She is Director of the festival IDFA in Amsterdam. She completed her studies in Dutch Literature and Film and Theater Arts from the University of Utrecht. With the help of the Dutch Film Institute, in 1988 she founded the International Festival Documentary Films Amsterdam (IDFA), which she has headed since 1989. She is the director of the Jan Vrijman Foundation, which was begun during the festival and whose main goal is to support documentary filmmakers in developing countries. Ally Derks is also a member of the Advisory Board for the Amsterdam Festival Amnesty International and Chairwoman of the documentary film agency, DocWorkers. She has participated in a number of congresses and seminars throughout the world and been on the panels of numerous prestigious international festivals.

He has a degree in Archaeology and Anthropology from Stanford University. He continued his studies at the New York Film Academy (film production) and at New York University (video production). For three years he worked for the Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival in New York. For the last nine years he has been working for the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, the last four of which he has served as the Associate Director. He has worked on several documentaries, among others Dreaming of Kawthoolei (Producer/Director; 1999 to present), Secret People (Producer/Director;1995-1999) and Slam Nation (Cinematography; 1995).

After graduating from Stockholm University in 1968, Kerstin Hagrup worked for Swedish Television, SVT, for more than 24 years. Her positions included head of acquisitions for foreign documentaries and short films as well as deputy head of programme planning. Then she spent one year as a consultant with TV4, the first commercial channel in Sweden. In 1991 Kerstin Hagrup settled in Copenhagen to start up Filmkontakt Nord. For the next eleven years she was the director of this promotional and co-ordinating centre for independent documentaries and shorts from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Back in Sweden Ms Hagrup has been running different projects, mainly for The Swedish Film Institute. Ms Hagrup has been president of the International Short Film Conference and has been a juror at a number of international short and documentary film festivals.

He studied art and film at various schools and later served in the French Ministry of Culture. He has been a curator at several exhibitions of contemporary art in France, as well as overseas, such as Egypt and Japan. He regularly writes reviews of films and exhibitions and takes part in the creation of catalogues. He is currently working as a member of the magazine Cahiers de Fonema. For the last three years he has also been the director of the International documentary festival in Marseille (FID Marseille).

He studied scriptwriting at Prague′s FAMU. He has worked as a commissioning editor for Slovak television in Bratislava and for Prague′s Barrandov film studio. In 1992 he helped in the organization of the International film festival in Karlovy Vary, for which he prepared a retrospective of the Magnificent Seven, introducing the works of American independent filmmakers. As a part of the International film festival in Karlovy Vary he formed the section Forum of Independents, whose program he still is in charge of today. Since 1994 he has produced and directed for Czech TV 121 episodes of a one-hour monthly program called FILMOPOLIS about world film festivals and independent cinema. From 1995 he has taught at Prague′s FAMU and also works as an independent journalist and critic with a specialization in independent film.