Author of The Reality of Film: Theories of Filmic Reality (2011), Cinema After Deleuze (2012), The Politics of Hollywood Cinema (2013), Deleuze and Lola Montès (2020), and Modern European Cinema and Love (2023). Professor Rushton is also co-editor (with Andrew Quick) of Theatricality and the Arts: Film, Theatre, Art (2024).

Robert Sinnerbrink is Professor of Philosophy at Macquarie University, Sydney. He is the author of New Philosophies of Film (Second Edition): An Introduction to Cinema as a Way of Thinking (Bloomsbury, 2022), Terrence Malick: Filmmaker and Philosopher (Bloomsbury, 2019), Cinematic Ethics: Exploring Ethical Experience through Film (Routledge, 2016), and New Philosophies of Film: Thinking Images (Continuum/Bloomsbury, 2011). He is also the editor of Emotion, Ethics, and Cinematic Experience: New Phenomenological and Cognitivist Perspectives (Berghahn, 2021) and a co-editor (with Lucy Bolton and David Martin-Jones) of Contemporary Screen Ethics: Absences, Identities, Belonging, Looking Anew (Edinburgh UP, 2023). He is also a member of the editorial boards of the journals Film-Philosophy, Film and Philosophy, and Projections: The Journal of Movies and Mind.

Anna Stavrakopoulou studied philology at the University of Crete and theatre at Université Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle (DEA, Institut d’Etudes Théâtrales) and at Harvard University (PhD, 1994). She taught at New York University, at the University of Bosporus in Istanbul (where she initiated courses on ancient and modern Greek, with the support of the Onassis Foundation) and at Harvard University (1996-1999). She served as Deputy Executive Director of the Onassis Foundation (USA) (1999-2001) and taught as a visiting professor at Yale and the University of Crete (2001-2002). She has been teaching history and theory of theatre at the Drama Department (AUTH) since 2003. Furthermore, she is a founding member and part of the faculty team of Harvard Summer Program in Greece (which has been in operation from 2002 to the present) and has served as Associate Director of the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies-Greece (2010-2018). She has received grants from the Greek State Scholarships Foundation, Ilex Foundation and Bogliasco Foundation. She has served as the Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors at the National Theatre of Northern Greece (2011-2013). Recently, she served as Program Director of Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.

Dr. Tarja Laine is Assistant Professor in Film Studies, University of Amsterdam, and Adjunct Professor in Film Studies, University of Turku (Finland). She is the author of Reframing Trauma in Contemporary Fiction Film (2023), Emotional Ethics of The Hunger Games (2021), Bodies in Pain: Emotion and the Cinema of Darren Aronofsky (2015), Feeling Cinema: Emotional Dynamics in Film Studies (2011) and Shame and Desire: Emotion, Intersubjectivity, Cinema (2007). Her research interests include cinematic emotions, film aesthetics and film-phenomenology.

Nuket Elpeze Ergec (PhD), a professor in the field of Communication Studies, works in the Department of Radio, Television and Cinema at the Faculty of Communication at Cukurova University (ÇÜ). Her main area of ​​interest is the discourse in the content of mass media and the power, violence and power relations created by the discourse. Othering, feminist thought and the states of being of the female subject in society and media content are the areas she problematizes at the core of her work. She began her academic journey as a Research Assistant at the Faculty of Communication at Selcuk University in 1993 and continued her studies by taking various academic and administrative positions at Anadolu and Gaziantep Universities. She completed her doctoral study titled "Viewer's Skeptical Tendency and Persuasion Knowledge Towards Television Advertisements: Interpretation of Persuasion Knowledge" in Anadolu University, Social Sciences Institute, Department of Communication Arts in 2003. She gave lectures and seminars in her field as a visiting professor at Cag-Turkey University and Södertörn University in Sweden, presented papers and took part as a panelist in numerous national and international congresses and symposiums. She was and continues to be a jury member in various national and international competitions and referee for scientific articles and projects.



She served as Çukurova University Rectorate Communication Advisor, Dean of the Faculty of Communication, and worked in Rectorate commissions such as ÇEGEK and Addiction. She served as department head, vice dean, and commission member at Çukurova University Faculty of Communication. She founded the ÇU Faculty of Communication, Radio-Television and Cinema Department in 2012 and continued her duty as the founding department head until 2018, and as the Dean of the ÇU Faculty of Communication, which she assumed in August 2019, until December 2022. She has been a member of the ÇU Faculty of Communication Board of Directors since 2010, has a natural membership in the Faculty Board of the ÇU Faculty of Communication, and continues to serve as the Radio and Television Department.



Her special interests include communication techniques, political communication, cinema, and women's studies, and she still conducts scientific research and studies in the field of mass communication and new communication technologies. Prof Ergec has books with scientific content titled "Discourse approaches and media texts: Media and Discourse", "Doubt on Television Advertisements", "Violence against Women and Media". She continues her studies, which focus on the discourses created by the media, in the Feminist Studio Workshop she established in the Faculty studio building. She conducts focus group studies on various topics, produces YouTube content, and continues oral history and "Feminist Collaborations Development" projects.



Prof. Ergec is currently continuing her workshops at the Feminist Studio. She has 25 articles published in national and international refereed journals, 3 national book studies, 6 book chapters, 35 national/international notifications, and 13 projects.    

Tal S. Shamir (Ph.D.) has directed, produced, written, and edited dozens of short films that have been presented at a wide range of film festivals, galleries, and museums; he has won many awards, including a Gold Medal in the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences' 2011 Student Oscars, for his film The Vermeers.

As part of his MA in film studies, Tal also co-created and co-produced the RUFF CUTS and FINE CUTS film showcases, which allowed film students to share, discuss, and improve their films. This platform has become the central ongoing film screening event of the School of Media Studies at The New School.

Tal holds a Ph.D. in philosophy, film, and media from the European Graduate School (Summa Cum Laude). His Cinematic Philosophy book (based on his dissertation), was published as a monograph by Palgrave Macmillan/Springer. Cinematic Philosophy has become one of the most notable books on film and philosophy.

Parallel to his work and studies in film, Tal was a team leader for 10.5 years in the JDC, the largest American Jewish humanitarian aid organization.

Tal wrote four feature-length screenplays: XPOSURE (2015), DEUS X MACHINA (2017), CONTROL (2019), Subliminal (2021); as well as two TV Series pilots/bibles titled THE EYE (2018) and SWIM LION (2020).

Tal teaches film and media at The New School University in NYC and serves as the head faculty producer for the RUFF CUTS and FINE CUTS film festival shows at The New School.

Tal recently completed the first season of a short-form documentary series titled “The Visual Revolution.” The series investigates our dramatic and under-the-radar transformation from a written-based culture to a visual-based culture through a unique visual style.

Tal is currently in pre-production of a documentary series based on his book Cinematic Philosophy.