Bartholomew Sammut was awarded ‘most promising new filmmaker’ at the Warner Roadshow New QLD Filmmakers Awards in 2000 and from then went on to work on a number of Television programs for SBS Television Australia, namely ‘Eatcarpet’ the late night program dedicated to screening smart, experimental and queer short films. They also went on to continue to produce a number of short films as well as working on a number of short film festivals. Their short films have screened widely over the international LGBTQ+ film festival circuit and in 2006 they founded the XPOSED Queer Film Festival Berlin, which they still to this day direct and curate. In 2009 Bartholomew began working for the Panorama section of the Berlin International Film Festival and in the past years has become a part of the selection committee. As of 2019 they became the Program Manager for Panorama and a member of the Berlinale Series selection committee. Bartholomew also programs the Berliner Kurzfilmrolle that screens every year at the Open Air Cinema in Friedrichshain, Berlin and in 2015 established the Queer Short Film Fund, an initiative from the XPOSED International Queer Film Festival to help foster and support queer film production in Germany.

Havana, 1986. Graduated from the University of Arts, Havana, Cuba and from the EICTV with a degree in documentary direction. Sainz also studied at the Mel Oppenheim Film School in Montreal, and at the Cinema du Reel Department at HEAD Genève. He has worked as director, editor and producer in documentary films in Cuba, Canada, Switzerland and Spain and has collaborated with visual arts projects like Galleria Continua, Ludwig Foundation and Citta de L’Arte. His short documentary films, focused on LGBTQ culture in the island and Cuban youth, have been selected and awarded in several international film festivals like Havana Film Festival, Fribourg, FICUNAM, Documenta Madrid, Morelia, etc. Sainz is professor and advisor of documentary film at the EICTV since 2016, invited professor at Ludwig Foundation in Cuba and Altos de Chavón in Dominican Republic. He has also given talks and conferences at universities such as Temple, UPenn, Tulane, Darmouth College and URI (US) and UNAM (Mexico). Since 2018 he organizes and curates Cineclub CUIR, an independent project of film exhibition in Cuba, Mexico and Spain with a clear queer, feminist and antiracist vision. At the same time hi works as director and independent producer in Cuba, Spain and Mexico.