Amos Gitaï is an Israeli film director. While pursuing a degree in architecture, Gitaï was driven to the film industry by the 1973 Yom Kippur War in which he had to serve. His Super-8 camera footage of the war initiated his immersion into the cinematic field, and became the basis for his film Kippur, an autobiography of his war experience. Gitaï’s technique for filmmaking is highly praised worldwide. Having lived in France, the United States, and Israel, Gitaï has produced over 40 movies – both documentary and fiction – with a distinctive personal touch. The fusion of architecture with long scenes and slow camera movements gives life to complex issues in the fields of religion, politics, social control, and human behavior in society. Among his most famous films are Devarim (1995), Yom Yom (1998), Kadosh (1999), Kippur (2000), Promise Land (2004), and Free Zone (2005), starring American-Israeli actress Natalie Portman. His movies have been nominated at various film festivals including Cannes, Berlin, London, and New York. This year, Gitaï’s One Day, You’ll Understand was presented at the Berlin International Film Festival/Berlinale Special Section 2008. His latest film Disengagement, staring Juliette Binoche and Barbara Hendricks, is due to be released in Spring 2008.

A Frenchman of American origin, Eugène Green maintains a certain mystery surrounding the first years of his life. Having officiated as professor of philosophy, he began his artistic career as a painter and then turned towards the theater at the end of the 1970s. He founded the dramatic company, the Theater of Sapience, and then started a long-term mission: to restore to the baroque theater to its letters of nobility. Part of this work is summarized in his book La Parole baroque (Desclée de Brouwer, 2001). Protean artist, dramatist, writer and poet at once, Eugène Green came into the cinema in 2001. Green's influences are many and obvious – Bresson, Ozu, Eustache, Hou – but his main cultural touchstone isn't cinematic at all. Having devoted two decades to studying and producing baroque theater, Green has set about translating this 17th-century sensibility for a modern screen audience. Among his most famous films are Toutes les Nuits, a stylized work with bressonian accents, awarded the Prix Louis-Delluc for Best First Film; Le Monde Vivant, a modern-dress knight's tale presented to the “Quinzaine des Réalisateurs” in Cannes in 2003 and which won the FIPRESCI Prize at the London Jacques Rivette Film Festival; and the wonderful Le Pont des Arts, shown at the Locarno Film Festival in 2004.

Amos Kollek is an Israeli film director, screenwriter, actor, and producer. He received a degree in Psychology and Philosophy from Jerusalem's Hebrew University. Beginning first with screenwriting, Kollek also worked as an actor and producer until he started directing his own movies. His background in the study of the human mind led to dense and problematic protagonists, explored in various ways from serious drama to romantic comedy. Amos Kollek is perceived as a “special” film director, both adulated and controversial, and certainly atypical. Among his most famous films are Sue (1997) which won the Grand Prix du Jury at the Deauville Film Festival, Fiona (1999), Fast Food Fast Women (2000) which was met with acclaim at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, Queenie in Love (2001), a romantic comedy taking place in New York City, and Bridget (2002) which was awarded a Golden Bear nomination at the Berlin International Film Festival. In 2003, Kollek directed Amélie star Audrey Tautou in the upbeat romantic comedy Happy End (Nowhere to Go But Up). Amos Kollek received the Prize of the Guild of German Art House Cinemas/Berlinale 2008 for Restless.

Daniel Leconte is a French journalist born in Algeria. He is the CEO of Film en Stock, a production company of fiction films for cinema and television, and President of Doc en Stock, a documentary production company. After having covered the news in Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe for French Television Channel 2, Leconte directed a series of documentaries. These include the award winning The Refuzniks, and The Second Life of Klaus Barbie, which received the famous French Prix Albert Londres and the Spanish Ondas Award, both in 1988. Currently, Daniel Leconte hosts “Making it my Business!” (De Quoi J’me Mêle), a television debate program on documentaries which is broadcast every other month by the Franco-German channel ARTE, his co-producer.

Born in Paris of Algerian parents, Nadir Mokneche spent his childhood and adolescence in Algiers. After two years spent studying law in Paris and a one-year stay in London, he took lessons in the dramatic arts between 1989 and 1993, notably at the National Theater of Chaillot in Paris. From 1993 to 1995 he was enrolled in cinema classes at New York's New School for Social Research, where he made two shorts, Jardin, and the award-winning Hanifa. After three additional years spent at the University of Peruggia (Italy) studying Art History, Mokneche began writing his first long-métrage, The Harem of Madame Osmane. The film opened in theatres to critical acclaim in France in 2000 after screening at numerous international festivals. His second film, Viva Laldjérie, was shot in 2002 in his native country, and is considered an original and unique city portrait by the cinema industry. As such, it has been screened at more than 15 film festivals so far. In 2007, Délice Paloma, Mokneche’s latest work, was applauded at several festivals and received the Prix Lumière du meilleur film francophone at the 13th Ceremony of the Lumière Prize (2008).