IMMERSIVE: ALL AROUND CINEMA AWARD

Chema González is a programmer and curator who has explored the relationship between contemporary art and film. As head of the Film and New Media department at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, he has built an extensive, regular program of essay films, political documentaries, experimental cinema, and auteur films. His work seeks to recover silenced gazes that challenge orthodox histories of cinema, to reconnect filmmaking with a committed political and theoretical space, and to understand cinema as an art capable of transforming how we construct and interpret the world. His recent projects include retrospectives of Oliver Laxe, Peter Watkins, Adam Curtis, Kidlat Tahimik, Chantal Akerman, Sarah Maldoror, Wang Bing, Derek Jarman, and Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, as well as themed series such as Black Film Matters (1920–2020), Possible Futures: Cinema and Worlds to Come, Guy Debord and René Viénet: From Lettrism to Situationism, and No Shelter: Images of Contemporary Exile. He has served on the juries of international festivals such as DocLisboa, FIDMarseille, and DocumentaMadrid, and has presented and organized film series at the BFI in London, DocLisboa, the Centre Pompidou, CCCB Barcelona, FICCALI, Cinespaña Toulouse, the Seville European Film Festival, Punto de Vista, CGAI, Filmoteca de Catalunya, Filmoteca Española, and Tabakalera in Donostia. He has curated exhibitions of moving-image artists including David Lamelas, Akram Zaatari, William Kentridge, Hala Elkoussy, Hito Steyerl, and Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi. He also initiated the Jordà Grant, a residency program run jointly by the Museo Reina Sofía, FIDMarseille, and DocLisboa.

Andrey Lunev is an entrepreneur, curator, and XR ecosystem facilitator working at the intersection of immersive storytelling, technology, and human connection. In 2018, he founded XR Crowd, an ever-growing global community of more than 2,000 members connecting people across immersive art, technology, storytelling, and business. He champions community as essential infrastructure for innovation, fostering serendipitous encounters and meaningful connections across the industry. With a background in finance and entrepreneurship, Andrey later turned to venture capital, leading 18 investments in early-stage startups and launching the pan-European SWG XR accelerator. Since 2017, Andrey has been exploring the evolution of immersive storytelling across festivals, developing a broad perspective on the creative possibilities of the medium. He has served on international juries evaluating immersive content and judged startup competitions at international events. In 2020, for his work in live VR event production, he was featured on the cover of Entrepreneur magazine. Andrey is particularly interested in how immersive technologies and hybrid communities reshape human connection, trust, and our experience of the world.

Poly Lykourgou studied sociology to save the world. When she was told that only happens in the movies, she studied film too. After earning two master’s degrees at Syracuse University, New York (Film and Creative Writing), she returned to Greece and joined the family of Sinema magazine for 11 years, spending seven of those summers programming the Athens International Film Festival – Opening Nights. She never stopped freelancing (BHMagazino, Pop & Rock, Rolling Stone), and since 2004 she has been bringing the big screen to the small one (ANT1, ERT, Nova). In 2011, together with three wonderful friends, she gave birth to her first child: Flix.gr. Looking back, she may never have saved the world, but the world of cinema certainly saved her.