Director Hikaru Toda is self-shooting Director/Editor based in London and Osaka working in long and short format documentaries. Her films have screened on BBC Storyville, France Televisions, NHK, The Guardian and major international film festivals including Hot Docs, CPH DOX and Melbourne International Film Festival. Hikaru moved to Japan for the first time in 22 years to make Of Love & Law.
Producer Elhum Shakerifar is a BAFTA nominated producer and recent recipient of the BFI Vision Award, producing and distributing documentaries through her company Hakawati with the core ethos that a good story is all in the telling. Recent credits include winner of the BIFA for Best Documentary Almost Heaven (Carol Salter, 2017) and BFI/Sundance funded Even When I Fall (Sky Neal and Kate McLarnon, 2017). In 2015, she self-distributed her BAFTA nominated production A Syrian Love Story (Sean McAllister, 2015) in the UK to such high visibility that it was named #3 Best Film of 2015 by the Guardian. Her work has been broadcast internationally and screened at festivals including Berlinale, IDFA and Rotterdam. Elhum is a programme advisor for London Film Festival for films from MENA and Iran and Film Curator for Shubbak, festival of contemporary Arab culture. In 2017, she was nominated for the Arab British Centre’s Award for Culture and was awarded the Women in Film and TV Factual Award.
Editor/Associate Producer Takeshi Hata is an award-winning editor based in Osaka, Japan. He has recently worked on Kazuo Hara’s award winning Sennan Asbestos Disaster (2017).
Director of Photography Jason Brooks is a freelance director, cinematographer and editor based near London. He works on feature and broadcast length documentary films, and directs shorter pieces in the NGO, commercial and corporate spheres. His background in anthropology has allowed him to specialise in films from diverse cultural contexts, with particular focus on the Middle East, Africa and Asia. He is currently preparing to direct his first feature documentary, working title Life En Route in North and West Africa. His work can be viewed at www.opticalism.com.
Sound designer Yuichiro Maeda studied at LIPA before travelling to Europe for new musical horizons with his band Yanéka. For several years he has been developing his talents as a composer, sound engineer and solo performer, working on a limitless sound with various inspirations; atmospheric, electro, modern or retro at the same time. With his guitar and a bed of pedals, he creates on the stage a fabric of sound experimentations based on multiplying loops.
Co-producer Estelle Robin You of the French company Les Films du Balibari is based in Nantes. Her productions have been selected in festivals worldwide including Visions du Réel – Nyon, Planet Doc Review – Warsaw, Cinéma du Réel – Paris, Dei Popoli – Florence, IDFA Amsterdam, Hot Docs, Toronto and New Horizons – Wroclaw. In 2010, she was also nominated for the Procirep Best Producer award.