INTERNATIONAL SHORTS DOX

John Canciani is a film collector since he’s a teenager. He acquired his first experiences in curating films, when he founded and organised a film club in Winterthur. In 2009 he became member of the selection team and board member at the Swiss Youth Film Festival in Zurich. In 2009 he joined the Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur and was, amongst others, Head of Youth Programme, Programmer of the International Competition and Assistant to the Artistic Director. John is also a film curator at Kino Cameo Winterthur, where he advices the programme manager, regularly curates film programmes and moderates film talks. He has a Master in Advanced Studies in Curating from ZHdK and was Editor of the Issue No. 23 of the magazine on-curating “The Future of Short Film”. He is Member of the Swiss and European Film Academy, Board Member at Pro Short and the Short Film Conference.

Maryam Tafakory from Iran is an artist and filmmaker whose textual and filmic collages interweave poetry, documentary, archival and found material. She is based between London and Shiraz. Themes such as poetry, politics, religion and existential explorations provide inspiration for her work. Tafakory’s films and installations have been screened and exhibited at dozens of European film festivals. She was nominated for a Tiger Award and Found Footage Award at the 47th IFFR, Best Short Award at 67th MIFF and she has received several other awards, including Best Short Film at Documenta Madrid, Best Short Film at Festival de Cine Lima Independiente, and twice the Aesthetica Emerging Art Prize UK. In 2019, she was awarded the Flaherty/Colgate Distinguished Global Filmmaker in Residence. Her short Nazarbazi, a world premiere at IFFR 2022 in the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition, explores imaginative proxies through which acts of intimacy can be suggested without being directly portrayed, referencing censorship rules within Iranian cinema.

Tevfik Rada is a researcher based in Prizren. He has a master degree on Sociology with a thesis on ‘the relation between railways and avant-garde cinema in the formation years of Soviet Union’. Rada has conducted several film programs as well as historical and artistic researches in Lumbardhi including ‘Nation Formation’, ‘Kinofiguration’ and ‘Kuhle Vampe’. He is a member and researcher in the publishing collective Pykë-Presje.