Jean-Pierre Abdayem is an award-winning Assyrian-Lebanese filmmaker and director based in Beirut, holding a Master’s degree in Directing from the Lebanese University (LU), where he teaches film directing and documentary filmmaking. His work spans television, digital media platforms, and audiovisual productions across the Arab world, reflecting a versatile career in cinematic and broadcast storytelling.
H e has directed three award-winning short films, more than nine feature-length documentaries, and a drama series, with a particular interest in socio-political realities, history, and personal and collective memory. Deeply connected to his Assyrian heritage, he explores the culture’s history, identity, and collective memory through his work, seeking to preserve and reinterpret its legacy through cinematic expression.
A longside filmmaking, he is recognized for his work as an artistic director and lighting designer for distinguished musical concerts and theatrical productions, bringing a multidisciplinary approach to visual storytelling across cinema and the performing arts.

Born at 1964, January 31, João Pedro Afonso is a sixty year's old street philosopher by choice, and a physicist by heart.

He has a degree in Engenharia Física Tecnológica (Physics engineering) and dabbled many years in the academy. He is the author of an algorithm for SAT solvers to find short-circuits in very large logic circuits presented at DATE 2017, which some thought to be a serious contender for a Ig Nobel award, and a current moderator in a Facebook group of quantum physics with 300 thousand members. He likes science, mathematics, puzzles, chess and other games, books, animation, science fiction and fantasy, children, to debate, to program, to swim, to draw, and much much more. He dislikes conflicts, mosquitoes and yellow soup. His most recent project is to grow a beard and see how the facial hair self-organizes. He wants to learn how to read Inca Quipus to see if there is an hidden meaning in the knots formed but so far, he only got a new understanding for the difficulties of long hair users like women.

I define culture not only as the flavor of our way of life but also as our main tool to prepares us to life. Open societies demand openess to ideas, discussions, contexts, and freedom to discuss alternatives. Cinema is one of the major arts to do that.

Silvia Di Marco é co-diretora do Olhares do Mediterrâneo – Women's Film Festival. Membro do comité de selecção e programação do Festival desde 2018, em 2019 assumiu funções de Coordenadora da programação e em 2020 entrou na Direção. Desde 2024 coordena o Programa de Indústria. Programou o ciclo de cinema itinerante “Síria: A Revolução Desconhecida das Mulheres”, realizado em Lisboa entre março e junho de 2026 e para o qual estão a ser preparadas exibições noutras cidades.
É convidada regularmente para debates e como jurada de festivais internacionais de cinema e em 2022 fez parte da equipa de pré-selecção da residência de escrita para cinema Lab Med de Meditalents (França). Em 2025 foi diretora de produção do Doc’s Kingdom - Seminário Internacional de Cinema Documental.