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Jim Sheridan/filmdirector

Following a distinguished career in the theatre through the 1960s, 1970s and the 1980s, Jim Sheridan wrote and directed his first critically acclaimed feature My Left Foot in 1989. He followed this in 1990 with The Field which he also wrote and directed. In the same year he wrote the screenplay Into The West which was directed in 1992 by Mike Newell. In 1993 he wrote, produced and directed In The Name of the Father and in 1995 he wrote and produced Some Mother's Son, which was directed by Terry George. In 1997 he wrote, produced and directed The Boxer and in 1999 he produced Agnes Browne, directed by and starring Anjelica Huston. He is also executive producer of Borstal Boy, On The Edge and Bloody Sunday. His film In America which he produced, directed and wrote was released in 2003. In 2005 he directed and produced Get Rich or Die Tryin'. Sheridan helmed the 2009 film Brothers, starring Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal. He also directed the thriller Dream House, which starred Daniel Craig, Naomi Watts, and Rachel Weisz. His latest feature film The Secret Scripture premiered at the Toronto Film Festival this year.

Jim Sheridan's films have achieved popular and critical acclaim throughout the world. His films have garnered sixteen Academy Award nominations, of which six were personal to him as Writer, Producer and Director, and they have won two Academy Awards as well as numerous prestigious international awards. Jim Sheridan lives in Dublin and is married with three children.

Lajos Koltai/ASC, HSC - master course

Lajos Koltai is a Hungarian cinematographer and film director best known for his work with legendary Hungarian director Istvan Szabo, and Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 2000 for his work on the film Malèna. In 2004 Koltai directed his first film, the Holocaust drama, Fateless (Sorstalanság), based on the novel of the same name by Nobel Prize winning writer Imre Kertész . It was released in Hungary in February 2005 with moderate success and it was subsequently released in the United States in the fall of 2005. Sorstalanság has had much exposure and success on the film festival circuit premiering at the Telluride Film Festival, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, the Los Angeles Film Festival, the Washington Jewish Film Festival, The Boston Jewish Film Festival, the Toronto Film Festival, the Woodstock Film Festival, the Berlinale, or Berlin Film Festival, where it was nominated for the prestigious Golden Berlin Bear, amongst countless others. It was also nominated for Best Score (Ennio Morricone) and Best Cinematography (Gyula Pados) at the European Film Awards. Hungary nominated it for the 2006 Academy Awards, but out of the list of 58 countries as potential nominees for Best Foreign Film, it didn't make it to the final five.

Michael Keusch, Writer & Director – master course

Born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. At the age of three, moved to Germany where Michael attended high school. Eventually he enrolled in the Film & Television Program at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Canada. After graduating from S.A.I.T. he produced and directed numerous dramatic shorts and documentary films. Then he was accepted in the Directing Program at the American Film Institute. Settled in Los Angeles, Michael continued to direct various short films and waiver stage productions in local theaters; he participated in acting workshops and enrolled in writing seminars (UCLA, Syd Field, Robert McKee). Finally, he was able to finance his first 35mm feature film NIGHT CLUB (writing/directing). The distributor then produced his second feature film as writer/director LENA’S HOLIDAY. These productions led Michael to start a professional career  working as a director on American and Canadian TV series and TV movies. In the mid-nineties an opportunity to write and direct a number of German TV movies presented itself. While also directing for other German networks like Pro-7, Sat-1 and ZDF, he was able to develop his own material and flex his muscles in different genre: crime, drama, comedy, thriller and historical drama. To date, Michael has helmed (and often written) 65 film and television productions. Besides working in North America and Germany, many of these productions were mounted internationally and afforded him the exceptional experience of working with local crew and talent in New Zealand, China, Romania, Scotland, Hungary, Italy, England, Switzerland, France and Portugal.Michael is a Canadian and German citizen with a Permanent Residency Statusin the USA. He holds two Associate.

Mátyás Erdély, Cinematographer, HSC – master course

Mátyás Erdély (born 17 September 1976) is a Hungarian cinematographer. Among his best-known films is the 2015 Hungarian film Son of Saul, which won the award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards. Erdély won the Bronze Frog at Camerimage and the Golden Camera 300 at the Manaki Brothers Film Festival for his cinematography on the film. His other work includes Delta (2008), Tender Son: The Frankenstein Project (2010), Miss Bala (2011), The Quiet Ones (2014) and James White (2015).

Máté Herbai, Cinematographer, HSC – master course

Máté Herbai is a Hungarian cinemtographer. He won the Golden Frog in Camerimage's main competition for his latest film On Body and Soul (2017), which was nominated for the best foreign language film at the Oscar's.

He worked at features,  the Well (2016), Lost Times (2009), The Investigator (2008),  shorts and TV shows as well, like HBO's In Treatment series. 

Gabriel Wagon, Cinematographer/Israel - master course

Gabriel Wagon is a visual artist focused on merging classical storytelling and cutting-edge technology.
After graduating from the Sam Spiegel Film School in Jerusalem Gabriel worked for several years as a Director of Photography for TV series, TV Dramas, Short films and a Feature film.
Nowadays, Gabriel is focused mainly on VFX for films and explores ways of using new tools such as Photogrammetry, game engines and programming in order to tell more engaging stories.
Gabriel Teaches Cinematography and VFX in the Maale Film School in Jerusalem.

Luciano Tovoli/AIC

Luciano Tovoli is an Italian cinematographer, film director, and screenwriter. His films include Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger (1975), Dario Argento'sSuspiria (1977) and Tenebrae (1982), and Julie Taymor's Titus (1999). Tovoli has enjoyed a particularly fruitful relationship with director Barbet Schroeder, working on that director's Single White Female (1992), Before and After (1996), Murder by Numbers (2002), Reversal of Fortune (1990), the latter an Oscar-winning and Golden Globe nomimated film. In 1983, Tovoli directed and cowrote Il Generaledell'armatamorte based on a novel by Ismail Kadare, starring Marcello Mastroianni and AnoukAimée. Among other awards for his cinematography Tovoli has won the Da Vinci Cinematographer's Award on Palm Springs International Film Festival and was Nominated in Golden Globes, Italy for Best Cinematography.

Birgit Gudjonsdottir/BvK

Birgit Gudjonsdottir is known mostly for her work as a second unit or B-camera on large productions like KarynKusama'sÆon Flux with Charlize Theron; Kevin Spacey's Beyond the Sea with Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth and John Goodman; Paul Greengrass' The Bourne Supremacy with Matt Damon and Wolfgang Becker's Good Bye Lenin! with Daniel Brühl. As a cinematographer she works for both TV series, as well as feature films, amongst them "Inspector Rex" and "Tatort". She was nominated for Best Cinematography on German Television Academy Awards for her work on "Zappelphilipp" and "Our Grand Despair", shot by her, was nominated for Golden Berlin Bear on Berlin International Film Festival.