Armenian Panorama

In 1975, David Safarian graduated from the Fine Arts and Theatre Institute in Yerevan. From 1972-78, he was an actor at the State TV Theatre in Yerevan, assistant director and director at Armenian Documentary Film Studio. In 1983, he graduated from Moscow Film Institute (VGIK). Since 1983, he was a director at Armenfilm Studio. In 1991, he had special screening of films in Cinemathèque Francaise in Paris. Since 1991, he is a member of the General Assembly of Cinemathèque Francaise. From 1995-2001, he made series of short documentaries about Armenian culture and history on German TV (ORB/SFB/RBB). In 1996, he had a Retrospective of films in Cinematheque Francaise at the 60th Anniversary of the Cinematheque in Paris. In 1999, there was a one-week screenings of his selected films in Berlin. From 2001-02, he was a Guest-Professor at the Film and TV Department in the University of Kassel, Germany. In 2002, he founded Studio DS Film Production and Art Development Fund. From 2003-07, he was a Professor, co-heading the Film and TV Department at the University of Kassel, Germany. From 2001-16, he made Outstanding Personalities. 20th Century and Centuries Change portrait series using exclusively shot documentary footages with Marcel Marceau, Pope John Paul II, Krzysztof Penderecki (work in progress).

Gaga Chkheidze is the founder and director of the Cinema Art Center Prometheus NGO and Tbilisi IFF. From 2005 to the present, he is also a Board Member of the Georgian Film Fund. After studying two years German language and literature at Tbilisi State University Chkheidze graduated from the Faculty of Literature and Arts of Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany. He worked as an Editor at the State Broadcasting Company of Georgia. From 2005 to 2008, Gaga Chkheidze was the director of the Georgian National Film Center. From 1991 to 2000, he worked as a Program Coordinator at the Forum of New Cinema (Berlin IFF).

Maryam d’Abo was born in London in 1960 and raised in Paris and Geneva. She returned to the UK to study art and acting. In 1980’s Maryam worked on the French stage and in TV co-productions between France & UK. In 1987, she played opposite Timothy Dalton’s James Bond in The Living Daylights which brought her to Los Angeles where she got a lead in a TV series for NBC Something Is օut There. She moved to Los Angeles and continued working for American television. In 1989, she returned to England to work in an independent feature Leon the Pigfarmer, a Jewish comedy which became a cult film. In 1999, she produced and acted with Myriam Cyr on the British stage in Abundance written by Beth Henley. In 2001, she played Lara, Keyra Knightley's mother in Dr. Zhivago adapted by Andrew Davies for Granada TV. In 2002, she hosted and produced Bond Girls Are Forever, a documentary and she co-wrote with John Cork a book on the Bond girls Bond Girls Are Forever. In 2005, she developed a documentary on five female war reporters Bearing Witness, and cօ-produced the doc directed by Barbara Kopple - it premiered at the Tribeka FF. In 2007, she made a documentary with Hugh Hudson called Rupture - Living with My Broken Brain after surviving a brain hemorrhage, which prmiered on the BBC in the UK in 2011. In 2013-14, she played in feature film Tigers by Danis Tanovic – the film premiered at the Toronto IFF and the San Sebastian IFF in 2014. Maryam d’Abo is currently developping a documentary The Call of Georgia and a feature film Hedda Gabler, a scrren adaptation by Christopher Hampton from his stage adaptation of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler.

Jadwiga Nowakowska is a Polish journalist, director of documentary films. She graduated from the Faculty of History (1981) and the Faculty of Journalism (1984) of the Jagiellonian University, Cracow. Since 1989 Jadwiga Nowakowska has been working at TVP1 (Polish Public Television). From 2006 till 2009, she acted as the Head and the Deputy Head of the Documentary Films Editorial Department of the Polish Television. Jadwiga Nowakowska is the director of more than 100 documentary films and documentary series, among others The Polish Dynasties, dedicated to the Polish aristocracy, The Evident Inevident, The Children of Different Gods, a series of stories about the cultural heritage of the national, ethnic and religious minorities, as well as The Action “Vistula”, May the Alive Ones Do Not Lose Hope, Survive to Tell the Truth – a history devoted to the Polish-Ukrainian relations, The Poles in Siberia – a documentary film about the contribution of Poles in civilizational development and construction of Siberia, as well as Because It’s Worth, The Memory of Uprising, The Underground City, an allusion to the Warsaw Uprising, The Closet of Two Nations, a film about Polish-Latvian relations.

Jens Geiger is a film curator from Hamburg, Germany. He studied at the Universities of Freiburg (Germany) Göteborg (Sweden) and Hamburg. He holds a diploma in political sciences, as well as Masters degree in "Cultures of the Curatorial" from the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig. From 2008 to 2013, he worked as a curator and researcher in different exhibition projects. Since 2008, he has been working also as a festival programmer, program coordinator and curator for Filmfest Hamburg, as well as a freelance curator e.g., for the Documentary Film Festival Hamburg, the Hamburg Short Film Agency or Filmtopia Bratislava. Since 2017, Jens Geiger is the artistic director of the Kinemathek Karlsruhe, Germany.