Joël Jent and Guido Villaclara

Photo: Sohvi Viik

Joël Jent was born in 1983 and grew up in Toggenburg. He studied political science, philosophy, film studies and social/economic history at the University of Zurich (Master of Arts, 2010). He then briefly worked as a journalist. Joël Jent has been producing, writing and making short, documentary and feature films since 2003. He produced the award-winning films ‘Baghdad in my Shadow’ and the 3D documentary ‘Iraqi Odyssey’, as well as the short films ‘Bon Voyage’ (winner of the Swiss Film Award) and ‘Facing Mecca’ (winner of the Student Academy Award 2017). He also wrote the screenplays for two episodes of the series ‘Maloney’ and co-wrote Ali Al-Fatlawi’s feature film ‘The Blind Ferryman’. Joël Jent is a member of the European and Swiss Film Academies and works as a freelance filmmaker and lecturer.

Photo: Melanie Würth

Guido Villaclara (Buenos Aires, 1982) is a director and cinematographer with a focus on diverse and political themes. He studied journalism, literature, and media studies. From 2015 to 2021, he worked for Swiss Television SRF and ARTE in Latin America. With his short film series Neutral, he was selected in 2016 for Berlinale Talents in Buenos Aires. In Argentina, he also wrote and directed the plays Un maestro es como un niño para un policía, Nula, and Pollo. Since 2021, he has been living in Basel and working as a cinematographer on documentary films such as Le Pouvoir and Diaspora Diaries. He is currently directing his first feature-length documentary, Salvo que sea tu padre (working title), which tells the story of Argentina’s socioeconomic debacle through the example of the destruction of his own family.