Programme board
Jaka Primorac,
President of the Programme Board of the conference, works as a Scientific Advisor at the Department for Culture and Communication, Institute for Development and International Relations (IRMO), Zagreb, Croatia. She holds a PhD (2010) in Sociology from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia. Her research interests intersect the fields of sociology of culture, sociology of media and communications and sociology of work. Primorac collaborated on a number of research projects in Croatia and abroad; recently she was the project coordinator of Erasmus+ Jean Monnet project ‘European Union Policies and the Platformisation of Cultural and Audio-visual Sectors – platEU‘ (2020-2022), while currently she participates in Horizon Europe project CresCine. From 2016-2018 she was member of Artistic Council of the Croatian Audiovisual Centre. More information is available here.
Manuel José Damásio,
coordinator of CresCine project, holds a PhD in Media Studies (Universidade Nova de Lisboa) and did his aggregation also in communication at Minho University. He is an Associate Professor and the Head of the Film and Media Arts Department at Lusófona University, in Lisbon, Portugal. He holds vast experience in consulting and production concerning several areas of the field of audiovisual and multimedia production. He is the chair of GEECT – the European association of film and media schools and a member of the board of CILECT Executive Committee (International association of film and media schools). He is the coordinator of FILMEU – The European University of Film and Media Arts. He is the author of five books and several papers and chapters in international peer-reviewed publications. More information available here
Lenuta Giukin,
specialising in interdisciplinary film studies, Dr Giukin, is a French generalist in the Modern Languages and Literatures at SUNY Oswego. Her research focuses on marginal groups, minorities, issues of identity, politics of gender, and various aspects of East-European and Romanian cinemas. Her last essay, “Social Realism in Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation”, was published in January 2023. She has been working lately on a new study on Surrealism and one on people’s implication in totalitarian practices. More information is available here.
Ivana Kostovska
is a media economics researcher at SMIT-VUB. Her current research is focused on understanding the impact of the ongoing changes in the European film and TV industries driven by the rise of global streaming services and platforms. Her latest scholarly projects are centred on the funding of European fiction, which encompasses public support measures like investment obligations, national subsidies and production incentives. More information can be found here.
Jakob Isak Nielsen,
Associate Professor, Department of Media and Journalism Studies, Aarhus University. Co-editor of a book on American drama series, Fjernsyn for viderekomne (2011), and a follow-up book with a transnational focus on serial phenomena in the IDTV era, Streaming for viderekomne (2020). Relevant research projects: What Makes Danish TV Drama Series Travel? (Independent Research Fund Denmark, 2014-2018); CresCine – Increasing the International Competitiveness of the European Film Industry in Small European Markets (Horizon-RIA, 2023-2026). More information can be found here.
Boris Ružić
is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Cultural Studies, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Rijeka, Croatia. He currently teaches four courses engaged with film studies and visual culture. His interests lie at the intersection of politics of emancipation, (amateur) moving image, migrations, and digital technologies. Publishes scientific articles in books and journals. Co-authored a book regarding film and media analysis. Held jury duties for various film festivals. Programme selector for the History Film Festival in Croatia. Researcher on three international projects in the domains of humanities, film and visual culture, and memory studies. President of the governing board of Art-kino Rijeka, Croatia. More information is available here.
Aleksandra Uzelac
works as a Scientific Advisor at IRMO, Head of the Department for Culture and Communication, holding a PhD in Information Sciences. Dr Uzelac has 30 years of professional experience in the area of cultural research, dealing with cultural development and cultural policy issues in the European context, digital culture, European cultural cooperation and networks. An active member of various expert groups that focused their activities in the field of cultural policies or digital culture, bringing into the policy mainstream issues related to the new context digital culture has brought to the cultural policies and cultural sector. Dr Uzelac has provided her research expertise in the form of research studies and issue papers for the Council of Europe, the European Commission and European Parliament. More information is available here.