Participants

Writer and actor who speaks Hebrew, French, and English. As an actor, she has performed in theatre and film. As a creator, she writes essays and poetry, and her work has been published on various platforms worldwide.

Filmmaker, writer and critic. His stories and essays have been published in various publications.

Producer in the Israeli film and television industry. In 2015, he established "Sima Films," an independent production company specializing in narrative and documentary cinema.

Digital culture researcher at Tel Aviv University, and creator of the podcasts "The Posthuman Condition" and "Network Dinosaurs".

Film director, producer. Currently working on the documentary film “South of Arad” and the web series “Mommy!, Tel Aviv.”

Award winning writer, director and producer.

Musician and significant figure in new Israeli music - as lead singer and main creator in the band "Haya Miller," and through collaborative work as a guitarist, songwriter, and music producer with a long list of musicians (Hila Ruach, Zeev Tene, Ram Orion, and others).

Director, Screenwriter and film-lecturer. Wrote and directed FROZEN DAYS (winner of Best Film award at Haifa Film Festival), THE ASSASSIN NEXT DOOR, THE MINISTER WHO BECAME A SPY and HOMESICK (currently in post-production).

The Paz Brothers are writer-directors.

Israeli film director, writer & producer. His directing credits include March '19, The Altman Method and The Glory of Defeat.

Filmmaker, content creator and VFX artist.

Tobi’s works have been presented and awarded at many festivals, including Sundance, Karlovy Vary, Locarno, AFI, Jerusalem and Haifa. Tropicana is his first feature film.

Jerusalem-based filmmaker and screenwriter, married and a father of four. He has written and directed several short films.

Film actress, working in Israeli and international cinema, exploring complex female characters and questions of identity and transition.

An Israeli screenwriter and director, born in 1984. His debut feature film, "Horse with No Name", released in April 2025.

From cinematographer to 4D capture expert, Addie Reiss builds the real-life 'holodeck'—creating star-studded holograms for Digital Nation Entertainment's studio in LA.

Writer/director, social media influencer with over 20K followers, news anchor at Ynet, founder of Cinema Limbo, television actor.

Translator, lecturer, editor, and here and there also a writer. I served as an editor at Keter Publishing, and currently I am also chief editor at the Institute for Translation.

Content Expert at the Israel Space Agency, lecturer, and creator and host of the podcasts “Kol Hayekum” (for ISA) and “Space Agent” (for KAN).

Architect, architectural historian and researcher. In his work, Eli explores the historical and conceptual relationships between technological advancements and speculative, utopian and dystopian architectural imaginations.

Producer working across film and festival contexts, involved in creative processes and professional collaborations.

Independent film and media/video-art programmer and curator & part of the programming team for the LICHTER Frankfurt International Film Festival, where he is head of the LICHTER Art Award and Programmer/Curator for the LICHTER International short film program.

His first film The Incident (2014) premiered at Cannes and 50 more festivals, gaining support from Del Toro. His second film The Similars (2015) won Best Latinamerican Film at Sitges, making him the first Mexican with two films in two straight years in Fantastic Fest and Sitges. He then got hired by BRON Studios to direct Parallel (2018), first English spoken film, broke box office records with Mal De Ojo (2022), his first full horror entry, and just premiered his new movie Párvulos (2024) at Fantasia, Fantastic Fest and Sitges.

Israeli author and playwright, She won the Levi Eshkol's Prize for Hebrew Literature in 2015.

Film and tv producer with over 18 years of experience and a producing partner of the actress Anna Faris. He also teaches Independent Film Financing at UCLA.

Scholar of Spanish and Latin American literature. His fields of expertise are Spanish Golden Age literature and contemporary Latin American literature.

A 33-year-old filmmaker from Tel Aviv and graduate of the Sam Spiegel Film & Television School. Writer and director of ReFeel, winner of the short film section at the 2021 Utopia Film Festival.

Graduated from Essec and ESCP, Leonard worked at Studiocanal Australia, Iconoclast in Los Angeles and Vendôme Films in Paris. He joined Charades as Festivals Manager in 2022.

Screenwriter, director, and producer. A graduate of the Film Department at Minshar for Art.

Steering transformative technology towards benefiting life and away from extreme large-scale risks.

Liat Elkayam is an Israeli writer, screen writer, and culture critic for "Haaretz". Elkayam teaches at the culture studies department of "Sapir" college.

Amital Stern writes film, theater and other texts. She teaches experimental writing workshops.

Born in 1978, graduated from "Hadassah" college ,working as a photojournalist for "Haareztz" since 2004.

International Emmy-nominated senior producer and journalist, creating impactful investigations and documentaries for “UVDA” with Ilana Dayan and leading global media projects.

Cinephile, MA student in Cinema Studies. Former manager and curator of “Documentary at Shapira” project.

Amital Stern writes film, theater and other texts. She teaches experimental writing workshops.

Film programmer, co-founder of the Instagram page “The 4th Wall”, film critic at the websites “Seret” and “Geeklopedia”.

Film producer, curator and researcher. Porat is the Holon Cinematheques producer and co-founder of the "Trashtalk" podcast, alongside Shani Kiniso.

Poet and cultural researcher. Research fellow at the Center for Folklore Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, a master’s in computer science, and a PhD in folklore and folk culture from the Hebrew University.

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Researcher of the interface between theatre, performance, and Jewish religious tradition. Recently, he has also been exploring the connections between theatre, role-playing games, and fantasy.

Arts & culture researcher, curator, producer and entrepreneur - a cultural jack-of-all-trades

Film critic, researcher and curator. Kiniso is from Kibbutz Be'eri, after surviving the October 7th massacre he published the article "For Unimaginable Cinema – A Call to Israeli Filmmakers" in which he detailed the ways in which Israeli cinema should respond to the events of that day. Kiniso co-founded the Israeli "Unimaginable Cinema Project", and is co-founder of the "Trashtalk" podcast, alongside Gili Porat.

Asaf Gavron is an Israeli writer, translator and musician.

Yaara Better Pocker is a writer, producer and a cliche of herself.

Dr. Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler is a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute and head of the institute’s Media Reform Program and Democracy in the Information Age Program.

Adam is an anthropologist of religion, Head of Public Discourse at the Van Leer institute and the head of the institute's digital team.

Specializes in research and development of governmental and policy projects.

Dr. Miri Rozmarin is a senior professor for gender studies at Bar-Ilan univesity, a research fellow at the Van-Leer institute and had her doctorate at Tel Aviv University.

Lecturer at Bezalel Academy, writing instructor.

Screenwriter, Author, Middle School teacher

May Pundak is the Israeli executive director of the "A Land for All" movement, a feminist lawyer and activist. May deals with the seam between policy, education and community activism and has a bachelor's and master's degree in law. She is also a Mandel School for Educational Leadership graduate and lives with her family in Jerusalem.

ריטה קוגן, נולדה בסנט פטרבורג ב-1976. עלתה ארצה ב-1990. גרה בתל אביב.

Yoni Salmon, owner of the veteran animation blog "Shulyat Hakosem", lecturer, illustrator, animation director and project manager at TMC Animation Studio.

Mayan Rogel is an Author, screenwriter and story-hacker, podcaster and narrative expert. Rogel is a mom and a martial arts expert.

Film writer and critic, artistic consultant and director. Artistic director at JIFF, the Jerusalem International Film Festival. Editor, co-founder of the Srita.net film website. Program manager at the Holon Cinematheque.

Assi Meshullam is an artist and associate professor in the art department at the University of Haifa. He has a BA in archaeology and art and MA in biblical studies.

Poet and musician ("Emmanuel and the Yearnings"). His debut poetry book (“The Sun Sings to Melchior”, Hava La’or Publishing, 2020) has awarded him the Minister of Culture's Prize for Poets in their Early Career.

Hagai Dagan is an Israeli writer and scholar. Educated in Israel and Germany, he received a PhD in Jewish Thought and Philosophy from Tel-Aviv University. He is currently head of the Israeli Culture department at Sapir College, Israel.

Artist, graphic designer, typographer, with expertise in typographic and calligraphic design, alongside design for the arts & culture worlds.

Cultural researcher, content editor, and film critic at Portfolio Magazine. Has lived and breathed cinema from a young age and lives as someone who writes to find meaning.

Utopia 2023 production team, Yenimy comes from a background in design, from stage and costumes design, to jewelry and carpentry.

Game Creator, Writer, Devoted Sci-Fi lover, Creative Director at Funfacters.

Producer, content writer and curator, DJ and activist. Former journalist and news-editor. Ofer is a member of the Utopia magazine editorial board and an artistic consultant for the film festival.

Geopolitics Consultant, Guide, PhD at Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Historical-political sociologist, specializing in the interface between religious and national movements.

Award-winning director and screenwriter. Creator of "The Jews Are Coming" (Hayehudim Ba'im), an Israeli satirical television series. Writer on numerous successful TV shows, such as "Fauda" and "Tehran".

Student and assistant teacher at the Tel-Aviv University, Filmmaker and writer for different magazines (Off-Screen, Takriv, Tel-Aviv Cinematheque).

Content Writer

Educator and a performer of food and arts. Loves learning and teaching, playing games and gamifying - and having and making fun happen.

Prof. Hadas Erel, Head of the Human-Robot Interaction research in the media innovation lab at Reichman University.

Amir Harash is a novelist, scribe, and literary scholar. Author of the books "Bronze – Canaanite Fantasy" (2019) and "Horror in West Rishon" (2023).

Prof. Gomel teaches in the Department of English Literature and American Studies at the Tel Aviv University with research specializations in science fiction and fantasy, narrative science, Dickens, Victorian culture and Post-humanism. Alongside her research and teaching, Prof. Gomel is also a published author of science fiction and fantasy texts and novels.

Poet, programmer and media artist. Co-founder of the Digital Media track at Tel Aviv University and lecturer there, at the School of Visual Theatre Jerusalem, and in other frameworks.

Israeli literature critic and culture researcher and theorist, specializing in popular culture and literature.

Young is an architect who operates in the spaces between design, fiction and futures. He is founder of the urban futures think tank Tomorrows Thoughts' Today (TTT), exploring the possibilities of fantastic, perverse and imaginary urbanisms.

Alex Epstein is an Israeli writer of Russian descent known for his micro stories, two-time winner of the Israeli Prime Minister's Prize for Authors and Poets (2003; 2016). Epstein’s publications include a children’s book, poetry, novels and short story collections. His work has been translated into numerous languages, including English, French, Portuguese and Russian. In 2013-14 Epstein took part in the Utopia “Designing Tomorrow” project, getting authors, designers and creatives together with technology entrepreneurs and scientists.

Film-maker - editor and director

Artistic Director of the Fantasia International Fantastic Film Festival in Montreal. Canada

writer, filmmaker, artistic programmer and genre film expert

Editor of prose and screenplay, essayist and cultural critic, recipient of the 2021 Israel Minister of Culture's Award for Editing. Head of the Hebrew Literature Department, Kinneret-Zmora-Dvir publishing.

Virt is a creative, writer and artistic producer, she addresses identity, urbanism and digital spaces in her creative work.

Speaker, moderator, podcaster, researcher, philosopher, teacher. Fogel teaches at the Tel Aviv University's department of Jewish philosophy and numerous other institutes, alongside being academic director of Alma, cultural and intellectual center for Hebrew culture.

Brenner creates and explores visual world and themes using both digital tools and traditional techniques.

Friendly hacker, cyber security researcher and speaker. Founder of BSidesTLV and the Leading Cyber Ladies movement, avid sci fi reader.

Journalist, Kan - The Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation

Amateur lecturer with academic pretensions on all things SF and Fantasy, for over 20 years.

HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) researcher and designer, Reichman University’s Sammy Ofer School of Communications, Head of HCI MA program, Director of miLAB.

Director, screenwriter and social activist, Head of the video program in the department of visual communication at Shenkar College.

Friedman is an Associate Prof. in the Sammy Ofer School of Communications and the head of the Advanced Reality Lab.

Web developer, writer

Comedian, Screenplay Writer, Actor, Video Editor, Standup Comic.

Zoe Polanski is a composer, sound artist, producer, and guitar player. Her music travels between the worlds of ambient, electronica, and post-rock.

Urban Planner and Software Engineer. I love Cities, People, Technology and areas in which they converge.

Blogger, artist, faculty member at Bar Ilan University, journalist at Haaretz newspaper.

Science Fiction scholar in the English Department, University of Haifa.

Cultural events and exhibition's producer, reporter at Portfolio magazine and a Visual Culture B.A student