Berta Prieto (born in Barcelona in 1998) is an actress, playwright, and director. She trained in acting and Humanities. She is the co-creator and lead actress of the series Autodefensa (Boogaloo Films and FILMIN). In theater, she has created and directed several works, including El Chinabum, FUCK YOU MODERN FAMILY, Derecho a Pataleta, and her latest solo show, Del Fandom al troleig: a satire of the blah blah blah, at the Sala Beckett in Barcelona. She is a columnist for El País, currently working on an opera project for the Liceu, and preparing her next audiovisual project.

Sarah Claire Wray is a Black writer and director. After working as an assistant at theaters for three  years, including Schauspiel Frankfurt and Thalia Theater Hamburg, they studied directing at  the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin and graduated in 2022. During their  studies, Sarah directed at Volksbühne Berlin and Nationaltheater Mannheim. Sarah also wrote,  produced and directed the short film HDGDL, which was shown at the IFFF Cologne &  Dortmund in 2025. Sarah was part of the Writers Room of Lamin Leroy Gibba's series Black  Fruit. Writers Rooms with Studio Zentral, UFA, Netflix, Rat Pack and Wiedemann & Berg followed.  Sarah wrote scripts for the series WIR (ZDF), Schwarze Früchte (ARD) and Stationär (ARD). In  2024, Schwarze Früchte premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. In 2025, the series  is nominated for the Grimme Award. Sarah’s first feature Blaues Haus, a psychological thriller,  got funding from the MOIN film development fund in 2025.

Bilal Bahadır is a director, screenwriter, and creator. He was born in Stadthagen and grew up in Ankara, Turkey, before returning to Germany. After completing his Abitur at the Cologne Evening Grammar School, he studied feature film directing and screenwriting at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, where he earned his diploma. His short film My Friend, the German (2016) received multiple awards and premiered at the 50th International Hof Film Festival. In 2024, his first series Uncivilized was released, for which he served as creator, director, and screenwriter. The production was awarded the Grimme Prize in the Fiction category in 2025 and was nominated for the CIVIS Media Prize.

Lisa van Brakel (born in 1988) is an award-winning screenwriter who primarily works as a head writer and creator of high-end series, both nationally and internationally, for streaming platforms as well as public broadcasters. Her focus lies in conventions-and rules-pushing stories, characters, and narrative styles. For her work on the SKY mystery drama series (created/head written by Alex Eslam), she and her colleagues were awarded Best Screenplay at the Cannes International Festival (CanneSeries). One of her most recent works as a writer is the critically acclaimed, gritty and radical medical drama series BERLIN ER (AppleTV+/ZDFneo), which she worked on in a bilingual collaboration with the series’ British co-creator and head writer Samuel Jefferson. Since 2024, Lisa van Brakel has been hosting and producing the film and series analysis podcast “Schon Gesehen?” together with her colleague – screenwriter, novelist, and audio drama author – Anne-M. Keßel.

Melina Natale, born in 1990 in Munich, earned her B.A. in Rhetoric and Media Science at the University of Tübingen. In 2016 she attended the USC School of Cinematic Arts Summer Program in Los Angeles. For over six years Melina worked for broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 before becoming a freelance screenwriter in 2017, contributing to shows for RTL, Joyn, Paramount+, Amazon Prime, and Disney Plus. In early 2025 she was elected to the board of the German Screenwriters’ Guild. Along with her passion for horizontal TV-Drama, she specializes in writing for comedies and sitcoms. Melina’s workplace comedy ‘Nighties,’ which she created and for which she serves as head writer, is set to premiere on ZDFneo in summer 2025.

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