Maria Bock
Film director & actor, Norway

"Maria graduated from the Norwegian State Theater School in 2004 and has since worked as a freelance actor in both theater and film. She is last seen in the German/Norwegian film Gnade (Mercy) directed by the German film director Matthias Glassner.  The film was screened at Tromsø International Film Festival 2013.

She has worked at Hålogaland theater in the period 2005-2007. Since 2007 she is also working as a screenwriter and director for stage, film and radio. She has directed three short films, Nina (2008), Fest (2010) and Skallamann (2011). At Fest and Skallamann she also wrote the screenplay and in Fest she played the lead role. The three films have been screened at TIFF and Skallamann has won fourteen international film awards with BAFTA as the finest. "

Per Daumiller
Script-writer, Copenhagen, Denmark

I began writing scripts in the late eighties. Together with my good friend, director Niels Gråbøl, we wrote ”The Hideaway”. A movie about a young boy and a criminal, that’s on the run. Our inspiration was Italian neorealism. Specially Federico Fellini.
I’m educated at The Danish Film school in 1993. After the school I was writing with my friend again. We grown up in different collective in the seventies, and had al lot of stories from those wild years. It all came together in the movie: ”Det Store Flip”
I always thought that I would only write for movies. But in the late nineties TV-series began to fill a lot. Especially Twin Peaks convinced me, that it was the way I wanted to go. 
In the following years I have been developing and writing on the following TV-series: ”Hotellet”, ”Nikolaj og Julie”, ”The Killing”, ”Sommer”, ”Those Who Kill” and ”Arvingerne”, that will be broadcasted this fall. Right now I’m writing a movie about the rescue of the Danish Jews during the Second World War. I’m also involved in the developing of tree new TV-series. 
I have spent many years in a storyline room in front of a whiteboard. I love the process of making a small idea into at full story that can move people. Make them forget themselves and make them laugh and cry. How you get there, is most of the time a very complicated process. But it starts with a head character who have a strong will. 

Silvia Ingermarsdotter
Film editor and professor, Sweden

Sylvia started early, at age 18 as assistant editor on Europe Film AB in Stockholm. After that, she was employed at the Swedish Radio & Television, as editor for five years. 1976, she was on leave and cut the film Man On The Roof, directed by Bo Widerberg. She resigned her position at the SR and worked until 2000 as a freelance film-editor with a number of different directors and movies. Above all, there was a close collaboration with Ingmar Bergman. She worked on films like Autumn Sonata 1977, Fanny and Alexander in 1982 and his last film, Saraband 2002. Now she works as an art professor for Picture Production at Dalarna University in Falun, Sweden.

Hisham Zaman
Film director, Norway

Hisham is graduated from The Norwegian Film School at Lillehammer in 2004. His short film The Bridge (2003), made in collaboration with fellow students and financed privately, won The Norwegian Playwright's Association's Award for Best Screenplay at the Norwegian Short Film Festival 2003, and his diploma film The Roof (2004) was invited to, and screened at, several international film festivals.

Arguably his breakthrough film, Bawke (2005) became a hit on the international festival circuit, and has received more than 40 national and international awards. In 2007 he directed another noteworthy short film; the comedic drama Winterland (2007) opened the Tromsø International Film Festival (TIFF) in 2007. A warm and humorous diaspora-story about a Kurdish refugee settled in godforsaken spot in Northern Norway, and his new wife recently arrived from their home country.

In 2013 Hisham Zaman released his debut feature film "Before Snowfall" also at TIFF and won the Dragon Award Best Nordic Film at Sweden's Göteborg International Film Festival and received award for best cinematography at Tribeca filmfestival - A road movie that becomes an odyssey from East to West for young Siyar, a village-boy from Iraqi-Kurdistan.

Stein Bjørn
Actor, director and film teacher, Norway

After being starred in his first film at the age of sixteen, he has participated as an actor in 11 feature and short films. For seventeen years he was a part of the acknowledged theatre group Totalteatret in Tromsø.

In 2012 Stein Bjørn's documentary "Biekka Fábmu – Wind Power" premiered at the Riddu Riddu Festival, an indigenous culture festival that also is the subject of the film. It has since been screened at film festivals in Norway and Russia.

Stein Bjørn has taught film in Sweden and Norway. Often in cooperation with schools, he has guided aspiring filmmakers to make their first film.

Gabrial McNair
Musician, Tromsø/Los Angeles

As in previous years, there will be a separate Sound design workshop at this year's NUFF.

This year's workshop leader is Gabrial McNair, and he will lead local, aspiring film composers through the fun and creative process of scoring this year's NUFF movies. Mc Nair is a graduate of the prestigious California Institute of the Arts, in jazz and music composition.

He has been a regular member of No Doubt, and has collaborated with, among others, Gwen Stefani and Lenny Kravitz to name a few. He has also composed music for several films, documentaries, commercials and TV shows.