Radu Jude is a Romanian film director and screenwriter born in Bucharest in 1977, known for his complex, often political, and anarchic films that explore historical memory, labor, and contemporary society. After graduating from film school, he worked as an assistant director and gained recognition for award-winning short films before directing his feature debut, The Happiest Girl in the World (2009). His work, which blends fact and fiction, uses found footage and contemporary culture, like TikTok, to offer scathing social commentary, earning him major awards from festivals such as Berlin and Sundance.

Christian Ferencz-Flatz is a philosopher, currently affiliated as a researcher at the Alexandru Dragomir Insititute for Philosophy in Bucharest. He teaches at the National University of Theatre and Film in Bucharest. His research concerns phenomenology, critical theory, the philosophy of history, film- and media philosophy. With Julian Hanich, he edited the journal issue Studia Phaenomenologica XVI: Film and Phenomenology (2016). His latest monographs include: Critical Theory and Phenomenology. Polemics, Appropriations, Perspectives (Springer, 2023) and Filmul ca situație socială / Film as a Social Situation (Tact, 2018). He published numerous essays and research articles in philosophical and film scholarly journals and translated into Romanian key theoretical works by Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno and Siegfried Kracauer. He is currently developing a research project devoted to post-socialist advertising.