Participants

New media artist since Y2K .Cyber Art culture pioneer. Crypto artist since 2018.

International Programming Team, Utopia 2021, Actor, Writer, Amateur Gardner, Bird Enthusiast, Sailor, Dad of a Good Doggo

Copywriter at the Adler-Chomsky ad agency, writes independently about ideas and topics at the nexus of cinema, pop culture and psychology

International Programming Team, Utopia 2021. MA in literature, researching Hebrew literature in America, interested in Jewish dystopian writing and genre films.

Visual artist, politically queer, optimist for real

Researcher and writer in the field of Psychoanalysis, holder of Master's degree in English Literature from TAU, in Lacanian psychoanalytic formation.

Film-maker, critic and journalist, Cinema Studies graduate from the Tel-Aviv University Film School.

Bogen is a veteran film journalist, film program curator, academic scholar and festival director at LIFF (Lighthouse International Film Festival, NJ, USA)

Theater and performance artist, academic researcher, educator and social activist at the focal point of digital culture, technology, media and intimacy.

A writer focused on the surprising connections between strange things - technology, psychedelia, science fiction, mysticism and esoterica, cute animals and strange peoples.

A seasoned film critic (Haaretz, City Mouse, Mako) and founder of the award-winning film-blog srita.net. currently based in Brooklyn, NY.

Researcher, digital artist, curator and writer. Senior Lecturer in the Technology Management Program at Tel Aviv University. Founder of the Print Screen Festival for Digital Arts.

Professor of Jewish Studies and Near Eastern Studies and Film Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Designer and educator in Shenkar College, GA member of A Land For All

Biologist, art theorist, concept creator and curator for festivals and conferences.

Ex-marine biologist turned science-fiction author, flesh-eating-disease survivor and (according to the US government) Undesirable Element.

Sweet Authored five fantasy novels and is an instructor of science-fiction and fantasy writing at the University of Toronto.

Architect and concept Artist

Basic income founder (Mein-Grundeinkommen.de, sanktionsfrei.de), process facilitator, musical theatre actor, stage director.

Curator and entrepreneur with expertise in film and immersive content (XR)

Researcher of Digital Culture and Design-led Innovation

Researcher and designer working at the intersection of technology and society

Science fiction author. During 2012-2018 she drastically limited her social media presence to detach from known attention and recognition systems while writing a collection of utopian miniatures in forests, on farms and in cities all over Europe.

Professor, Lecturer & Consultant on the Disruptive Effects of Digital Transformation

Illustrator, Designer and Storyboard Artist

Bartov’s work mixes pop-culture and sci-fi with computational design and sculptural elements, exploring representations of time and beauty in the flaws of the digital world.

Digital consultant, Konnektiv, Co-founder of the Global Innovation Gathering (GiG) Network, member of the re:publica program team

Dermühl is a trained futurologist, social entrepreneur and strong believer in empowering people to design desirable futures

Conference curator of the Transmediale festival, Berlin.

Technology researcher and writer with a hybrid portfolio of work in industry, arts and culture, academia and NGOs.

Film maker - Director, Producer, Screenwriter - AV: The Hunt

Senior Lecturer in the General History Department at the University of Haifa in Israel and head of the American Studies Program.

Angelini came into film from a longer, multi-faceted career in the creative arts. He started in music, touring in bands, later enrolling for a Masters of Architecture program during the depths of the 2008 real estate crisis, during which the seeds for his directorial debut, OWNED: A Tale of Two Americas began to take shape. Giorgio served as the executive producer for the feature film My Friend Dahmer (2017). Giorgio is the writer and producer for FEELS GOOD MAN.

FEELS GOOD MAN is Jones’s directorial debut, but he’s uniquely suited to tell the story. He’s a cartoonist who came up in the same indie comics scene as the film’s subject, Matt Furie, and has art directed animation and motion graphics for journalists and documentary filmmakers, working with ¬companies including The New York Times, VICE and The Center for Investigative Reporting.

Timpson has worked in every facet of the film industry; from managing an arthouse, distribution and programming, creating film events, producing television and feature films, operating government film funds and mentoring many filmmakers. For his multi-faceted and long-running film & media entrepreneurship he was the inaugural recipient of New Zealand’s Art Entrepreneur Award and is a Board member of the New Zealand Film Commission. His annual film competition 48HOURS with Peter Jackson as mentor began in 2003. After producing numerous genre films, Come to Daddy (Tribeca 2019), starring Elijah Wood, was his directorial debut.

Film Director, My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To

Istanbul-born director, cinematographer, and photographer. Behram holds a bachelor's degree in cinema from Columbia College Chicago, has directed a number of short films, "The Antenna" is his feature debut.

Writer, producer, director, The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot.

Producer, Festival Programmer and Acquisitions Consultant ,Mahnert opened her independent company Screen Division in 2013, working as a freelance producer, acquisitions consultant and festival programmer. She is a programmer at the Sitges Fantastic Film Festival, Head of Programming at Fantastic Fest in Austin and since April 2020 also the Executive Director at the Frontières Co-Production Market, the leading industry initiative for genre film professionals.

Director of documentary and narrative films, including Lapsis (2021) and In Silico (2021).

Utopia 2020 rising star in world genre film-making spotlight, Lao film-maker - Chanthaly, Dearest Sister, The Long Walk.

screenwriter, DJ, XCCV

Living a simple life in Tel-Aviv while dreaming and writing about other worlds. Holds great appreciation for creatives & artists.

Film Scholar and critic, Author of 3 books on Israeli Cinema and has a passion for teleporting which he can't currently pursue for lack of proper technology.

Sci-fi film-maker from Mexico (THE INCIDENT, THE SIMILAR, PARALLEL), co-founder of Red Elephant Films and Autocinema Coyote (Coyote Drive-In)

Director, the Imagine Film Festival in Amsterdam

Festival Director of the Lund Fantastic Film Festival. Maritte loves everything violent, but also everything cute. You have to take the good with the bad. Keep it balanced!

Writer director of Cube, Splice and In The Tall Grass.

Screenwriter and director, her short film "The Update" won Best Film at the 2018 Utopia Film Festival.

Film and Media Producer

Film maker and a writer.

Documentary filmmaker and film theorist, photographer.

Video producer and editor working as tech director for numerous Israeli film festivals.

Film director who pioneered Hebrew Horror. He's also a published author and a nice person in general, with a terrible fear of cockroaches.

Artistic director and film curator., Music, film and culture researcher, DJ and actress.

Events and content producer, Utopia - the Tel-Aviv International Festival for Science Fiction and Fantastic Genre Films, Speculative Literature Program and Digital Magazine

Avraham Chai (born 1944, in Baghdad) is an Israeli photographer who specializes in archaeology, artworks, artists, and art exhibitions photography.

Lavie is an Israeli author and playwright, game designer and entrepreneur. His play “Nephilim” (created with Yonatan Levi) premiered at The Israel Arts Festival in Jerusalem. “The Divine”, a graphic novel (created with illustrators Asaf and Tomer Hanuka) became a New York Times bestseller, was a Hugo Award Nominee and won the International Manga Award and.

International Film & TV Industry Events, Creative Producer, Joint director of the Sam Spiegel International Film Lab, professional director of the Israeli Pavilion at the Cannes Film Festival & Market.

Dr. Shani (PhD, MHA, MBA) serves as VP of Medicine, Compliance and Regulation at the Neopharm Group and as adjunct lecturer in the Department of Health Systems Management at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, teaching Policy and Economics" in the School of Pharmacy and guiding graduate students.

Krein is a chemistry teacher at the HEMDA Tel-Aviv Center for Science Education, where he is a management member and leads special projects. Krein hold a PhD in organic chemistry from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and is a science communication specialist, founder and initiator of the science-culture program at HEMDA and previously the scientific editor of the Scientific American – Israel magazine.

Created a range of cultural initiatives, theatre productions and a feature film that have received awards and critical acclaim. In the past, taught a popular year-long course on genre films at Minshar.

Film Producer, Daroma Productions. Peleg is a graduate of Ben Gurion University and holds a MBA from the Open University. He is co-founder of Daroma Productions, a film production company specializing in features and documentaries. Peleg’s career started as a program curator, serving as the program director for the Sderot Cinematheque for seven years. Peleg also served as the film program producer for the Cinema South Festival and the International Women’s Film Festival and as lead producer for the Utopia Festival.

Producer of Films, Games and other Media & Technological Projects. Miretzky accumulated years and years of experience in all aspects of the games industry. He was a founding member of GameIS – the Israeli Digital Games Industry Association and served as its first CEO.

Ticketing Director, Connex Jerusalem Light Rail LTD

CEO of Dice Marketing and the Rimon Studio, Founding member of the “Darkenu” Israeli social-political movement, game designer and author

Space and flight tech entrepreneur, founder and CEO of the drone delivery startup Flytrex, Previously, founder of the Google X-Prize contestant association SpaceIL (crashed a space probe on the Moon!)

Owner and producer, Ascella Productions

Film maker, military horror “Freak Out” (2015), musical comedy “The Electrifiers” (2019)

Founder & CEO of CaptainUp, web, mobile and digital games pioneer, Founding member of GameIS, the Israeli Digital Games Industry Association.

Adv

Director of the Utopia Festival for Science Fiction and Future Story-telling. As the Promethean Consultancy, program curator, PMO, artistic consultant and producer, writer and speaker on topics of technology and society, science fiction and the future.

Shapira is a comics critic who writes for several venues including Haaretz, The Comics Journal, PanelXPanel and others.

Writer, sailor, climate activist

Lives in Mitzpe Ramon, loves nature mountains and desert landscapes, photographer, musician, entrepreneur and social and environmental activist.

Artistic researcher of post-digital media, sequential narration, and performance.

Literature researcher, writer, translator, editor, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and in the Be'er Sheva Writer's House, Editor of the literary magazine "Speculation".

Hassine is an artist, lecturer and researcher. Her creative work was exhibited at the Jerusalem Science Museum, the Tel-Aviv Center for Contemporary Art, the Berlin Transmediale, Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), Gasworks (London), Maxxi, the Venice Biennale, and more. As of 2019 She is the founder and CEO of the early stage ArtUp “Shmoogle: Search Different, Think Different."

A member of the Utopia Festival team for the past 11 years, Adar serves as a curator, content editor, and producer.

Yanai Sened is an (ex) Programmer, (ex) Teacher, and philosophy PhD candidate, Fordham University, New York City.

Designer & art director, a graduate of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, loves working with print & printed formats, in addition to working with mixed media & web.

Marlyn Vinig is a film critic and Jewish-Orthodox film researcher

Yael Maurer is a researcher and lecturer with an interest in science fiction, American literature, popular culture and film.

Israeli architect based in Berlin. Ron practices computational design, design-research and writes about digital culture in architecture.

Program curator, speaker and music & culture journalist, programmer for Utopia, the Tel-Aviv International Festival for Science Fiction and Fantastic Film, editor-in-chief of Heavy Blog is Heavy, web developer and scifi enthusiast.

Artist and game designer, Digital Utopia editorial board

Gutman is an Israeli film-maker and illustrator, she finished her studies is Bezalel academy in Jerusalem, currently resides in France.

Writer & translator