Agustín Masaedo is a film programmer, editor, journalist and cultural producer from La Plata, Argentina. He first worked with BAFICI in 2003, the festival’s fifth edition, writing for the festival newspaper Sin Aliento, before becoming its catalogue editor in 2007 and, since 2016, a programmer. Since 2022, he has combined programming with editing the festival catalogue again. Over the years, he has championed retrospectives devoted to filmmakers such as Sofia

Bohdanowicz, Marc Hurtado, Julien Temple and Antonin Peretjatko, among others, and has played a central role in shaping BAFICI’s extensive screening schedule. He has worked as a film critic for El Amante—Argentina’s longest-running and most influential film magazine—, contributed to books and anthologies on cinema, and served on festival juries in Argentina and abroad, including Ji.hlava in the Czech Republic, Detour in Uruguay and FAM in Brazil. He has also curated Argentine cinema programs in Brazil. Outside film festivals, Masaedo is a cultural producer who has organized concerts, arts festivals and film series, and is deeply involved in La Plata’s vibrant post-punk and indie-rock scene. His cinematic tastes are proudly omnivorous, with particular soft spots for Southeast Asian cinema, rock documentaries and, as his latest Sight& Sound Greatest Films of All Time ballot made abundantly clear, comedy.

Ruun Nuur is an independent cinematic practitioner with a hyper-focus on narratives from the Global majority. She’s the co-founder of NO EVIL EYE CINEMA, a radical nomadic microcinema and former features programmer at Cleveland International Film Festival. As documentary programmer of Vancouver International Film Festival, Nuur leads the curation of Insights (international documentaries) and Spectrum (expansive creative non-fiction).

Nuur is a frequent contributor to Film Comment, IDA's Documentary Magazine, and Filmmaker Magazine. She’s a proud member of Color Congress, Future Film Collective, and Brown Girls Doc Mafia.

Mustafa Uzuner is a filmmaker, researcher, curator, producer, and distributor working across documentary cinema, archival practice, and research-creation. His films have been presented at festivals including TIFF Wavelengths and RIDM, where Soul of the Foot received the Nouveaux Regards Award. He has also produced and collaborated on films shown at Berlinale, Venice, IDFA, NYFF and Locarno. Alongside his filmmaking practice, he has worked extensively in film distribution, programming, curatorial work, and artistic advising, including with the Sundance Institute. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Cinema and Media Studies at York University, where his research explores counter-archives, memory, and political history through moving image and spatial media.

Diana Allan is a filmmaker and professor of anthropology at McGill University, where she co-directs the Critical Media Lab. She holds a Canada Research Chair in the anthropology of living archives, and is the co-founder of the Nakba Archive.

Darko Nabakov is a cultural professional based in Skopje, North Macedonia, with an educational background in art history and dramatic arts. He has been part of MakeDox Creative Documentary Film Festival since 2012 and has served as its Festival Director since 2019. His work focuses on documentary cinema, film education, audience development, and international collaboration. He has also curated film programmes at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje (2021–2022) and works as an Events Manager at Europe House Skopje.

Dunja Bialas studied Romance Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature in Munich and Paris. Since 2000, she has been an editor at the film magazine artechock. From 2002 to 2013, she was a curator at Munich International Documentary film festival Dok.Fest Munich, most recently responsible for the international competition. In 2006, she co-founded the international film festival UNDERDOX with Bernd Brehmer. From 2013 to 2023, she was spokesperson for the board of the Association of German Film Critics. In 2014, she founded the VIDEODOX Award – Biennial for Video Art from Bavaria. Alongside her work as a film curator and critic, she teaches “The Practice of Film Criticism” at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

With over 20 years of experience in film criticism, Diego Faraone has written for Semanario Brecha and other publications such as Otro Cines, Dossier, El Boulevard, and Guía 50, among others. He has served as a jury member at the festivals of Toronto (TIFF), Rotterdam (IFFR), Fantaspoa (Porto Alegre), Mar del Plata, BAFICI (Buenos Aires), BISFF (Bengaluru), Viña del Mar (Ficviña), Saguenay, and others.

He is the author of a biography of actor César Troncoso, "Oficio de alto riesgo," published in 2020. In February 2011, he was selected by the Berlinale (Berlin Film Festival)—among more than 100 applicants—to take part in the "Talent Press" workshop.

He later served as a mentor for the Berlinale Talent Press workshop in Guadalajara. He has also conducted workshops on film criticism and analysis for the Montevideo City Government's "Locaciones Montevideanas" program, the Rio Grande Latin American Film Festival (Brazil), and the Punta del Este and Porto Alegre (Fantaspoa) festivals. In 2022, he was appointed President of ACCU (Uruguayan Film Critics Association); he has served as Vice President since 2024.

Pat Mullen is the publisher of POV Magazine, Canada's destination for documentary culture. He is also the president of the Toronto Film Critics Association and a Golden Globes international voter. He works with the programming team at the Blue Mountain Film + Media Festival, and writes for additional outlets including That Shelf, Xtra, and The Canadian Encyclopedia. Pat is based in Toronto.

Born in Mexico, Karina Garcia Casanova is a filmmaker, editor, and educator based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. She holds an MFA in Studio Arts (Film Production) from Concordia University and a BA in Philosophy from McGill University. Drawing on personal and found archives, her autobiographical films document inner reality while exploring broader questions of identity, memory, and healing. Juanicas (2014), her feature documentary debut, was theatrically released in Canada and Mexico and received awards at the Guadalajara International Film Festival, Cinélatino, and Atlanta Film Festival. She is currently completing her second feature, Sierra Madre.

Nicole Gingras is a curator, author and independent publisher. Her research delves into creative processes and the notions of trace, time and listening, as well as exploratory practices in film and video. Her interest in experimental cinema, as well as in visual arts and sound art, has given rise to numerous projects exhibitions, programmes, publications, and lectures—presented on national and international stages.

Ivan Marković is a filmmaker and visual artist born in Belgrade and living in Berlin. His recent work explores the various connotations of space and examines the relationship between architecture and ideology. His documentary “Centar" premiered at Doclisboa in 2018 and received awards at Beldocs, Dokufest, and Arkipel. With Linfeng Wu, he co-directed “White Bird” (Berlinale 2016) and “From Tomorrow On, I Will”, which premiered at the Berlinale Forum in 2019 and won the Grand Prize at Jeonju IFF. His documentary short Inventory premiered at Cinéma du Réel in 2025 and was screened at Doclisboa, DMZ Docs, and other festivals. His latest feature, Promised Spaces, premiered in the ACID section of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. His photography and video work has been exhibited internationally, including at Bethanien Berlin, ICA London, SaSa Phnom Penh, Bærum Kunsthall Oslo, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade.

Ryan Akler-Bishop is an experimental filmmaker, musician, film critic, and the programming coordinator for Cinema Politica, a Montreal-based media arts, non-profit network that screens political documentaries. He is also the co-editor-in-chief, alongside Vicky Huang, of Big Toe Magazine, a Bataillean zine series in celebration of transgressive art.

Hejer Charf is a Quebec director and producer of Tunisian origin who founded Nadja Productions in Montreal in 1996. She has directed several short, medium-length and feature films, as well as visual installations. She produced Victoria, a road movie written, directed by and starring Anna Karina. She also produced concerts by Anna Karina and Philippe Katerine in Quebec. Charf regularly publishes articles on art and politics.

Jocelyne Clarke has been working in the documentary film industry for 30 years, in all aspects of documentary creation. She taught cinema at Concordia University, worked as an analyst for SODEC and submitted articles on documentary cinema to various magazines. A founding programmer of the Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal, she now coordinates the Magnus Isacsson jury.

David Gaudette is a filmmaker, programmer and cultural worker. He manages partnerships and broadcasting as well as working as a director and producer at Funambules Médias, the organization behind the Cinéma sous les étoiles festival, which presents outdoor screenings and highlights social struggles through a program devoted entirely to documentary film.

He actively collaborates with international solidarity and humanitarian organizations to develop cultural outreach and video production projects. He has also contributed to the programming and production of several international festivals.

Gaudette is committed to promoting the circulation of films and strengthening collaborations between film communities that are underrepresented internationally and emerging local scenes. He pursues these goals through research and distribution initiatives, as well as an ongoing commitment to foster an inclusive and thriving ecosystem.

Théo Parent grew up and works in Montreal. An interdisciplinary filmmaker, he works across a broad range of approaches, drawing on documentary essay, exploratory fiction and formal experimentation. 

He has gained substantial experience over the course of his career in directing, producing, sound design and various experimental practices involving analogue film media.

His films 117/323 and Les fougères prédatent les dinosaures have been presented in Quebec. His latest project, Comment j’ai réalisé 2054 rue des Cèdres, explores the history of 20th-century Quebec through a domestic lens while reflecting on aesthetics and dwelling.

The RIDM student jury was inaugurated in 2014. The jury of five students from cegeps in the Greater Montreal area will present an award to a film from the official competition. 

This initiative is part of the RIDM’s Youth Program, which includes a variety of outreach and awareness activities.

The women inmates’ jury is composed of inmates of the Joliette Institution, the only federal women’s penitentiary in Quebec. They will name their favourite documentary from among five to seven films in this year’s festival.

Given to the audience's favorite documentary from all the films in the official selection.