Michael Obert
Michael Obert is an award-winning German book author and journalist who has been compared with the likes of Bruce Chatwin, Jon Krakauer and Ryszard Kapuscinski.
He reports mainly from Africa and the Middle East and writes for National Geographic, GEO, Sueddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, DIE ZEIT and ZEIT Magazin, and many other prestigious periodicals in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, as well for Sunday Times Magazine, GQ France, The Journal (New York), Dagens Næringsliv (Oslo) and Himal Southasian (Katmandu).
Song from the Forest, Obert’s movie debut as a director, had its world premiere at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2013 where it won the IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary. The movie was considered for the Oscars 2016.
As an Africa expert, intercultural trainer and coach, Michael Obert advises politicians, professionals and organizations and gives the African continent a voice in the Western media. In 2017 he founded the Reporter Akademie Berlin.
Michael Obert was selected for the 2013 European Press Prize shortlist with ‘War Report from Somalia’ and for the 2015 European Press Prize shortlist with ‘Boko Haram’.
He won the 2018 Distinguished Reporting Award with ‘The human catcher‘.
Ximena Villagrán
Ximena Villagrán is a Guatemalan journalist specialised in Journalism in Investigation, Data and Visualization at the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid. She has collaborated with various media such as Plaza Pública, Soy502, El Confidencial and eldiario.es. She was a fellow from School of Data and is currently co-director of the El Intercambio, a data driven journalism producer, and a consultant in Access to Information and Data Journalism for several organisations such as Internews and Thomson Foundation.
Ximena Villagrán was selected for the 2018 European Press Prize shortlist with ‘Enslaved Land‘