Julie Gayet, French actress and producer

Julie Gayet is a French actress, producer, and director, born on June 3, 1972 in Suresnes. Her career begins in 1992 with an appearance in Blue by Krzysztof Kieślowski. In 1995, Agnès Varda gives her her first major role in One Hundred and One Nights. She goes on to appear in films such as Delphine 1, Yvan 0 by Dominique Farrugia (1996), Shall We Kiss? by Emmanuel Mouret (2007), 8 Times Up by Xabi Molia (2009), The French Minister by Bertrand Tavernier (2013) and TV series like Call My Agent! (2015). In 2013, she is a member of the Un Certain Regard jury at the Cannes Film Festival, chaired by Paolo Sorrentino. In 2007, Julie Gayet founds the production company Rouge International, which has produced films such as Raw by Julia Ducournau, The Insult by Ziad Doueiri, and Mimosas by Oliver Laxe, as well as documentaries like Faces Places by Agnès Varda and JR, and The State Against Mandela and the Others by Nicolas Champeaux and Gilles Porte.

In 2021, she launches the Sœurs Jumelles Festival, held in Rochefort every year at the end of June, where a selection of unreleased musical documentaries is presented.

Carmen Castillo, Chilean director 

Carmen Castillo was born in Chile in 1945. A historian by training, she becomes a filmmaker in exile in Paris in the 1980s. As a militant of the Chilean MIR (Movement of the Revolutionary Left), she worked alongside Beatriz Allende, daughter of President Salvador Allende, at La Moneda Palace starting in November 1970, when the government took office. She experienced those hopeful years of the Popular Unity with intense political commitment. Following the Pinochet coup d’état on September 11, 1973, she went underground with her partner Miguel Enríquez, leader of the resistance and of the MIR. On October 5, 1974, in Santiago, Miguel was killed. Carmen, pregnant at the time, was wounded, imprisoned, but thanks to international solidarity, she was expelled from the country. Granted political asylum in the United Kingdom, she later choses France, where she settles in 1977. She becomes a French citizen in 1982 and goes on writing her memoirs and directing documentaries that reflect her convictions—stories of memory, of the defeated, and of continued resistance. Notably Rue Santa Fe, which was screened in the Un Certain Regard of the Cannes Film Festival in 2007. In 2019, Carmen Castillo receives the Charles Brabant Prize from La Scam for her body of work.

Juliette Favreul Renaud, French producer

Juliette Favreul Renaud is a film and television producer with 2711 Production / JE Films. After a notable career at StudioCanal, Canal+, and Wild Bunch—where she notably produced City of God by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, Madame Satã by Karim Aïnouz, and Hey Good Looking! (Comme t’y es belle) by Lisa Azuelos—she has continued to support ambitious and socially engaged projects. These include Women Are Heroes by JR, selected for the Critics’ Week at Cannes, Bright Days Ahead (Les Beaux Jours) by Marion Vernoux, the series Vernon Subutex, adapted from the famous trilogy by Virginie Despentes, as well as collaborations on the theatrical documentary Sale Race by Tania de Montaigne and Stéphane Foenkinos. Trained in anthropology at the Collège de France, where she discovered Jean Rouch's cinéma-vérité, she pays particular attention to stories that question our times and, in doing so, illuminate who we are.

Frédéric Maire, Director of the Cinémathèque suisse

Frédéric Maire is a filmmaker, journalist, and programmer, born in 1961 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Starting in 1979, he directed several short and medium-length films for cinema and television, and from 1983 onwards, he worked as a cultural journalist for various Swiss media outlets. From 1986, he also began collaborating with the Locarno International Film Festival, contributing to both communication and programming. Between 1988 and 1992, he taught introductory film courses at the École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL). In 1992, he co-founded and co-directed La Lanterne Magique, a film club for children. In 2005, he was appointed Artistic Director of the Locarno International Film Festival. In 2009, he became director of the Cinémathèque Suisse, a position he will leave this coming September. He also served as President of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) from 2017 to 2023.

Marc Zinga, Belgian-Congolese actor

Marc Zinga is a Belgian-Congolese actor, born in 1984 in Likasi, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He moved to Belgium at the age of five, where he built an artistic career marked by diversity and social engagement. He gained recognition in 2014 for his role in Scouting for Zebras (Les Rayures du Zèbre) by Benoît Mariage, which earned him the Magritte Award for Most Promising Actor in 2015. That same year, he was also nominated for Most Promising Actor at both the César Awards and the Prix Lumières for Qu’Allah bénisse la France by Abd Al Malik. He appeared in Dheepan by Jacques Audiard, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2015, as well as in Spectre, part of the James Bond franchise. In 2016, he played the lead role in Bienvenue à Marly-Gomont, based on the true story of Kamini. More recently, he appeared in Tori and Lokita by the Dardenne brothers and starred in Omen (Augure) by Baloji. Alongside his film career, Marc Zinga has also had a rich stage career, notably through his many collaborations with the Villeurbanne’s TNP. He is deeply committed to questions of cultural transmission and representation within the European audiovisual landscape.