood Cinema.

Born in Berlin in 1984, Ílker Çatak grew up there and in Istanbul where he completed high school. He then studied film and television directing in Berlin and Hamburg. His graduation film Sadakat won the Student Oscar in Gold in 2015. He followed his debut feature film Once Upon a Time… Indianerland (2017) with I Was, I Am, I Will Be (2019), which won Best Screenplay at Filmfest München and the Bronze Lola at the German Film Awards. He has also lectured at universities in the USA, Germany, Turkey, Japan, Italy, and Greece. The Teachers’ Lounge captured the Best Film prize at the recent German Film Awards.

Simão Cayatte was born in Lisbon in 1984. He studied theatre at Goldsmiths University London and film at Columbia University in New York. As an actor he has worked with directors such as Werner Schroeter, Stan Douglas, Cristele Alves-Meira, and Ivo Ferreira. He has written and directed several short films including The Trip (Festival de Cannes, Cinéfondation 2011) Miami (MotelX best short 2015) and Young Lady (Portuguese Academy Award for best short film 2017). He recently co-produced the Richard Stanley feature Color Out of Space and directed the TV Series Vanda, produced by SPi, La Panda and Legendary Pictures, which premiered at the Berlinale Series Market in 2022. He also teaches screenwriting through various lab programmes across Europe. Drifter, his first feature film, is produced by Ukbar Filmes and co-produced by Good Fortune (France) and Krakow Film Klaster (Poland).