INTERNATIONAL FEATURE DOX

Valérie Massadian is a self-taught franco-armenian filmmaker and photographer. Her first feature, Nana, received the Opera Prima Award in Festival del Film Locarno in 2011. Her second feature, Milla, as well as her short films, have been shown and awarded in International Film Festivals such as Locarno, Valdivia, Jeonju, Ficunam, Doc Lisboa... Her work focuses on female characters: their animality, their relation to the world and to nature. Nurtured over time with each protagonist, mixing fairy tale and realism, poetics and politics, her films play with the boundaries of fiction, drawing their own.

Founder and Co Director of Curtas Metragens Vila do Conde Film Festival from 1993 to 2013. Founder and General Director of PortoPostDoc Film Festival since 2014. Curator of several Video art exhibitions at Solar Galeria in Vila do Conde. Head of Film and Multimedia program at Porto 2001 European Capital of Culture. Head of program for Estaleiro Vila do Conde 2011/2012. Producer of several Documentaries and short films. Juri at several International Film Festivals. Coordinator of Roundtables and Seminars at Honk Kong International Film Festival. Responsible for acquisitions at Atalanta Filmes Portugal 2005/2006. Responsible for the music and film program at Porto International Jazz Festival 1999 to 2001. Teacher of Art education at Public National Education system and Film Studies at Escola das Artes Católica Porto University. Founder and Director of PortoPostDoc since first edition.

Iranian born Maryam Tafakory is an artist and filmmaker whose textual and filmic collages interweave poetry, documentary, archival, and found material. Her work has been exhibited internationally including at MoMA Doc Fortnight; IFF Rotterdam; EIFF Edinburgh; MIFF Melbourne; True/False; Pergamon Museum; M HKA; and Anthology Film Archives, amongst others. She has received several awards including the Ammodo Tiger Short at 51st IFFR, Barbara Hammer Feminist Film Award at 60th Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Jury Prize at Documenta Madrid, and the Best Short Film at Festival de Cine Lima Independiente. She was awarded the Flaherty/Colgate Distinguished Global Filmmaker in Residence (NY) in 2019, and a MacDowell Fellowship in 2022.