DMZ국제다큐멘터리영화제

SODA Kazuhiro

Soda Kazuhiro is a filmmaker who has proposed and practiced his own documentary method, “Observational Film,” which excludes scripts, narration, and background music. His major works include Campaign (2007), Mental (2008), Peace (2010, Opening Film of the 2nd DMZ International Documentary Film Festival), Inland Sea (2018), Zero (2020), and The Cats of Gokogu Shrine (2024). His book Why I Make Documentaries has been translated into Korean by the DMZ Docs.

Ania TRZEBIATOWSKA

Ania Trzebiatowska is a feature film programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, focusing on US and world documentary features. Prior to that she was the Sales & Acquisitions Executive for the documentary sales agency, Autlook Filmsales, and Senior Director of Acquisitions for the NYC-based agency, Visit Films. Aside from her work at Sundance, Ania runs Sands: International Film Festival of St Andrews, Scotland. She was also the artistic director of the Off Camera IFF(Krakow, Poland), which she programmed between 2008-2020. She trained in production and post-production at the BBC and the British Museum, and holds a Master’s degree in film studies as well as an M.A in Digital Culture and Technology.

PARK Bongnam

Park Bongnam has been producing documentaries for Korean broadcasters since 1994. His film Iron Crows (2009) won the Grand Prize in the Mid-Length Competition at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. In the wake of the Sewol Ferry Disaster in 2014, he co-founded the "4.16 Recording Group" with colleagues and has since been engaged in long-term video documentation. At the 16th DMZ Docs, his film 1980 Sabuk (2024) received both the Grand Prize in the Korean Competition and the FIPRESCI Award.

Ali ASGARI

A leading figure in contemporary Iranian cinema, Ali Asgari focuses on the precarious lives of those living on the margins of society. Following the premiere of his film Terrestrial Verses (2023) at the Cannes Film Festival, Iranian authorities banned him from traveling and filmmaking. His major works have been screened at prestigious festivals including the Cannes, Venice International Film Festival, and International Film Festival Rotterdam. His notable films include More Than Two Hours (2013) and Until Tomorrow (2022).

Julian ROSS

Julian Ross is head of film programming and distribution at Eye Filmmuseum, the Netherlands. In 2024, he was co-programmer of Doc Fortnight at the museum of modern art (MoMA) and co-programmer of the 69th Flaherty Seminar at Thai Film Archive.

KIM Sungeun

Kim Sungeun studied Media Arts at the Berlin University of the Arts and Visual Anthropology at the Free University of Berlin. Her first feature documentary, The Memory of the 25th Hour (2017), grew out of fieldwork documenting the anti-naval base movement in Gangjeong Village, Jeju Island. After relocating to Jeju, she has focused on the island's volcanic ecology and histories of resistance, exploring the possibilities of cinema as a performative medium of listening, gesture, and relationship-building. Her works include the feature Map without Island (2021) and the experimental short The Will (2018), alongside ongoing media art exhibitions and research-based collaborations.

Antoine THIRION

Antoine Thirion is a Paris-based writer and curator, currently working as a programmer at Cinéma du Réel and as a program advisor at the New York Film Festival. He organized multiple monographic retrospectives in France and conceived two performances with Raya Martin, How He Died Is Controversial and UNdocumenta, at the Asian Arts Theater in Gwangju. He edited the monograph Homes Apichatpong Weerasethakul (2025, Éditions de l’œil).

Sarah OUAZZANI

Sarah is the Artistic Director of DOXA Documentary Film Festival and an experienced professional in programming, distribution, and international sales. Her career has taken her across the globe, with roles in India, China, Canada, and Morocco. She served as a programmer at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma in Montréal and FIDADOC in Morocco. From 2014 to 2021, she oversaw sales and distribution for films that received awards at Berlinale, Sundance, IDFA, and many other festivals. Her love for cinema led her to found Photogram in 2021, an organization based in Montréal, dedicated to supporting the international sales and development of films.

JANG Kunjae

Jang Kunjae is a producer and director with Mokshura. His feature films include Eighteen (2009), Sleepless Night (2012), A Midsummer’s Fantasia (2014), Juhee from 5 to 7 (2022), and Because I Hate Korea (2023). He produced the Grand Prize winner of the 21st Jeonju International Film Festival, Vestige (2020), co-directed The Moonlight Night (2020), and directed the TV series Monstrous (2022). His works have been screened at international film festivals in more than 70 cities—among them New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, London, Paris, Cannes, Rotterdam, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Buenos Aires—and have received numerous awards.

NARIKAWA Aya

Narikawa Aya graduated from Kobe University with a degree in Law and earned a Master’s in Translation and Interpretation from Osaka University. She joined the Asahi Shimbun in 2008, working primarily as a culture reporter. In 2017, she left the newspaper to pursue a Master’s in Film and Digital Media at Dongguk University, where she completed her PhD in 2025. Based between Korea and Japan, she writes extensively, including a column for the Korea JoongAng Daily, and has introduced Korean culture—film, literature, and more—on KBS World Radio’s Japanese program since 2020.

PARK Dongsoo

Park Dongsoo is a film critic who began his career in 2021 after winning the 3rd Independent Film Criticism Award. He has written on film, games, art, and media movements for various outlets. He studied Art Studies and Cultural Studies and is currently active in the Criticism Section of the Association of Korean Independent Film & Video.

LEE Sunphil

Since 2011, he has worked as a film journalist at OhmyNews, covering industry trends and writing analytical articles on cinema. In addition to journalism, he served as executive producer for the documentaries Riverside: The Secret Six (2019) and Efterskole: Going to the Wonderland Korea (2024), expanding his work into documentary filmmaking. He has also served as an advisory board member for Korean Cinema, a monthly industry journal published by the Korean Film Council, and as a jury member at major international film festivals in Korea.

JEONG Jihye

Jeong Jihye is a film critic who consistently watches, discusses, and writes about the latest Korean independent and art films. As a film festival programmer and jury member, she is fascinated by the unique flows, irreplaceable movements, and elusive affective states that cinema creates. Under the name “Flowmotion,” she organizes film lectures and criticism workshops, and actively explores and experiments with various forms of creative work, including writing that crosses genres and forms.

CHO Hyeyoung

Cho Hyeyoung is a film critic and a member of the visual culture collective @Project 38@. Her writing explores queer feminist perspectives, with a particular focus on modes of image production on digital platforms, post-documentary, and cinematic games. She currently co-hosts the film podcast “38 Pages” with her colleagues and is pursuing research on the theme of care as a Research Professor at the Institute of Comparative Culture at Kyung Hee University.

HAN Changwook

Han Changwook began his career as a film critic in 2017 after winning the Grand Prize in the Film Criticism Contest hosted by the Busan Film Critics Association. He translated the book Martin Scorsese Teaches Filmmaking and currently runs and publishes the epistolary criticism journal Letters of Criticism. After earning his Master's in Film Theory from the School of Film, TV & Multimedia at the Korea National University of Arts, he now teaches at the same institution.

KANG Jinseok

After starting his career in filmmaking as a member of the lighting crew, Kang Jinseok studied film theory and visual anthropology. He works as a documentary film producer while also teaching film history and production and translating related research. Since 2021, he has served as a programmer for the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival.

JANG Byungwon

Jang Byungwon is the former editor-in-chief of the weekly film magazine FILM2.0. He previously worked as a programmer for the Jeonju International Film Festival and has been a senior programmer for the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival since 2022. He continues to write on cinema while teaching.

Pouya AGHELIZADEH

Pouya Aghelizadeh is an Iranian film critic, screenwriter, and editor. He graduated in Dramatic Literature and has a master’s degree in this field. He is one of the six Iranian members of FIPRESCI. In Iran, he’s been an active movie session holder and festival director for more than ten years; He also is a cinema teacher and holds workshops about the “Theory of Acting in Cinema” and “Art of Editing” all around the world. His movie analysis articles are focused on modern cinema and the theory of Lacan’s “Gaze” in cinema, which include articles about great filmmakers like Bergman, Buñuel, Antonioni, Tarkovsky, Andrei Zvyagintsev, etc. He’s been active as a critic at international festivals like Busan International Film Festival, Berlinale, Helsinki, etc. Pouya Aghelizadeh has been a consultant in many documentary films about the prominent characters of the history of Iran and some English documentaries.

David SANCHEZ

David Sanchez, a Franco-Spanish journalist, covers major film festivals like Cannes, Venice, Berlin, or Toronto for Spanish-language media in Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Spain or Paraguay. A member of the Golden Globes (USA), Académie des Lumiéres (foreign press in France), and AICE (Spain’s press association). He actively collaborates with Spanish festivals such as Aguilar de Campoo and Medina del Campo. David has served as a jury member and panelist at festivals like Villa de Leyva (Colombia) or Guanajuato (Mexico).

OH Young-Suk

Oh Young-Suk is a film critic and HK Research Professor at the Institute for East Asian Studies, Sungkonghoe University. Her work focuses on the relationship between collective emotions and cinema. She has published articles such as “The Context and Signification of Testimony: A Comparative Study of ‘Comfort Women’ Documentaries from Korea, Taiwan, and Japan” and “21st Century Korean Cinema: ‘Hatred of Poverty’ and Youth.” She has translated The Fright of Real Tears by Slavoj Žižek and Narration in the Fiction Film by David Bordwell. Her books include Mindscapes of Modern Korean Cinema (2024), Korean Cinema and Cultural Discourse in the 1950s (2007), and The Experience of Defection and Its Cinematic Representation (2013).