Guests - Beyond Borders Documentary Festival

Danae Elon

Documentary filmmaker

Danae Elon is instructor of the film workshop Beyond Storytelling, which is realized from 2023 onwards as part of the side cultural activities at Beyond Borders. She has been also member of the Jury at the Main Competition Section of the Festival.

She is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, writer, producer and cinematographer. Her short film «Life of a Dog», was selected by CBC Gem as part of the Covid Relief fund for artists from over 4.000 submissions. «Life of A Dog» was a finalist for best documentary at Gala Quebec Iris awards. Her films «Another Road Home» 2004, «Partly Private» 2007, «P.S Jerusalem» 2015 and «The Patriarch’s Room» 2017(Best Documentary film Beyond Borders 2021, Best Documentary Toronto Jewish Film Festival, Orpheus Award LA Greek Film Festival) have been showcased at TIFF, Berlinale, Tribeca, IDFA, Hot Docs, Melbourne IFF, Human Rights watch FF, FIPA, Leipzig and many other international film festivals. She has programmed for The Cinema South Film Festival and is currently selecting films for the on-line VOD platform TENK. Danae is an adjunct lecturer at Queen’s University in the department of Film and Media.

Giuseppe Cederna

Giuseppe Cederna Actor, writer and traveler

Protagonist of the film “Mediterraneo” by G. Salvatores, Oscar 1992, in the cinema he has worked, among others, with Scola, Bellocchio, Comencini, Monicelli, the Taviani brothers, Soldini, Brizzi, Rob Marshall, Gianni Amelio.

In the theater he interpreted classic and modern texts: from “Amadeus” to the “Cherry Garden”, from Brecht to the First World War, from “Mozart: the dream of a Clown” to the Mediterranean migrations by Gianmaria Testa in “On this side of the sea”, up to Homer’s Odyssey.

Without forgetting his poetic and transhumant passions, he has traveled from the Himalayas to Valtellina, from Tibet to the Aegean islands via Leopardi, Kavafis, John Berger, Wislawa Szimborska and Walt Whitman.

He has written and published “Il Grande Viaggio” (“The Great Journey”, Feltrinelli) a Himalayan pilgrimage to the sources of the Ganges; “Piano Americano” (“Close Medium Shot”, Feltrinelli); “Ticino, le voci del Fiume” (“Ticino, the voices of the river”, Excelsior 1881).

Matteo Campagnolo

After studying history and science of Antiquity in Venice, Naples and Athens (then continued in Geneva and Paris), Matteo Campagnolo was part of the team of scientific editors of the Registers of the Company of Pastors of Geneva , under the direction of prof. Louis Binz and Alain Dufour. He received his PhD from the University of Genevaand he also taught classical languages.

From 1995 to 2017, he was the curator of the Geneva Numismatic Cabinet and responsible for numismatic finds in the Canton.

Since 2005, he has been lecturer at the University of Geneva (Faculty of Letters, Department of Antiquity Sciences), he has given an introductory course to ancient numismatics, in connection with the teaching of classical archeology and that of ancient history.

Marianna Economou

Marianna Economou is a documentary film maker based in Athens, Greece. She studied anthropology, photojournalism and film production in London. She directs documentary series for the Greek TV and creative documentaries produced by Greeks and co-produced by European broadcasters such as the BBC, ARTE and YLE. Her films have participated in many international festivals. She has received awards for the following documentaries: “The School”, “My Place in the Dance”, “Please Listen to Me”, “Bells”, “Threads And Miracles”, “Twelve Neighbours”, “Food for Love” and “The Longest Run”, which was also nominated for the European Film Academy Awards in 2016. Her latest documentary, “When tomatoes met Wagner”, premiered in Berlinale and has been officially selected by more than 80 festivals worldwide (Visions du Reel, Sydney, DocBarcelona, Docaviv, Sarajevo, etc). Moreover, it was Greece’s selection for the Oscars 2020 in the foreign film category. She is a member of the European Film Academy and she has been president of the Greek Documentary Association

Georgianna Dalara

Brown University Honors (BA Theater and Literature) and RADA graduate (MA Text and Performance) and certified Yoga teacher, Georgianna Dallara has been working professionally as an actress since 2009 and as a visual artist and Yoga teacher since 2020. She teaches private and small classes groups in homes and outdoors.

Stavros Psillakis

Born in Chania, Crete, 1954. He is a graduate of the National Technical University of Athens. He studied film at the Hadjikou Film School (Athens) and he continued his studies in anthropological documentary filmmaking at the VARAN School (Paris). He lives and works in Athens. He has been the creator of many films, such as The inside light, Distinction (9th Greek Documentary Festival Halkida & 2nd Ierapetra International Documentary Festival 2015) Olympia, Audience Award (17th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival 2015), Short Stories Roma (2014) and many others.

Nancy Guerin

Nancy Guerin has built a career by tackling difficult subjects.

For the past three years, she co-wrote and created the four-part documentary series titled Lac Megantic: This is Not an Accident with academy-award nominated director Philippe Falardeau. The film premiered at Cannes Series and won the Audience Choice Award at the 2023 Hot Docs film festival. Prior to that, she produced and co-wrote Left Behind America (PBS Frontline), A Sisters Song (IDFA) and Pink Ribbons inc. (Toronto Film Festival).

She has worked as a producer, show runner, writer, story editor, and investigative researcher on every type of project. Her work has appeared at festivals around the world and has been broadcast internationally by networks, including Arte, Bravo, CBC, Discovery, The Documentary Channel, History, NHK, and PBS.

Our 2023 Guests