More information on the panelists:

 

Anna Backman Rogers

Anna Backman Rogers is Professor of Culture, Aesthetics and Feminist Theory at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

 

Amanda Coles

Amanda Coles is a Lecturer in Arts and Cultural Management / Employment Relations at Deakin University. Amanda’s research examines the political economy of labour markets and workforce development in the cultural economy with a focus on public policy, collective representation and intersectional inequality. She is a Co-Researcher with the SSHRC funded Interuniversity Research Centre on Globalisation and Work in Canada, and a member of the Kinomatics Project in Australia.

 

Miriam De Rosa 

Miriam De Rosa is Associate Professor at Ca' Foscari, University of Venice. She researches and teaches film theories and philosophy, experimental cinema and screen media arts. She coordinates the International MAster in Cinema Studies (IMACS) and is the founding member of the NECS Cinema and Contemporary Visual Arts workgroup (CCVA). She is active as an independent curator and her most recent curated project is Desktop Cinema (2017-2020), which thus far has comprised a research forum, a film programme and exhibition.

 

Nadia Dresti 

Nadia Dresti was born in Locarno and took her first steps in the world of film thanks to the Locarno Film Festival. Following a brief stint as the head of marketing for 20th Century Fox Switzerland, in 1990 she founded her own company, Zero Problem, in Geneva. This company specialized in film marketing and public relations, and it grew in Paris via daily relationships and conversations with various clients: producers, independent distributors and film festivals such as the Locarno Film Festival, the Marché du Film in Cannes and the European Film Market (EFM) in Berlin. During this time she also became of the selection committee of the Locarno Film Festival and was appointed as Head of the Industry Office, the Festival branch that she nurtured from one edition to the next, turning it into a strategic tool for an event that has increasingly become an international hub for film industry professionals. In 2003, she spearheaded the creation of Open Doors, the co-production lab aimed at remote locations in the film industry. Three years later, in 2006, upon returning to Ticino, she became a Delegate to the Artistic direction. She launched the Industry Days in 2010 and became the Head of Locarno Pro in 2018.

In addition to contributing to the growth of the Locarno Film Festival, she also lives and breathes cinema on an institutional level, having served for eight years as a member of the Film department in the Federal Office of Culture in Berne. Since 2012 she's also been part of the Federal Commission of Cinema (CFC). In 2017 she worked alongside Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian as Deputy Artistic Director of the Locarno Festival, while also managing Locarno Pro. She maintains the latter post to this day, having also been appointed as Director of the Ticino Film Commission. Since January 2020, she is international advisor for the Locarno Film Festival and in October she take up the role of interim head of the artistic direction and of coordination of Locarno Pro.

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Rosalind Gill

Rosalind Gill is Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, at City, University of London. She is author or editor of many books, including Gender and the Media (Polity, 2007), Theorising Cultural Work (with Mark Banks and Stephanie Taylor, Routledge ,2013), Aesthetic labour: Beauty Politics and Neoliberalism (with Ana Elias and Christina Scharff, Palgrave, 2017) and Mediated Intimacy: Sex Advice in Media Culture (with Meg-John Barker and Laura Harvey, Polity 2018).  

 

Helene Granqvist

Helene Granqvist has worked with film and television for more than 30 years. She studied Set Design at Statens Teaterskole (1984-1988) in Copenhagen and worked as a set designer all through the 1990’s. In 2000 she co-founded the production company Good World AB (Good Film & Post) together with her husband Anders Granqvist, and began to work as a producer. Since her time at Good, she has produced a dozen documentaries, as well as many short films, a number of feature films, a web TV channel, and a documentary TV series. She also won the Swedish Golden Wheel prize for best public event with Musikhjälpen 2008, produced a theater show at Klara Soppteater, Stockholm in 2010 and is frequently being engaged as a lecturer both in Sweden and internationally. Helene is also very involved with WIFT Sverige (Women in Film & Television, Sweden), since 2013 as the president of the board.

In 2011 she founded the production company Nordic Factory (previously DoDream) based on the vision of connecting ideas with resources, and the communication of sustainable values – socially, culturally, economically and ecologically.

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Mathilde Henrot 

A decade ago, together with Alessandro Raja, she founded the platforms Festival Scope Pro, and in 2016, Festival Scope. ArteKino, developed by the duo with ARTE since 2016, presents to European audiences emerging and confirmed European talents online and in cinemas. Since 2012 she curates the Kinoscope program of the Sarajevo Film Festival and has been a member of the Selection Committee of the Locarno Film Festival since 2018.

 

Skadi Loist 

Skadi Loist is Assistant Professor for Production Cultures in Audiovisual Media Industries at the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF in Potsdam, Germany.  Skadi’s research focusses on film festivals & circulation, queer film culture, and screen industries, diversity and sustainability.  Skadi is Principle Investigator of the research project “Film Circulation on the International Film Festival Network and the Impact on Global Film Culture” (2017–2021) as well as Lead PI of international research project “GEP Analysis: Assessing, Understanding, and Modeling the Impact of Gender Equity Policies (GEP) in the Film Industry” (DFG/ESRC/SSHRC 2021–2024), and has co-developed the workshop “Beyond Stereotypes: Gender-Conscious Storytelling”, a cooperation of the Erich Pommer Institute, the MaLisa foundation and the Film University.
 

Marcela Stolzmann

Marcela Stolzmann is a Brazilian filmmaker and producer who is interested in experimenting with new media formats and aesthetic practices. She joined the Amsterdam and Los Angeles-based Production Studio Ado Ato Pictures in 2017 and has since worked on multiple internationally-renowned pieces. In 2019, she helped produce the company’s first virtual reality experience, Another Dream, and she served as the technical lead during the project’s premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. In 2020, Marcela worked as a producer on the interactive web experience, They Call Me Asylum Seeker. This experience, as the final installment of the Queer in a Time of Forced Migration series, premiered at the Amsterdam Museum with its accompanying pieces. Marcela most recently worked on Echoes of Silence, a commissioned project for IDFA, in which she produced, edited, animated, and developed a fulldome experience. She is currently finishing a Media Research Master's at the University of Amsterdam in order to engage with media culture and her own work more critically. 

 

Illya Szilak

Illya is a Peabody Futures of Media award-winning trans-disciplinary writer, artist, director, and physician. Cyril Tsiboulski is her longtime artistic partner. Their interactive online narratives are collected in The Electronic Literature Collection. Szilak's art is interactive, cross-disciplinary, collaborative and often employs archival, crowd-sourced and performative elements. Their VR works Queerskins: a love story and Queerskins: ARK (queerskins.com)  have been shown at film festivals and art spaces around the world including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. They are recipients of grants from The Sundance Institute and the Tribeca Film Institute/MacArthur Foundation. Their newest work "In My Own Skin," an interactive virtual installation in VRChat featuring wearable avatars, was created in collaboration with Mumbai based textile artist Loise Braganza and  photographer Tagger Yancey, IV. It will premiere in late April 2021. illyaszilak.com @atomicvacation

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