Director, Editor
France

David Guiraud was born in 1984 in the Alpes-Maritimes, where he still lives. In 2008, he co-founded the Cannes-based production company ADASTRA FILMS. As Artistic Director, he oversees and guides the artistic vision of projects, from writing to editing, for the filmmakers the company produces. He has enabled Adastra Films to produce a diverse range of feature films such as LaRoy, a triple award winner at Deauville 2023, The Strange Ones (SXSW) and 4 short films selected at Sundance. David has also directed three short films, including L’Assistante (broadcast on Netflix) and En Proie (France 2). As an editor, he has worked on several short and feature films, including Patardzlebi (Berlinale award). David is an alumnus of Groupe Ouest, G.R.E.C and the Maison du Film’s DUO residency. He is currently developing his first feature film.

Shane Atkinson is an American writer-director. He received his MFA in screenwriting and directing from Columbia University in New York. Shane has directed several short films, including Penny Dreadful (Audience Award at Clermont-Ferrand). He also wrote the screenplay for Poms, starring Diane Keaton. In 2023, his first feature film, LaRoy, won the Grand Prix, Audience Award and Critic’s Award at the Deauville American Film Festival, following its world premiere at the Tribeca Festival. The film was released in France in April 2024 (distributor : ARP).

Director, Writer
USA

Director, Writer
France, Georgia

Akaki was born in Georgia in 1991. He grew up in Russia until he was 13. In 2004, he moved to Nice. In 2017 he wrote and directed Le soleil des Nuits blanches, his graduation film at L’ESRA. In 2019 Akaki wrote and directed Je Vois, a medium-length film in one 36-minute sequence shot, about the relationship between a man and his grandmother. The film was awarded the “court d’ici” prize at the Nice European Film Festival in 2019 and the “CNC quality” prize in 2020. In 2023, he directed a short film, Ici en silence tout hurle (Piano Sano Films) presented in the 2024 national competition in Clermont-Ferrand, awarded at the Bruxelles ISFF and selected for the Palm Springs Short Fest. The same year, he directed his first feature film, In the Name of Blood (Adastra films), starring Nicolas Duvauchelle, Denis Lavant, Finnegan Oldfield and Florent Hill. The film, supported by the CNC, was distributed in France by ARP Sélection and pre-purchased by Canal +.

Born in 1992, Tigrane Minassian is a French screenwriter, director and editor based in Cannes, France. Since 2016, he has been working with Adastra Films as an editor, designing film promos and trailers for international sales companies such as Indie Sales, Loco Films and Urban Sales. Tigrane is also a member of the Jury of the 20th Grasse Film Festival (2018), of the Cannes Pocket Video Festival (2017) and in 2018, he mentors the Vox Milo Festival filmmaking workshop (in partnership with the Director’s Fortnight), which helps underprivileged youths to express themselves through video projects. In 2021, he won the “Plume de Cristal”, first prize of the 48H Screenwriting Marathon at the Valence Screenwriters Festival. His first short film, Out of the Fog (pre-purchased by France Télévisions), starring Léa Drucker and Samuel le Bihan, was selected in over 30 international festivals, including Clermont-Ferrand, Brest, Tirana, Norwich, Nice, Macau… Since 2024, he is part of the Torino Film Lab Extended program where he develops his first feature film.

Director, Writer, Editor
France

Composer
France

Rim Laurens is a French film music composer who has collaborated with some twenty directors from all over the world (Japan, Russia, USA, Poland, Georgia…). The films for which he has composed original music have won over 40 awards and been selected for over 500 international festivals, including the prestigious Berlin, Sundance, Tribeca, Deauville… Most of these films have been broadcast on France Télévisions, Canal +, Netflix, as well as several other international channels.

Lauren Wolkstein is a multi-award-winning American filmmaker who received her MFA in Film Directing from Columbia University. She recently directed two episodes of Alice Birch’s mini-series Dead Ringers (the remake of David Cronenberg’s film), as well as the final episode of Nick Antosca’s A Friend of the Family for Peacock. She was also production manager for season 5 of Ava DuVernay’s critically acclaimed Queen Sugar (directing six episodes in total), and directed episodes of Y : The Last Man, Cloak & Dagger and Dare Me. Her first feature, The Strange Ones, starring Alex Pettyfer and James Freedson-Jackson, premiered to critical acclaim at SXSW ’17 and was one of John Waters’ favorite films of the year. She co-directed the film with Christopher Radcliff, based on their Sundance short of the same name. Lauren’s previous short films, including Social Butterfly (Sundance 2013) and Cigarette Candy (SXSW 2010 Grand Prix du Jury), have screened at festivals around the world. Lauren Wolkstein is a MacDowell Institute and Sundance Institute Fellow, and Filmmaker Magazine named her one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Cinema”.

Director
USA