Film Forward International Competition Award

Born in Thessaloniki, Greece, and of Armenian descent, Aikaterini Gegisian is a UK-educated visual artist, filmmaker, academic, and researcher whose practice reflects her layered cultural background. She divides her time between London and Thessaloniki, where she also cultivates a small homestead, echoing an interdisciplinary approach to art and life. An image-maker at heart, Gegisian’s work engages in a feminist re-reading of optical technologies, examining how photographic and cinematic images shape perception, construct identities, and produce regimes of visual pleasure. Gegisian was part of the Golden Lion–winning Armenian Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) and has exhibited at institutions including Mathaf (Doha), ICP (New York), the National Arts Museum of China (Beijing), MOMus (Thessaloniki), IVAM (Valencia), BALTIC (Newcastle), The Whitworth (Manchester), Spike Island (Bristol), Kunsthalle Osnabrück, and DEPO (Istanbul). Her films have screened at festivals such as the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Videoformes, the Kassel Documentary Film Festival, and IFF Innsbruck. Her work is held in public collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, Frac des Pays de la Loire, the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, MOMus Thessaloniki, and the California Museum of Photography. Gegisian also works extensively with the photobook as an expanded cinematic and photographic form. She has published A Small Guide to the Invisible Seas (Venice Biennale, 2015), Handbook of the Spontaneous Other (MACK, 2020), and most recently Third Person Plural (BÜCHS’N’BOOKS, 2025), which draws on postwar U.S. archival film material to examine the formation of gendered political imaginaries.

Sandra Pires is a Portuguese architect and cultural programmer based in Lisbon. She studied architecture in Porto and urban design at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She lived and worked in New York for over a decade, working at prestigious architecture firms while developing an active curatorial practice. During this time, she founded 255Canal, a gallery run from her Canal Street apartment, hosting exhibitions, themed dinners, film seminars, and jazz concerts. The space was featured in various publications, including Alternative Histories: New York Art Spaces 1960–2010 (MIT Press). After relocating to Lisbon, she co-founded 119 Marvila Studios, a post-production studio and art gallery helping filmmakers and artists bring their vision to life.

Alberto Valverde coordinates ECAM Forum, Madrid’s new international co-production market. He combines his work in film funds and industry initiatives with programming and exhibition. A founding partner and programmer of the CinemaAttic collective, he has programmed Spanish and Latin American cinema across the UK for over a decade. He previously worked for Screen Scotland and led the Creative Europe MEDIA Office in the UK–Scotland (2018–2021), supporting European cinema and advising audiovisual professionals. He has collaborated with D’A Festival Cinema Barcelona, D’A Film Lab, and Abycine Lanza. In 2023, he led the Spanish Screenings program for the international promotion of Spanish cinema for the ICAA. Since 2024, he has been part of ECAM’s Industry Department.