Čejen Černić Čanak
Čejen Černić Čanak (Osijek, 1982) graduated in film and TV directing from the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb. She directed a number of short films, among which the most prominent ones are the short film Pratioci and the short documentary films Krug, Meni bez mene, and Il Postino. In 2017, she directed her first feature film The Mystery of Green Hill, based on Ivan Kušan’s novel of the same name, and received the Breza Award for Best Debut Director at the Pula Film Festival. Her second feature film, Sandbag Dam (2025), premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and has since been screened at around 70 festivals worldwide, winning numerous awards and securing international distribution.
Emilija Gašić
Emilija Gašić (1991) is an award-winning Serbian film director, cinematographer, and photographer. She graduated in Film Directing from the Academy of Arts in Belgrade and earned an MFA in Cinematography from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Her debut feature film 78 Days premiered in the Bright Future section of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), where it became one of the festival’s most-watched titles. Alongside her directing work, Gašić has built an international career as a cinematographer. Her work has been recognised with the Nikon Storytellers Award, and she was a finalist for the Volker Bahnemann Award for Outstanding Cinematography. A Berlinale Talents and Sarajevo Talents alumna, she is also the co-founder of Istok Films. She currently divides her time between New York and Belgrade and is developing her second feature film, Wolf Days, selected for TorinoFilmLab ScriptLab 2025.
Tina Poglajen
Tina Poglajen is a freelance film critic and journalist based in Ljubljana, Slovenia. She collaborates with Radio Slovenia and contributes regularly to a range of Slovenian and international publications, including Film Comment, IndieWire, Cineuropa, Ekran, KINO! and Dialogi. An alumna of film criticism programmes in Venice, Locarno and Rotterdam, she regularly reports from international film festivals. In recent years, she has also worked as an assistant programmer at Kinodvor City Cinema in Ljubljana.
