Tasos Boulmetis

He was born in Istanbul in 1957 and came to Greece in 1964.

He studied Physics at the University of Athens and Film & TV Direction and Production at the University of California, LA (UCLA).

He worked as professor�s assistant at the same University and after his return to Greece he worked as a freelance director and producer for the State TV and as a director of commercials.

He is the co-producer, scriptwriter and director of the feature film. �A Touch of Spice�, his second feature film, which was awarded 8 state prizes and the public�s award at the Film Festival of Thessalonica in 2003, and made a record with 1.500.000 tickets sold in Greece, while it has already been sold in 36 countries abroad.

Manuel Poutte

Director, composer and writer Manuel Poutte was born in 1963 in Bruxelles, where he studied philosophy and scriptwriting.

At the beginning of the 80�s with the cult band �Bernth�ler� he contributed to the history of new wave in Europe.

In 1992 he founded Lux Fugit Film and Dolce Vita Films.

His first short film �La Sensation� won numerous award in film festivals and was nominated for the Prix Sp�cial du Jury in Cannes.

He directed feature and documentary films, which were screened in many film festivals all over the world.

Jan R�fekamp

Jan R�fekamp was born in Zurich, Switzerland, and grew up in Holland, where he attended the Dutch Film Academy.

He worked in film distribution from 1972 to 1982, when he moved to Canada, where he founded Films Transit, one of the worlds leading international distributors of quality documentaries.

Some of the company�s recent releases are �The Corporation�, �Metallica: Some Kind of Monster�, �Bukowski: Born into This�, �Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust�, �The President Versus David Hicks�, and �The Battle for Our Minds�.

Films Transit won the Joris Ivens Award at the 2004 idfa (Amsterdam) for �Shape of the Moon�. He has produced and executive produced dozens of films throughout his career.

Maria Vassilakou

Born in Athens in 1969. Language studies in Vienna. In her student years, she was active in the Austrian student body at the university and became secretary general.

After completing her studies and working on various university research projects, she joined the Viennese Greens. She ran for office for the Vienna City Council elections and became a member of the City Council.

In 2001, she became a City Councillor of Vienna and three years later, Chairwoman of the Green Party in the Vienna City Council and leading candidate for the coming Viennese elections.

COMPETITION MEDIUM LENGTH FILMS

Hans Burgschmidt

Currently living in Toronto, Canada, he has been a consultant to over 15 film festivals worldwide among them with the Toronto, Miami and Dubai Intl. Film Festivals.

Coming from a background in Naturopathic Medicine, psychology and studies in environmental impacts on health, he became politically active when he realized that the mainstream conservative media played a major role in keeping people uninformed about the most critical issues.

In 1998, he founded and directed the Undercurrents Collective, an organization of media workers committed to producing cutting edge social and environmental documentaries for radio and television.

His current focus is on understanding and communicating the psychological aspects of what causes humans to destroy their relationships with the environment and with each other.

In his spare time he builds cinemas

Christos Doulkeridis

Son of Greek immigrants was born and raised in Belgium.

Politics interested him from his young years, and he became a member of the �Green� Party of Belgium, ECOLO.

In 1999 he became debyty for ECOLO at the Brussel Parlament and since 2004 he is president of the French speaking Parliament.

His main politic interests concentrate among others in matters of minority rights and environmental subjects

Katarina Peters

Katarina Peters was born 1958 in Hamburg.

She studied sculpture, film and performance at the San Fancisco Art Institute and Visual Communication in Berlin.

After that sound engineer and set designer for theatre, film and television. Numerous exhibitions in Germany and the USA. Since 1981 she has been living and working in Berlin.

In 1986 she founded Katarina Peters Filmproduktion.

After several experimental films including �At the Edge of the Earth� (1986) and �Green Iguanas� (1994), �Stroke� is her first documentary, which was screened at the ecofilms festival in 2005.

COMPETITION SHORT LENGTH FILMS

Marco Gaudenzi.

Was born in Pesaro in 1949.

He graduated in architecture from the University of Rome in 1976, with a thesis entitled: �A residential complex for the elderly in Pesaro�.

Since 1976, he has created some 150 design projects for all areas of civil and industrial building, including the building of an experimental theatre in Pontedera.

Since 1987, he has been the creator and art director of Tonelli, bringing in designers such as Isao Hosoe, De Pas, D�Urbino, Lomazzi and Luigi Serafini.

In the design field, he works on occasional, non-specific projects that have seen him collaborate with Tonelli in the furniture industry, MFFM in the jewellery sector, and Benelli for hunting rifles.

As part of an overall research project into mobility, which he carried out in conjunction with Isao Hosoe, he created �Fluida�, a �bag� bicycle.

Bahij Hojeij

After studying drama and philosophy in Beirut, Bahij Hojeij was granted a stipend to study film in France, where he attended the "Ecole Louis Lumi�re" , the University of "Paris VIII" and the "Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales" .

He worked in Lebanon at the CRDP an educational TV organisation, and became a film professor at Beirut Fine Arts Institute in 1990.

Bahij Hojeij has made several TV broadcasts as well as documentaries, among them "Beyrouth The Ruines talk" (1993) and "Kidnapped" (1998), which earned the CMCA Prize for the best mediterraneen documentary.

In 2004 he produced and directed "Zennar El Nar"(Ring of fire) a feature film which participated in several festivals and was granted many awards.

Giannis Leontaris

Was born in Athens in 1965. He is a graduate of the University of Thessaloniki (Department of Literature) and holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Paris X-Nanterre.

He has taught at film schools and has also taught literature at high school. Since 2000 he has been teaching history and film theory at the University of Thessaloniki Theatre Department and the National Theatre of North Greece Drama School.

His articles have been published in literary and science journals. He has been working as a film director since 1987. His film �Encomium: A Tribute to Slowness� received the State Award for Best Documentary in 2002.

In 2005, he directed for the theatre �Electra� of Hugo Von Hofmannsthal.

Salvador Aguirre

M�xico 1965.

Studies in the Film School Centro de Capacitaci�n Cinematogr�fica.

He works as asistant director to some of the most important mexican and foreign directors as : Felipe Cazals, Alfonso Cuar�n, Arturo Ripstein and Ridley Scott. In 1998 his first work as producer �Bajo California. El L�mite del Tiempo� wins 7 Ariels.

His film �De Ida y Vuelta� wins many important prices such as the Best Movie XV Guadalajara Fim Festival and the FIPRESCI in Mar del Plata. In 2002 his short �De Mesmer con Amor o T� para dos� wins among other awards 41. Semaine de la Critique inCannes.

In 2006 he directed the 1st International Water & Film Event in the IV Worls Water Forum. He is a member of the National System of Artist FONCA.

Sergio Illuminato

Literature and Philosophy graduate at the University of Rome "La Sapienza�. Since 1993 professional journalist. General Director of the Information and Communication Centre of the Mediterranean Action Plan since 2004. Executive Director of �Campus EcoMedia�, the official magazine of the Mediterranean Commission for Sustainable Development.

From 2001 to 2004 he promoted and coordinated the network of Italian Municipalities and Regions in support of UNEP, for the preparation of protocols on the prevention and monitoring of pollution in the Mediterranean Sea.

He presided over and ran non-governmental organizations with an environmental focus. Producer and organiser of numerous cultural events and television and film festivals, he also has previous experience as an artistic theatre director and book author.

Tony Long

Since 1989 director of the WWF European Policy Office in Brussels.

Previously he worked for WWF in the United Kingdom and as assistant director at the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) in London.

He was visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, teaching an interdisciplinary course on EU environmental policy-making.

He currently serves on several advisory boards among them:- the Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE); the EurActiv Foundation; the European Centre for Public Affairs; the European Policy Centre; and, the Board of WWF Greece.

Kostas Ivan Georgiadis

Born in Marseilles, France. He studied economics at the University of Grenoble, and now he is in the hotel business. For eight years he was a board member of the Organization for Culture of the Municipality of Rodos, dealing mainly with cinema subjects.

Member of the board of the Cinema Club of Rodos since the 80�s, and later secretary of the cinema company �Theasis�, which replaced the Cinema Club. He regularly participated as representative of the Cinema Club in the congresses of the Cinema Club Union of Greece.

He assisted the organization of Cinema Courses, especially the courses of Cinema History, organized by �Theasis� in 2005-2006.

During the previous two Ecofilms festivals he was part of the committee that granted the public award.

Dimitris Papakonstantis

I was born in 1938 in Alexandria, Egypt. Director of photography since 1965 in 70 films, 20 of them in color.

In 1974 I direct my first feature film �Holocaust�. Three more feature films follow. 1992. Director of the TV-series �Aparadektoi�, 18 TV-series for ERT, Antenna and Mega follow.

Thessaloniki Film Festival Award for Photography.

Thessaloniki Film Festival Award for Best New Director.

Special Prize for the photography of the film �Dichasmos� by Erikos Andreas at the Chicago Festival.