An Associate Professor at Northwestern University, Nick Davis teaches and writes in the areas of film analysis and criticism, queer theory, feminist and gender studies, and American literature. His book The Desiring-Image theorizes a new model of queer cinema in works by David Cronenberg, Claire Denis, Todd Haynes and others. He currently holds the Alumnae of Northwestern Teaching Professorship, the university's highest award for distinguished teaching and curricular innovation. Since 1998, he has published reviews and festival journalism at his website and is currently a Contributing Editor to Film Comment magazine.

Sofia Bohdanowicz is a Toronto-based filmmaker. She won the Emerging Canadian Director award at the 2016 Vancouver International Film Festival for her first feature, Never Eat Alone and had a retrospective of her body of work at BAFICI in 2017. Her second film Maison du bonheur had its North American premiere at HotDocs. She is currently in production for her third feature with Deragh Campbell.

Jesse Cumming is a film curator, researcher, and writer. He completed his M.A. in York University and Ryerson’s joint Communication and Culture program. He currently serves as a Programming Associate for the Wavelengths section of the Toronto International Film Festival. His writing has appeared in Cinema Scope and MUBI Notebook, among others. He sits on the steering committee of the Toronto Film & Media Seminar and is a founding member of MICE Magazine, a publication dedicated to Moving Image Culture. 

Tina Hassannia is a freelance journalist who specializes in film, TV, culture, and psychology. She is the author of Asghar Farhadi: Life and Cinema, and served as Executive Editor at Movie Mezzanine. A member of the Toronto Film Critics Association, Tina has written for a variety of publications, including the National Post, The Globe and Mail, Roger Ebert, Variety, The Village Voice, CBC, and VICE.