Sudeep Sharma is a Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival with a focus on documentary feature films. With nearly two decades of experience in film curation, Sudeep started at the Institute as a screener for international documentaries and reader for the Labs and has had several roles including Programming Associate, Associate Programmer and Shorts Programmer. He has worked in programming at many eclectic organizations including major Los Angeles film organizations such as Film Independent, AFI Fest, Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles, and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. He has also been Director of Programming and Interim Artistic Director for the Palm Springs International ShortFest. He has served on festival juries and film award committees around the world and has led and participated on panels on a variety of industry and cultural topics. He holds a PhD in Cinema and Media Studies from UCLA and has taught film and television history, industry and criticism courses at universities throughout Southern California. more...

Mstyslav Chernov is a Ukrainian filmmaker, war correspondent, videographer, photojournalist, and novelist. He is a Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award® winner known for his coverage of the Revolution of Dignity, War in Donbas, the downing of flight MH17, Syrian civil war, Battle of Mosul in Iraq, and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, including the Siege of Mariupol. more...

David Borenstein is a multi-award winning film and TV director. His feature titles include Mr. Nobody Against Putin (2025), Can’t Feel Nothing (2024), and Dream Empire (2016). He has a background as a journalist, Chinese interpreter, and touring saxophonist in China's first ska-punk band. more...

Gianluca Matarrese is an Italian director based in Paris. He holds a degree in North American Cinema and is a graduate of the École de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris. He started in the French television industry, contributing to over 25 programs in fiction and entertainment. Over the past five years, he has directed nine films, touring international festivals including Mostra di Venezia, IDFA, Thessaloniki, CPH:DOX, Hot Docs, DMZ, Torino Film Festival, Visions du Réel, Festival dei Popoli, Cinéma du Réel, and others. more...

Lindsay Utz is an award-winning director, producer, and editor who has worked on some of the most high-profile documentaries of the last decade, including editing the 2020 Academy Award-winning American Factory. She most recently premiered her directorial debut Prime Minister, about the former PM of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern, at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the World Cinema Documentary Audience Award. In 2023 she produced the first documentary out of Ben Affleck’s Artists Equity, which premiered at number one on Amazon Prime in February 2024. Her other editing credits include Martha (2024), the Oscar-shortlisted Billie Eilish: The World's A Little Blurry (2021), Miss Americana (2020), and Quest (2018), a ten-year vérité portrait of a Black Philadelphia family, which was nominated for both Emmy and Peabody Awards. Her work has screened at major festivals around the world, and has been included in prestigious archives such as the MoMA film library and The Criterion Collection. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and American Cinema Editors (ACE). more...