Katerina Cizek is an influential figure in international media, with over 25 years of experience as a Peabody- and Emmy-winning documentarian, author, producer, and senior leader working with collective processes and emergent technologies.

She is the co-founder, research scientist, and artistic director of the Co-Creation Studio at MIT Open Documentary Lab. She co-wrote the world’s first comprehensive book on co-creating media, Collective Wisdom, published by MIT Press in 2022. At the studio, she designs and leads innovative incubators, workshops, research projects, delegations, and fellowships fusing art, documentary, and journalism with emergent tech and science.

For over a decade, Cizek worked as a documentary director at the National Film Board of Canada. Cizek’s earlier human-rights documentary film projects — on subjects ranging from the handycam media revolution to people smuggling and the Rwandan genocide —  instigated criminal investigations, changed United Nations policies, and screened as evidence at an International Criminal Tribunal, as well as on television and at festivals around the world.

Currently, Cizek serves on multiple boards, including the inaugural Interactive Board of Jurors for the Peabody Awards. She has advised many media labs, including Sundance, ESoDOC (Italy), and CPH:LAB (Denmark). She is the Executive Producer for Assia Boundaoui’s 2022 Inverse Surveillance Project. Cizek was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University and, prior to that, a Visiting Artist at MIT. She is a proud member of the Directors’ Guild of Canada.

Oscar Raby is a multimedia artist, co-founder and creative director at VRTOV, the Melbourne-based virtual reality studio behind the projects A Machine for Viewing, The Turning Forest, Easter Rising: Voice of a Rebel and Assent. VRTOV has been commissioned by the US, UK, and Australia. In 2013 he completed a Masters degree in animation and interactive media at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology where the subject of his research was portraiture in new media. His graduating work, the autobiographical virtual reality documentary Assent, has been part of Sundance New Frontier, IDFA DocLab and Sheffield DocFest as well as festivals in Australia, Canada, USA, Mexico, the Netherlands and the UK. Assent received the Audience Award for Cross-platform at Sheffield DocFest 2014. Oscar is currently working on a PhD at SensiLab, Monash University, that examines the underlying technical and poetic affordances of XR authoring software.

Fiona Lawson-Baker is the executive producer of Witness, the flagship global documentary strand on Al Jazeera English (AJE). Since 2015, she has led a small team commissioning, acquiring and co-producing documentaries while overseeing the curation and broadcast of more than 100 international documentaries annually. In that time, Witness documentaries have won dozens of awards, and have been nominated for the Academy Awards, Grierson Awards and International Emmys.

With more than 20 years’ experience working with documentaries for broadcast, Fiona has commissioned and executive produced films by independent filmmakers from across the globe. Prior to Witness, Fiona worked at the BBC, SBS and is an award-winning graduate of the prestigious Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS). Her career spans living and working in the United Kingdom, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Qatar, where she is currently based.

Mitchell Stanley began his career as a producer line producing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children’s series MOVE IT MOB STYLE, which was broadcast on NITV and ABC3. He went on to produce COLOUR THEORY with Richard Bell, an eight-part documentary series before writing and producing the critically acclaimed documentary, SERVANT OR SLAVE, garnering the highest audience viewership to date for National Indigenous Television, and winning the audience award at the Harlem International and Antenna Documentary film festivals. He recently produced Warwick Thornton’s documentary television series, THE BEACH, as well as Jack Steele’s short film BETWEEN TWO LINES selected for Sydney Film Festival and Cinefest Oz.

Julie Shapiro (@jatomic) is the Vice President of Editorial, PRX & Radiotopia. She is also the executive producer of Ear Hustle.

From 2014-15, Julie was the executive producer of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation / Radio National’s (RN) Creative Audio Unit. In 2000 she co-founded the Third Coast International Audio Festival, where as artistic director she shaped the Festival’s creative trajectory and nurtured a robust international listening culture. Julie has taught radio to university students, presented at conferences all over the globe, and produced stories for podcasts and the airwaves in the US and beyond.

Kate Montague is the Managing Director and co-founder of Audiocraft. As a producer and executive producer, Kate has created audio projects for Spotify, Audible, the ABC, CBC (Canada), NPR’s Snap Judgement (US), Narratively (US) and the Venice Biennale of Architecture. Kate has presented on audio storytelling at Hearsay International Audio Festival, Ozpod Podcast Conference, AIDC, AFTRS, and Radio Alive, and has led podcast workshops at the Sydney Opera House, Screen QLD, Spotify, Word Travels Festival and the NSW Writers Centre.

Nashen Moodley is in his 10th year as Festival Director of Sydney Film Festival. During his tenure, the festival has grown vastly. In 2019, the Festival program presented 307 features and documentaries from 55 countries. Audience increased 63% from 115,000 in 2012 to a record high of 188,000 in 2019.

Moodley’s career in film programming has encompassed many leadership roles, including Manager at the Durban International Film Festival (2001–2011) and as a Programming Consultant for Dubai International Film Festival (2005–2017). 

During Moodley’s 11 years at Durban International Film Festival, he dramatically increased its content and reach. He also raised the profile of the African film industry by establishing the Durban FilmMart, a program providing African filmmakers with the opportunity to pitch film projects to financiers.

He has been a jury member at various film festivals worldwide including San Sebastián, Busan, Toronto, Rotterdam, El Gouna, Durban and Tokyo film festivals.

Born in South Africa in 1978, Moodley studied English and philosophy at the University of Natal and worked as a journalist before turning to film programming. His writing has appeared in newspapers and magazines including The Guardian, GQ, the Sunday Tribune, and the Sunday Independent.

Penny is a Member of the Maramanindji people, from the Northern Territory in Australia. She has completed a cadetship with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and has a Masters of Arts (Documentary Producing) from the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) in Sydney.

Between 2004 and 2005, Penny worked in the Indigenous Programs Unit at the ABC. She was selected for Screen Australia’s Indigenous Department’s Producers Initiative in 2011, and also worked as a Senior Programmer for NITV, National Indigenous Television, a division of SBS.

Most recently Head of the First Nations Department at Screen Australia, Penny managed the department for six years overseeing a large slate of successful film and television including Total Control, Spear, She Who Must Be Loved, Sweet Country, We Don’t Need a Map, Grace Beside Me and Little J and Big Cuz. She also created numerous special initiatives which have provided development opportunities for some of Australia’s newest rising writing, directing and producing talents. In June she began her new role as a Producer at Bunya Productions.

Sonya Pemberton is one of Australia’s leading documentary filmmakers; an Emmy Award recipient and record-breaking five-time winner of the prestigious Eureka Prize for Science Journalism. Her passion is creating quality science documentaries for international audiences.

Sonya has written and directed over 60 hours of broadcast documentary and executive produced many award-winning factual series, her films winning over 80 international awards. Previously Head of Specialist Factual at the ABC, Sonya created Genepool Productions to explore complex and polarised areas of science.

Recent titles include Vitamania (SBS/Arte/CuriosityStream), Uranium – Twisting the Dragon’s Tail (SBS/PBS/ ZDF/Arte), Jabbed – love, fear and vaccines (SBS/ARTE), and Vaccines – Calling the Shots (PBS NOVA, with Tangled Bank Studios).

Genepool Productions is based in Melbourne, Australia, and works closely with global partners and collaborators.