Roya Film House in Exile

is a film scholar and cultural historian with a doctorate in the field. Since 2022, she has been head of the film archive at the Deutsche Kinemathek, including overseeing the archive’s distribution and programming work. As the lead curator of the “Film Restored” festival, she is responsible for the strategic and thematic direction of the event as well as its program. Since 2025, she has served on the executive committee of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF). She holds seminars on audiovisual history and archiving at the Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg for the next generation of filmmakers. Jochum has previously undertaken work and research at institutions including the Goethe-Institut, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, University College London and Yale University.

is an award-winning Afghan documentary filmmaker. She grew up under Taliban rule and was secretly educated at home by her mother. Her sister Roya Sadar, a trailblazer in Afghan cinema, inspired Alka to turn filmmaking into an act of resistance. In 2003, the Sadat sisters founded Roya Film House, Afghanistan’s first female-led production company. Alka Sadat’s breakthrough film, ‘Half Value Life’ (2008), documented the dangers facing female activists in Afghanistan and won international awards. She has also collaborated with the United Nations to bring global attention to human rights violations. In 2023, she worked as a script supervisor and producer on Sima’s Song’, directed by Roya Sadat. In every project, Alka Sadat continues to break silence, challenge oppression and dares the world to witness the truth.

is an internationally acclaimed Afghan filmmaker. She educated herself underground, writing her first screenplay and studying filmmaking from books smuggled into the country. In 2003, she and her sister Alka Sadat co-founded Roya Film House, Afghanistan’s first female-led production company. In the same year, Roya Sadat released her debut feature film, ‘Three Dots’ which established her as Afghanistan’s first female filmmaker. In 2013, she co-founded the Herat International Women’s Film Festival. Her feature film ‘A Letter to the President’ was Afghanistan’s official submission to the 2018 Academy Awards. When the Taliban returned to power in 2021, Roya Sadat was forced into exile. Undeterred, she completed ‘Sima’s Song’ (2024) and ‘The Sharp Edge of Peace’ (2024), two of her most significant films. She has won over 50 international awards including the International Women of Courage Award in 2018 and the Kim Dae-Jung Nobel Peace Film Award in 2021. In 2017, ‘Foreign Policy’ magazine included her in their “Top 10 Global ReThinkers”, while the BBC named her as one of its 100 Inspiring and Influential Women of 2021.

earned a master’s degree in film studies in 1996. Since then, she has curated feminist programs and concepts for various international festivals and institutions, most notably the Internationales Frauen Film Fest Dortmund+Köln (IFFF). She has also been involved in the ’Afghanistan Unveiled’ project and spent time in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2004. She has written essays including for ‘Kabul/Teheran 1979ff. Filmlandschaften, Städte unter Stress und Migration’ (Kabul/Teheran 1979ff: Cinema Landscapes, Cities under Pressure and Migration, 2006) and is co-editor of ‘Was wir filmten – Filme von ostdeutschen Regisseurinnen nach 1990’ (‘What We Filmed – Films by East German Female Directors Since 1990’, 2021). Schiel creates collaborative film projects and is a member of the Transnational Ensemble Labsa (winners of the LWL Crossover Prize in 2026), as well as a co-founder of the Future Now Festival in Wuppertal and the Ost-West-AG NGO.