We are delighted to announce our 2026 Film Programme Team as well as our team of Programme Consultants and Advisers, who will be selecting films for our 33rd edition, taking place 10-15 June.
Our Creative Director Raul Niño Zambrano leads our programming team and is supported by Film Programme Manager, Mita Suri, who has been with the festival since 2019. We also welcome a team of 4 Programme Consultants and 21 Programme Advisers, whose expertise and perspective spans the full spectrum of the documentary industry.
Meet our Film Programme Team
Raul Niño Zambrano - (he/him)
Creative Director
Raul Niño Zambrano joined Sheffield DocFest in 2021 and was confirmed as Creative Director in 2023 ahead of the 30th edition of the festival. Prior to this, he was previously Senior Programmer at IDFA (International Documentary Festival Amsterdam) from 2008-2021. During his tenure at IDFA, Raul conducted a ground-breaking study on the position of women within the documentary world The Female Gaze (2014) and initiated the IDFA Queer Day (2013, ongoing). In addition to being a lead programmer on the overall selection, he curated such programmes as Emerging Voices from Southeast Asia, and Cinema do Brasil. He has participated in many international festivals as a juror (Hot Docs, DocPoint, Morelia Film Festival) and as an expert/tutor (DocMontevideo, FESPACO, Brasil CineMundi, If/Then Shorts Global Pitch, DMZ Docs). Raul followed his true passion for documentary film, studying Media and Culture at the University of Amsterdam, after working in the Netherlands as an engineer specialising in wind energy. Raul introduced the Podcast Pitch and the First Impressions strand to Sheffield DocFest, showing his commitment to present all the spectrum of the documentary form.
Mita Suri - (she/her)
Film Programme Manager
With a background in community cinema exhibition, Mita Suri started working at Sheffield DocFest as a volunteer, then supported the DocCircuit tour as a Distribution Trainee. In her current role as Film Programme Manager, she supervises the delivery of the Film Programme for the festival. She is primarily responsible for DocFest’s many external relationships including filmmakers, national film institutes and distributors; she also manages the submissions process, runs the Youth Jury Programme and leads on DocFest's year-round screenings programme across the UK.
Meet our Programme Consultants
Chloé Trayner (she/her)
Chloé Trayner is a film and events programmer with a specialism in non-fiction cinema and talent development. She is the Founder of Assembly Documentary Development Lab and works as a story consultant on feature documentaries. She was recently the Artistic Director of True/False Film Fest between 2021-2025 and has worked with organisations such as Bertha DocHouse, BFI Future Film Festival, The Guardian, Wellcome Trust and UnderWire Festival. She was the Festival Director of Open City Documentary Festival from 2018 - 2020 and the co-director of Overnight Film Festival.
Heather Haynes (she/her)
Heather Haynes is a cultural leader, curator, and producer who has worked in documentary cinema for over two decades. Her work centers on championing bold, socially engaged storytelling and supporting filmmakers navigating complex cultural, political, and artistic contexts.
Heather has produced three award-winning documentaries and has worked extensively across international labs, markets, and development platforms, while serving on juries globally. Her practice reflects a deep engagement with global documentary ecosystems and a sustained commitment to elevating diverse voices and perspectives within nonfiction cinema.
Over nearly two decades at Hot Docs, she held key programming and leadership roles, most recently serving as Director of Programming, where she helped shape one of the world’s leading documentary festivals. She has also programmed for imagineNATIVE, Human Rights Watch Film Festival–Toronto, and AluCine.
Her career is grounded in the conviction that documentary is not only an art form but a public good—one that challenges dominant narratives, fosters dialogue, and deepens our understanding of the world.
Kim Young-woo (he/him)
Kim Young-woo studied visual arts & TV at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, US. He worked for the selection committee of Busan International Film Festival as a programmer in charge of Asian cinema until 2019, and worked for DMZ DOCS Korea as a programmer until 2021. Kim is a board member of the Seoul Independent Film Festival and currently works as a programmer. Kim is also working for Red Sea International Film Festival as a programmer in charge of Asian/Korean cinema and has been working as a program advisor to LOCARNO, IDFA, and other festivals in the EU.
Samuel Tebandeke (he/him)
Samuel Tebandeke is a screenwriter, producer, and director with a background in finance and accounting, focused on building sustainable creative ecosystems in Africa. He is the CEO and Co-Founder of Kiasi, a creator-first fintech platform that fuses equity crowdfunding with content distribution to transform cultural IP into an investable asset class.
With over a decade of experience across the film and creative industries, he has initiated and led capacity-building programmes in East Africa. He currently leads the Great Lakes Creative Producers Lab, an annual initiative equipping emerging producers to manage projects from development through distribution. In parallel, he runs Kiasi Productions, a full-service production company and equipment rental house producing content across genres and formats.
Meet our Programme Advisers
Alice Miller (she/her)
Alice Miller is a Leeds-based film programmer, curator and researcher with an interest in the histories and practices of alternative film exhibition. She has programmed for Leeds International Film Festival since 2018 and was a Programmer at Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival (2021–2025), alongside curatorial work for Widescreen Weekend at the National Science and Media Museum. Her programming spans contemporary documentary and fiction, artists’ moving image and archival cinema, with a particular focus on queer rebellions, radical non-fiction, and socially engaged films. She is also actively involved in community-led and DIY film exhibition, organising pop-up screenings across Leeds and working as a local organiser for Scalarama.
Alok Adhikari (he/him)
Alok Adhikari is a film programmer and editor based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He currently serves as the Director of the Kathmandu Doc Lab, established to nurture South Asian non-fiction talent. Previously, Alok spent five years as the Assistant Festival Director for Film Southasia, overseeing operations for the premier documentary festival in the region.
With a foundation in post-production established at VICE Media in New York, Alok brings a sharp editorial eye to his programming practice. He continues to edit documentary shorts while contributing to narrative cinema in various post-production roles. Alok is dedicated to fostering long-term creative partnerships and exploring complex narratives within the global documentary community. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and the History of Mathematics and Science from St. John’s College, New Mexico.
Anna Petrus (she/her)
Anna Petrus is a filmmaker, film programmer, professor, and film researcher based in Barcelona, Spain. She served as Artistic Director of DocsBarcelona Film Festival (2023–2024) and of Memorimage Film Festival, an event devoted to archival cinema held in southern Catalonia (2020–2024).
She is a co-founder of Dones Visuals, the association of women filmmakers in Catalonia, and served as a board member for seven years (2017–2024). She has recently contributed to Diari Ara, where she wrote about cinema, documentary, visual culture, and feminism. Her interest in gender and diversity issues led her to complete a PhD in Feminist Film Studies at UIC (International University of Catalonia), which she defended in November 2025.
She currently teaches film and documentary at Pompeu Fabra University and ESCAC, Catalonia’s leading film school; and is preparing her feature film, titled My Cat Eyes.
Camila Arriaga Torres (she/her)
Camila is a Colombian film programmer and cultural producer with a background in filmmaking based in the UK. Currently, she serves as a Programme Adviser for Sheffield DocFest and as a Preselector for The Whickers Film & TV Fund. As Associate Curator for Aya Films, she curated the programme ‘Inglorious Bodies’ for the Edinburgh Film Festival in 2022, showcasing female directors whose work challenges conventional representations of the female body. She has also previewed films for the Norwich Film Festival and Women X. She has extensive experience as a cultural producer with organisations like the British Film Institute (BFI), the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), and Doc Society.
Camila holds a master’s degree in Film Direction from the Erasmus Mundus Kino Eyes Programme. Her films have been screened at festivals worldwide, including the Sundance Film Festival, Guadalajara Film Festival, Clermont-Ferrand, and FICCI. Her writing has been published by Revista Arcadia and La Bitágora.
Clodagh Chapman (she/her)
Clodagh Chapman is a writer, director and film programmer. She has previously been part of the programming teams for Sheffield DocFest and BFI Future Film Festival, run sold-out events for BFI London Film Festival, BFI Flare and HOME Manchester, and had new film writing commissioned by Open City DocFest. Most recently, she was part of the Another Gaze x Open City DocFest Critics Workshop. As a writer and director, Clodagh's work has played in competition at BAFTA-qualifying festivals worldwide, and toured to venues across the UK. She is currently in post-production on her next short for BFI NETWORK, and has previously been selected for talent development schemes with BFI NETWORK, Young Vic, Box of Tricks and Rope Ladder Fiction.
Damilola Lemomu (she/her)
Damilola is a filmmaker, archivist, and film curator, with particular interests in Pan-African film culture and the activation of archival materials to engage and benefit communities today. She is Project Curator and Archivist at the June Givanni PanAfrican Cinema Archive (JGPACA) and co-organiser and programmer at Otherfield, a creative non-fiction film festival in East Sussex. She has curated talks, screenings, and exhibitions for organisations including South London Gallery, Tate, Garden Cinema, MayDay Rooms, and Glasgow Women’s Library. Her film work has recently focused on social housing in the UK and has screened at Flatpack Film Festival, Gibberd Gallery, Kupfer, HOME Manchester, Aesthetica Short Film Festival, and The Guardian. She also occasionally teaches documentary filmmaking outside of mainstream educational settings and serves on the Advisory Board of the Rio Cinema Archive Working Group, supporting efforts to preserve and activate one of London’s key community cinema archives.
Edie Barnabas (she/her)
Edie Barnabas is a filmmaker and programmer from the North of England with an interest in experimental approaches to cinema. She began her programming career running her DIY film night Slime Presents, which was awarded funding by the BFI.
She has contributed to programmes at festivals including Bolton International Film Festival and Sheffield DocFest. Most recently, for GoShorts in 2026, Edie has programmed Queering Time, a collection of shorts that explores queer history through a speculative lens, helping audiences connect with trans histories that have been erased from the record.
Edie’s commitment to history and queer narratives also extends into her filmmaking. She has worked with heritage venues in collaboration with Arts Council England, as well as northern institutions such as the National Science and Media Museum. She is passionate about film culture, collective storytelling and reimagining how we show these on screen.
Fahd Ahmed (he/him)
Fahd Ahmed is an award-winning British-Pakistani editor and producer based in London. His work has been featured by the BBC, BFI, and Hot Docs, and he served as a story editor on the PBS-funded three-part docuseries A Town Called Victoria. Fahd has been an editing fellow at the Gotham Edit Lab, Close-Up Initiative Edit Lab, and the Sundance Story and Edit Lab. He co-produced and edited the feature documentary Q, which premiered at the Tribeca Festival, won the Albert Maysles Award, and was named one of the best documentaries of 2023 by Vogue. Fahd won Best Editor at the Amman International Film Festival and was nominated for both an IDA Award and the Arab Critics Award for Best Editing. He has just finished post on Khaula Malik's 'The Nobles' and is finishing another feature.
Franklin Ugobude (he/him)
Franklin Ugobude is a London-based marketing professional and film critic whose work is shaped by early encounters with television, music, and cinema while growing up in Lagos. He approaches film as both an artistic medium and a tool for the documentation and preservation of cultural memory. Franklin has written on film and popular culture for publications including The Guardian Nigeria, BellaNaija, OkayAfrica, and Awotele, and has participated in international film criticism and journalism programmes with the British Council, Goethe-Institut Nigeria, the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC), and FESPACO.
In 2021, he served on the FACC parallel jury at the Carthage Film Festival and, until recently, hosted filmmaker conversations for Screen Out Loud, a Lagos-based independent cinema initiative. His experience spans criticism, curation, and film marketing, giving him a holistic perspective on film from creation to exhibition. He is particularly passionate about documentaries that centre underrepresented voices and spark meaningful cultural dialogue.
Imane Lamime (she/her)
Imane is a French-Moroccan film programmer and producer based between London and Paris, with a background in distribution. Her interests centre around storytelling from the Arab world, films and talents showcasing the diversity of the Maghrebi culture and diaspora experience. She is the founder of Fhamtini, a film festival celebrating North African cinema.
She worked for many international festivals, including LFF, Marrakech International Film Festival, SXSW London and Palm Springs ShortFest. Imane is also a BAFTA member since 2022 and currently works as Programme Manager for the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Lucy Brown (she/her)
Lucy Brown is a curator and communicator driven by a belief in storytelling as a tool for social and environmental justice. Grounded in Social Anthropology, she is committed to intimate human narratives and reflexive documentary practices, attentive to the ethics of representation. She is particularly drawn to observational stories of resilience, interconnection, and everyday lived experience.
Since serving on the Youth Jury for Sheffield DocFest in 2025, Lucy has contributed to screening teams for Kendal Mountain Festival and Cornwall Film Festival, with a focus on environmental and climate justice stories. Alongside her role as a Programme Adviser for Sheffield DocFest, she is working with Open City Documentary Festival and collaborating on grassroots projects with London-based climate organisations.
Mariana Hristova (she/her)
Mariana Hristova a Bulgarian film critic, cultural journalist and programmer, with a special interest in the cinema of the Balkan countries and Eastern Europe as well as avant-garde, amateur and underrepresented cinema. She is a regular contributor to Cineuropa, Klassiki Journal, Kino Magazine and Filmsociety.bg, holder of the Balkan film website Altcine.com's film critic award, and member of FIPRESCI. She currently lives in Barcelona, Spain where she programs for various festivals and institutions. She also works as an indexer at FIAF - the International Federation of Film Archives.
Mathy Selvakumaran (she/her)
Mathy is an independent producer, writer and activist. Working in the intersection of the arts and disability activism, her greatest passion lies in amplifying character-driven narratives of disability and illness, particularly stories told from within the community and from the lens of lived experience. With extensive experience in the film industry and arts sector, she has worked with and consulted for organisations such as The Writers Lab, Independent Cinema Office, Film Hub North, WomenX, Unlimited, the National Paralympic Heritage Trust and more. As a disability activist and advocate, she has been featured on nationally broadcast television and radio, in newspapers and on online platforms such as HuffPost, and has been invited to speak in Parliament with Muscular Dystrophy UK. Having worked at DocFest in various roles in the Industry and Programming teams since 2017, she is excited to return to the festival for another year as a Programme Adviser.
Rachel Pronger (she/her)
Rachel Pronger is a writer, curator and editorial consultant. She has served as a programme advisor for Sheffield DocFest, BFI London Film Festival, Alchemy Film & Arts and Aesthetica Short Film Festival. As a script editor, she works directly with filmmakers, as well as offering editorial consultancy and assessment for funders and production companies such as BBC Film, Doc Society and the BFI Film Fund. Her writing has been published by outlets including Sight and Sound, Documentary Magazine, Spike, The Guardian, Art Review, Frieze, Art Monthly and BBC Culture, and she is the co-editor of online journal Cinema of Commoning. Rachel is also co-founder of archive activist feminist collective Invisible Women.
Ryan Finnigan (he/him)
Ryan Finnigan is a film programmer, writer, and academic. From 2023 to 2025, he served as Head of Cinema and Programming at the Showroom Cinema in Sheffield, having previously programmed for The Five and Dime Picture Show and Rare Giants. He has worked as a film viewer and juror for festivals including Glasgow Film Festival, Leeds International Film Festival, Celluloid Screams, and Spirit of Independence. A lecturer in film history, programming, journalism, and documentary, he was editor of The Room: The Definitive Guide (2014) and has written on cinema for publications including Little White Lies and the Eureka! Masters of Cinema series.
Richard Bolisay (he/him)
Richard Bolisay is a film critic and programmer from the Philippines. He is the author of Break It to Me Gently: Essays on Filipino Film (2019) and Nothing Deep (2022) and editor of the anthology, Daang Dokyu: A Festival of Philippine Documentaries (2020). He had served in festival juries in Hong Kong, Jeonju, and Metro Manila, and helped curate programmes for the Singapore International Film Festival and Semaine de la critique de Montréal. An alumnus of the Berlinale Talent Press and Locarno Critics Academy, he is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Film Studies at the University of St Andrews. His research interests include gender and sexuality studies, film theory and criticism, and independent cinema and screen cultures, particularly in Southeast Asia and the Philippines.
Sarah Dawson (she/her)
Sarah Dawson is a freelance programmer. Her previous roles have included Programmer at IDFA Associate Programmer at Sheffield Doc/Fest and Festival Manager at the Durban IFF in her home country of South Africa. She was based for several years at the Centre for Creative Arts, producing festivals such as Poetry Africa and Time of the Writer, while also teaching and writing on cinema. She has participated in and moderated many panels at major festivals, such as Cannes and Berlinale, and served on committees for major funds such as BFI Doc Society, IDFA Bertha and Docs by the Sea. She has an MA in Film Studies from UKZN.
Sarah Masiyiwa (she/her)
After graduating from NYU with a degree in Journalism and Economics, Sarah Masiyiwa
began her career in CNN International’s factual unit. She has since worked across premium documentaries for Netflix, Peacock, Sky and PBS, including Heart of Invictus, following the recovery of injured veterans through sport, and We Dare to Dream, which tracks the Refugee Team at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Sarah now specialises in development, pitching and shaping unscripted projects for global audiences. In 2023, she was recognised by Broadcast Magazine as a rising star of the UK film and television industry.
Deeply committed to the documentary form, Sarah spent four years on the DOC NYC selection committee. She also explores her passion for African history as producer and co-host of the Bar Afrique podcast, which tells stories from the continent’s decolonisation.
She is a graduate of the New York Film Academy’s postgraduate programme in documentary filmmaking.
Tara Brown (they/them)
Tara Brown (they/them) is a Film Curator and Creative Evaluation Consultant. They describe themselves as a Black fat queer non-binary trans disabled femme. Inspired by the principles of Disability Justice their primary goal is to ensure that cinema is as accessible, diverse and brilliant as possible! Currently they are an Assistant Programme Advisor for London Film Festival, Short Film Advisor for Sheffield DocFest and Programmer for Fringe! Queer Film + Arts Fest. Most recently Tara and Charlie Little programmed We Crip Film, the BFI's disability film festival
Theo Panagopoulos (he/him)
Theo Panagopoulos is a Greek-Lebanese-Palestinian filmmaker, film programmer, educator and doctoral researcher based in Scotland. His creative work explores themes of collective memory, displacement, fragmented identities and resistance often through anti-colonial, participatory and archival methodologies.
His most recent film is a documentary essay called “The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing”, which has been screened in more than 150 festivals worldwide. It won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2025, the Best Short Film at IDFA in 2024 and was nominated for a best short film award at 2025 BAFTAs and 2026 European Film Awards.
He also works as a film curator, having programmed for Filmhouse Edinburgh, London Short Film Festival, Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival and SAFAR Film Festival and as pre-selector for Encounters (2023), Slamdance (2025) and now Sheffield DocFest (2026).
He is currently developing his first feature documentary "Before Our Diaspora", supported by BFI Doc Society and AFAC.
Zeynep Kaserci (she/her)
Zeynep is a London-based film programmer and researcher with a background in anthropology and documentary film. Her work spans film curation, distribution, and public programmes across institutional and independent contexts.
She currently collaborates with the Royal Anthropological Institute’s Film Office, contributing to their programming and distribution initiatives. Her practice sits at the intersection of moving-image culture, ethnographic research, and public engagement. Previously, she worked with a non-profit organisation supporting emerging documentary filmmakers from Southwest Asia and North Africa, collaborating on projects that premiered at major international festivals such as Sundance, Berlinale, and Venice.
Alongside her programming work, she contributes to international research and exhibition initiatives.
As an artist-in-residence on the EU-funded Alexandria: (Re)activating Common Urban Imaginaries, she researched urban and social dynamics, resulting in a publication and a touring exhibition presented at institutions including MUCEM, Bozar, and Cittadellarte. Her research on embodied labour and gender relations in northeastern Turkey led to the short documentary Ocak, which screened internationally at film festivals and gallery venues.
