Articles and Interviews
Sweeping Under the Rug
“Linoleum” is a film that succeeds in conveying in a heartfelt manner what goes on in the mind of a person who is slowly losing his sanity. The film leaves us wondering what really happens to all the things we have repressed throughout our lives.
When the future is not an option: On “U Are The Universe”
Jonathan Kopievker watched the film U Are the Universe, which uses motifs from genre cinema to ask existential questions about humanity, man, and the future.
Human, All Too Human
At the heart of speculative creativity and science fiction beats the unanswerable question “What is human?”, playing on the edge, examining the boundaries, exploring the frontiers. What is the demarcation line between man and machine, beast and monster; between natural and artificial, cultured and wild; between the living and the dead, the dead-yet-alive, the undead; what differentiates human from trans-, post- and superhuman, non-human, foreign, alien, demonic, and divine.
The Program
Festival Program - Galactic Panorama
Supernova
No Other Choice
Year: 2025
Director: Park Chan-wook
Dark DramaThriller
Supernova
Alpha
Year: 2025
Director: Julia Ducornau
CoVidMysteryScience FictionWTF
Supernova
U Are the Universe
Year: 2025
Director: Pavlo Ostrikov
Science FictionSpace
Galactic Panorama
Arco
Year: 2025
Director: Ugo BIENVENU
AnimationScience FictionSolarPunk
Supernova
The Virgin of the Quarry Lake
Year: 2025
Director: Laura Casabé
Coming of AgeHorrorThrillerWTF
SUPER
The Substance Uncut
Year: 2024
Director: Coralie Fargeat
Beauty Body HorrorHorrorScience FictionWTF
Mythology
The Handmaiden
Year: 2016
Director: Park CHAN-WOOK
Thriller
Galactic Panorama
Dalloway
Year: 2025
Director: Yann Gozlan
Dark DramaScience Fiction
Linoleum
Year: 2023
Director: Colin West
DramaScience Fiction
Festival Program - Local Orbit
Knockings
Year: 2025
Director: Ori Dishi
DramaHorrorThriller
Kasey Cartoon
Year: 2024
Director: Veronica Kedar
AnimationComedyWTF
No Witches in the Valley
Year: 2025
Director: Ayala Sharot
AnimationComing of AgeDrama
Window Watcher
Year: 2025
Director: Gil Shalev
HorrorWTF
The Things We do for Love and a Foreign Passport
Year: 2025
Director: Ayal Sgerski
ComedyDystopiaHorrorWTF
Sock Horror
Year: 2025
Director: Sun Ezer, Itay Gerson
AnimationComedyHorrorRevenge
Mirror Image
Year: 2024
Director: Naama Lahav
ComedyMysteryRevengeWTF
Chosen’t
Year: 2024
Director: Yotam Goren
AnimationComedyWTF
Simcha
Year: 2024
Director: Tomer Weinberg
ComedyComing of AgeMagical Creatures
International Jury
Isaac Ezban
Filmmaker
Mexico
His first film The Incident (2014) premiered at Cannes and 50 more festivals, gaining support from Del Toro. His second film The Similars (2015) won Best Latinamerican Film at Sitges, making him the first Mexican with two films in two straight years in Fantastic Fest and Sitges. He then got hired by BRON Studios to direct Parallel (2018), first English spoken film, broke box office records with Mal De Ojo (2022), his first full horror entry, and just premiered his new movie Párvulos (2024) at Fantasia, Fantastic Fest and Sitges.
Léonard Altmann
Festivals Manager - Charades
France
Graduated from Essec and ESCP, Leonard worked at Studiocanal Australia, Iconoclast in Los Angeles and Vendôme Films in Paris. He joined Charades as Festivals Manager in 2022.
Saul Judd
Curator / Programmer
Germany
Independent film and media/video-art programmer and curator & part of the programming team for the LICHTER Frankfurt International Film Festival, where he is head of the LICHTER Art Award and Programmer/Curator for the LICHTER International short film program.
Prof. Olga Gershenson
Utopia, film programmer
USA/Israel
Professor of Jewish Studies and Near Eastern Studies and Film Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Omer Harel
Director, Screenwriter and producer
Israel
A 33-year-old filmmaker from Tel Aviv and graduate of the Sam Spiegel Film & Television School. Writer and director of ReFeel, winner of the short film section at the 2021 Utopia Film Festival.
Hilla Vidor
Israel
Film actress, working in Israeli and international cinema, exploring complex female characters and questions of identity and transition.
Alexander Vinnitski
Partner / next2miles
USA/Israel
Film and tv producer with over 18 years of experience and a producing partner of the actress Anna Faris. He also teaches Independent Film Financing at UCLA.
Keren Omry
Researcher & Lecturer, University of Haifa
Israel
Science Fiction scholar in the English Department, University of Haifa.
Addie Reiss
C³PO / Digital Nation Entertainment
USA/Israel
From cinematographer to 4D capture expert, Addie Reiss builds the real-life 'holodeck'—creating star-studded holograms for Digital Nation Entertainment's studio in LA.
Special Guests and Participants
Pablo Utin
Programming Team, Utopia Festival
Film Scholar and critic, Author of 3 books on Israeli Cinema and has a passion for teleporting which he can't currently pursue for lack of proper technology.
Hadas Erel
Head of Social HRI research, milab, Reichman University
Israel
Dr. Hadas Erel, Head of the Human-Robot Interaction research in the media innovation lab at Reichman University.
Boaz Armoni
Film maker
Film maker, military horror “Freak Out” (2015), musical comedy “The Electrifiers” (2019)
Sarah Blau
Author
Israel
Israeli author and playwright, She won the Levi Eshkol's Prize for Hebrew Literature in 2015.
Yonatan Gotlib
Filmmaker, actor, founder of Limbo Cinema
Writer/director, social media influencer with over 20K followers, news anchor at Ynet, founder of Cinema Limbo, television actor.
Gali Golan
SF enthusiast and speaker
Israel
Amateur lecturer with academic pretensions on all things SF and Fantasy, for over 20 years.
Eitan Gafny
Film Director & Author
Israel
Film director who pioneered Hebrew Horror. He's also a published author and a nice person in general, with a terrible fear of cockroaches.
Eran Hadas
Poet, programmer and media artistRetry
Israel
Poet, programmer and media artist. Co-founder of the Digital Media track at Tel Aviv University and lecturer there, at the School of Visual Theatre Jerusalem, and in other frameworks.
Oded Wolkstein
Translator, Editor, Dr.
Israel
Translator, lecturer, editor, and here and there also a writer. I served as an editor at Keter Publishing, and currently I am also chief editor at the Institute for Translation.
The Festival Team