Ana Grgić (PhD, University of St Andrews) is a film scholar and film industry practitioner. She is currently working as Associate Professor at Babeș-Bolyai University, Romania, and Associate Editor of Studies in World Cinema: A Critical Journal. She regularly participates in international academic conferences, and was invited to deliver a number of film appreciation seminars and talks at international film festivals, film schools and symposiums in Europe and Asia. She is author of Early Cinema, Modernity and Visual Culture: The Imaginary of the Balkans (AUP, 2022) and co-editor of Contemporary Balkan Cinema: Transnational Exchanges and Global Circuits (EUP, 2020). Her research on Balkan cinemas, archives, and film history has been published in Early Popular Visual Culture, Studies in Eastern European Cinema, Apparatus and KinoKultura. While president of the cultural association, Balkan Cultural Centre (Croatia), she co-organised a year-long film literacy travelling program, the 5C project (funded by Creative Europe Media programme, and the Croatian Audiovisual Centre), and as a Board member of the Albanian Cinema Project, she collaborated on film preservation workshops Archives in Motion in 2016. Previously, Ana worked in the film industry for several years, starting her career on the set of HBO’s hit television series Rome in Cinecittà, Italy, and later joined the visual effects industry in London’s Soho district (The Moving Picture Company, CBS production’s American Assassin, Fox production’s Bohemian Rhapsody).

Fabio Bego (PhD) is a scholar, writer and film programmer focusing on Balkan histories and narratives. He is the co-founder and curator of the Albanian Film Festival that takes place annually in Rome since 2019. Through publications and film programs such as Kinostories (Brussels), his work looks into the connection between films and the postcolonial histories of the Balkans. He collaborates with the Institute of History of the Bulgarian Academy of Science, and has published articles and reviews in specialized journals such as Nationalities Papers, Eastern European Politics, Societies and Cultures, Studies in Eastern European Cinema and Black Camera. He develops and shares his research on contemporary far right movements in the Balkans through platforms such as Hope Not Hate, Modern Diplomacy, C-Rex and Balkan Insight. Fabio Bego has taught courses at the University of Roma Tre, at the University of Sofia "St. Kliment Ohridski" and at the Institute of History, BAN. 

Irina Tcherneva, historian, specializes in Soviet documentary film and photography and is senior researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS/Eur’ORBEM). Her research focuses on the socioeconomic history of documentary cinema, the history of film audiences and film technique, and the role of visual documents and artworks in the Second World War and in postwar trials. Her recent participation in research projects include the Horizon 2020 project “Visual History of the Holocaust” (2019–2023, coordinated by Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Digital History and Austrian Film Museum), WW2CRIMESONTRIAL1943–1991” (France, CERCEC), and “Images of Justice: The Nazis and the Collaborators on Trial in the Liberated Europe” (France, University Paris 1) and “CINESOV—Soviet Cinema at War 1939–1945” (France, CNRS). Among her recent books are: Seeking Accountability for Nazi and War Crimes in East and Central Europe: A People’s Justice? (Rochester University Press, 2022 ;with Eric Le Bourhis and Vanessa Voisin);  Perezhit’ vojnu: Kinoindustrija v SSSR 1939–1949 (Rosspen, 2018; with Vanessa Voisin and Valérie Pozner); and the special issue of the review Conserveries mémorielles The Cinema Goes to War: Screens and Propaganda in the USSR (1939–1949) (24, in 2020).

Nezih Erdoğan teaches Film Theory, Film History and Storytelling at Istinye University, Istanbul. He has published articles and book chapters on Turkish popular cinema and Early Cinema in Turkey. He co-edited Shifting Landscapes: Film and Media in European Context (with Miyase Christensen, 2008). His book, Sinemanın İstanbul’da İlk Yılları: Modernlik ve Seyir Maceraları/Early Years of Cinema in Istanbul: Adventures in Modernity and Spectatorship was published in 2017. He co-edited with Ebru Kayaalp Exploring Past Images in a Digital Age: Reinventing the Archive which came out from Amsterdam University Press in 2023.