Anti-racism and White Supremacy Speakers
Since 2001, Dutch-born Matthijs Wouter Knol worked as associate producer on numerous documentary films and produced the digitally re-mastered oeuvre of Dutch filmmaker Johan van der Keuken (Prix Cahiers du Cinéma, 2006), exhibitions of film installations and film-related photography projects, conferences and publications. After a short stint at IDFA, Matthijs worked for the Berlinale, first as head of programming at Berlinale Talents (2008-2014), attending the Sarajevo Film Festival and the successful Talents Sarajevo programme several times, and then as Director of the European Film Market (2014-2020).
At the helm of the EFM, Matthijs’s main focus has been to adapt one of the world’s major film markets to the quickly changing film industry, adding new niche markets, the EFM Horizon platform, and expanding its digital infrastructure.
Starting 2021, Matthijs has been recently appointed as the new Director of the European Film Academy.
Nada Riyadh is a film director/producer based in Cairo, Egypt. Her debut feature documentary (Happily ever after) premiered at IDFA (International Documentary Film of Amsterdam) in 2016. Her short fiction film Fakh (The Trap) was officially selected at Semaine de la Critique - Cannes 2019. Since 2011, she has designed filmmaking workshops to empower distressed communities suffering from war, displacement and difficult living conditions in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. In 2016, Nada co-founded the Cairo-based production company Felucca Films. Felucca Films aims to help filmmakers from the MENA region explore and shape their own personal voices by producing unique and original fiction and documentary films.
Sarah-Tai Black is a film programmer, arts curator, and writer from Toronto, Ontario. She is one of the Directors at The Royal Cinema where she programs Black Gold, a monthly screening series dedicated to blackness onscreen and off. She has previously held the role of Programmer at Images Festival and worked as a part of TIFF’s Festival Programming team. Her writing has been published by numerous outlets, including The Globe and Mail, Cinema Scope, and MUBI Notebook, and she has spoken about arts culture, film, and moving image arts in their many forms as a guest of the National Gallery of Canada and The Walrus, as well as with platforms such as Canadian Art and Huffington Post.
Maria Magdalena Tunkara is a feminist and anti-racist activist. In her blogs across multiple platforms, she raises topics of gender, race and class inequality.
Paula Alvarez Vaccaro, born in Argentina, is an award winning journalist, scriptwriter, producer, and visual artist with over twenty five years of experience working in film, radio, printed media, TV and independent artistic practice. Based in England since 2000, she founded Pinball London in 2009, a production company based in London, UK, with an independent-cinema spirit at the heart to tell stories in all genres from an international perspective with a special emphasis on storytelling that focuses on gender, LGBT, human rights, immigration, minorities, class, and our planet. She has produced and/or written narrative and documentary features, TV series, and animated and narrative shorts in co-productions with the US, Latin America and Europe. She has worked with world known filmmakers such as Sally Potter (GINGER and ROSA), Emir Kusturica (MARADONA by Kusturica; ON THE MILKY ROAD), Guillermo Arriaga (WORDS WITH GODS), and with emerging talent such as Victoria Solano (SUMERCE), Ana Rocha (LISTEN), Agustina Figueras (BORA BORA), Edoardo de Angelis (MOZZARELLA STORIES), and Aaron Brookner (UNCLE HOWARD). As an artist her video art work has been exhibited at various European institutions including Barcelona's CCCB (Contemporary Art Centre) and The Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia.
Since 2004, she has provided training for filmmakers in Latin America and Europe in pitching, production, impact producing, gender and implicit bias in partnership with national and international organisations such as British Council, Eurimages, Circle Doc Accelerator, Montenegro Film Agency, FIDBA Buenos Aires, DocMontevideo, DocsSP, GoodPitch, Impact Lab DocsMx, Thessaloniki Forum, ProPro Austria, Los Cabos FF, BAM Bogotá, UNAM Mexico, and Documentary Campus.
Within Pinball London, she leads Pinball Audiences, providing impact producing consultancy, strategy and training. She is a Sundance Alumna, a mentor and member of EWA (European Women's Audiovisual Network), a member of the DPA (Documentary Producers Alliance), a UK member of the European Film Academy, and Vice-president of the European Producers’ Club, where she was the first woman to enter their board in 2018.