Élie Castiel studied French literature, film and translation at Concordia University (Montréal, Canada) and received training in library science. He is a film critic and editor-in-chief of Séquences magazine, now in its 57th year of publication. He holds a master’s degree from Concordia. His master’s thesis was on the long take in The Traveling Players by Theo Angelopoulos. He is president of the AQCC (Association québécoise des critiques de cinéma), a member organization of FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics).

Olivier Lamothe is a weekly columnist and film critic for the program Cinéfix on CIBL 101.5 FM (winner of the 2012 people’s award at the CIBL Gala des artisans). In recent years, he has also been giving workshops on documentary film and animation, notably for the now-defunct NFB CinéRobothèque.

Jean-Marie Lanlo moved to Québec from France in 2008. A certified film geek and former regular at the Cinémathèque française, he brought with him his passion for film, founding cinéfilic.com, where he is editor-in-chief. A feature reporter for the radio show Hors-Champs (RVM, 91.3 FM), photographer, roving editor and political science graduate (from Laval University), he describes himself as a Breton by blood, a Parisian by heart and a Montréaler by adoption.

Journalist, performer, radio and television broadcaster and newspaper journalist, Henri Béhar has long covered the North American cultural and performing arts scenes for Première, Le Monde and Vogue-France. He has moderated press conferences at the Cannes Festival co-authored, with historian Cari Beauchamp, Hollywood on the Riviera (Ed. William Morrow). He now works principally in digital journalism, writing, translation and script adaptation as well as subtitling.

Appointed to the cinema mission of the French Cultural Centre in Athens in 1995, Fabienne Hanclot set up the Festival du Film Français; working year-round to program screenings of films with no distribution in Greece. She returned to France in 2002 to run and program the municipal cinema in La Courneuve. Since 2007, she has been the chief representative of ACID (Agence du Cinéma Indépendent pour sa Diffusion), a filmmakers’ association that works toward getting independent films into theatres and festivals and programs a parallel section of nine feature films at the Cannes International Film Festival.

Born in France, Marie Losier has lived in New York City for close to two decades. For the last 12 years, she has served as film curator at the FIAF (French Institute Alliance Française). She has also made a number of film portraits on avantgarde directors, musicians and composers such as George Kuchar, Guy Maddin, Tony Conrad and Genesis P-Orridge and his group Psychic TV. Whimsical, poetic, dreamlike and unconventional, her films explore the life and work of these artists and regularly screen in prestigious festivals and museums around the world.

Judy Gladstone spent the last 15 years developing Bravo!FACT (Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent) into a world-acclaimed incubator of Canadian filmmakers and new media talent. Prior to that, she ran CIDA’s Canada Fund for Dialogue and Development in the Middle East and was Canada’s cultural attaché in Israel and the Palestinian territories. A graduate of Université Laval, Université Paris-Sorbonne and the University of Haifa, Judy has been invited to speak on film and new media at international festivals and conferences.

From a young age, Montréal filmmaker Vanya Rose has studied theatre and the visual arts. Her short films include Montréal Stories (1912, 1944, 1971), Impossible and At the Bottom of the Hill. In 2010, she founded the production company time’s thievish progress to eternity FILMS. The script for her first feature, Woman in Car, was presented at the TIFF 2012 Producer’s Lab. Woman in Car stars Hélène Joy and Liane Balaban.

Nicolas Roy studied film at three Québec universities, where he made a few experimental shorts. His fictional shorts explore the themes of family, the desolate countryside and death. Novembre (2002), Léo (2003), Petit dimanche (2006), Jour sans joie (2010) and Ce n’est rien (2011) have been selected for several festivals around the world and have earned a number of awards and distinctions. Roy also does editing work; notable credits include Denis Côté’s Curling and Bestiary.

Salette Ramalho studied architecture and took her Arts degree in Porto, Portugal. She was a member of the board of directors and programmer of the Cineclube of Vila do Conde, collaborated with the Curtas Vila do Conde IFF and was involved in other festivals and film events, such as Porto 2001—European Cultural Capital. She is responsible for film distribution and promotion to festivals at Agência, the Portuguese short film agency, and has been a programmer for several Portuguese cinema retrospectives.

Born in the former East Germany, Alexandra Schmidt lives and works in Dresden. She studied sociology with a focus on cultural sociology. In 2010, she and two colleagues took the helm of Filmfest Dresden (International Short Film Festival). In charge of programming for the festival, she has developed a variety of special lineups and retrospectives, including films from East Germany and shorts from Eastern Europe from the 1960s.

Magali Simard is a programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival and works year-round for the TIFF Bell Lightbox. A Québec native, she got her degree in film studies from the University of Toronto and has worked at the TIFF since 2006, where she has helped produce various series for the Cinémathèque, Canada’s Top Ten, the Student Film Showcase, commercial releases and the Film Circuit across Canada. Recently she has sat on juries for the 2010 Outfest in Los Angeles and the 2012 Berlinale and been a guest programmer for the 2011 Percéides, as well as regularly presenting and hosting public and private screenings.

In 2000, driven by his entrepreneurial spirit, Philippe Lamarre founded the multidisciplinary creative studio Toxa. Three years later, he created Urbania, a quarterly magazine with a boundary-pushing tone and design. Philippe received the Phyllis Lambert Design Montréal Grant in 2008, and was named producer of the year in 2010 by the Canadian New Media Awards. He is the president of the Société des designers graphiques du Québec (SDGQ) and has sat on the board of directors since 2005.

In 2000, driven by his entrepreneurial spirit, Philippe Lamarre founded the multidisciplinary creative studio Toxa. Three years later, he created Urbania, a quarterly magazine with a boundary-pushing tone and design. Philippe received the Phyllis Lambert Design Montréal Grant in 2008, and was named producer of the year in 2010 by the Canadian New Media Awards. He is the president of the Société des designers graphiques du Québec (SDGQ) and has sat on the board of directors since 2005.

Author and director Bruno Masi started out as a culture reporter for French newspaper Libération then moved on to writing documentaries and drama series, including for the web. In 2011, he codirected the web documentary La Zone—Retour à Tchernobyl, which won him the Prix RFI-France 24 and the Prix de l’Innovation at last year’s FNC. In 2012, his first novel Nobody was published by Éditions Naïve. He also heads the education wing of the INA (the French National Audio Institute), in charge of the Journalism and Video Games sections.