Moderators

Moderator Athula Disanayake
TV Producer & Director, has been working for the national television – Rupavahini.

Athula Disanayaka, TV Producer & Director, has been working for the national television – Rupavahini for more than 18 years. He is the first ever participant for INPUT international television conference representing the national television and Sri Lanka. Athula took part INPUT 2016 in Calgary, Canada & INPUT 2017 in Thessaloniki – Greece. Now he is the National coordinator of Sri Lanka for INPUT – international television conference.

Moderator Maren Niemeyer
Director of the Goethe-Institut Thailand

Born in Bremen, Germany, Maren Niemeyer studied journalism, German philology and film theory in Paris and Berlin. She has worked as a journalist, editor, documentary filmmaker and producer for national and international radio and TV channels, mainly for ARD, ZDF, DW-TV and the German-French cultural channel ARTE. In 2007, Maren produced the ARTE/ ARD Documentary-Series about the magic hippie trail to Kathmandu in the late sixties and in 2008 she produced a worldwide broadcasted series about the Myths of German Design for Deutsche Welle TV. From 2008 until 2009, Maren Niemeyer was a Commissioning Editor for the Documentary Film department of NDR / ARTE. From 2010 to 2016, she was Program-Coordinator for the Film-Department of the Goethe-Institut Headquarter in Munich. Since July 2016, Maren Niemeyer is the director of the Goethe-Institut Thailand.

Moderator Marc-Andrè Schmachtel
In charge for TV and radio cooperation/Coproduction at Goethe-Institut headquarters in Munich.

Born in Lübeck, schooled in Namibia, Marc-André Schmachtel studied francophone cultural studies, modern history and Latin American Studies in Saarbrücken and Québec (Canada) and did his master thesis on African cinema. Trips abroad brought him to Canada, Burkina Faso and Martinique. From 2006-2008 he was part of the organization of film festivals (Cinéfleuve, African Film Series Saarbrücken) and had a strong focus on film and media projects. Since 2008 he is working for Goethe-Institut. First in Cameroon (program and language department), and as from 2010 as head of Goethe-Institut Nigeria. He initiated several film cooperation projects (Mokolo film platform, Munich and Mini-EAVE Nigeria, short film workshops) and partnerships with AG Dok, the Dokfest. others. Since 2016 he is in charge for TV and radio cooperation/Coproduction at Goethe-Institut headquarters in Munich. He is member of the International Board of INPUT.

Moderator Eleftherios Fylaktos
Documentary Acquisitions and Programming - Commissioning Editor Greek Broadcasting Corporation - ERT, Greece.

Is a documentary filmmaker and visual anthropologist living in Athens, Greece. He has been working since 1997 as TV director for ERT, and currently as commissioning editor at the Greek Programme Department responsible for documentary acquisitions and programming. He is also a member of ERT’s International Co-Production Committee and the National Coordinator for INPUT in Greece. He teaches Ethnographic Filmmaking at the University of Münster in Germany.

Moderator Nowell Cuanang
Senior Program Manager News and Public Affairs Department GMA Network, Philippines.

Is a Filipino journalist who writes, directs and produces investigative and cultural documentaries for one of the biggest TV networks in the Philippines, GMA Network Inc. He is the only Filipino to win two George Foster Peabody Awards, one in 2009 for the documentary “Ambulansyang de Paa” (Ambulance on Foot) and another in 2012 for “Salat” (Bone Dry), as director and program manager respectively. He graduated Cum Laude from the University of the Philippines, Diliman with a degree in the Arts, Major in Broadcast Communication in 2003 and took International Studies as a scholar at Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo, Japan. At present, Nowell is taking his Masters Degree in Community Development at the University of the Philippines, Diliman.