Michel Fuzellier
IQBAL: CHILDREN WITHOUT FEAR is the directorial debut of Michel Fuzellier. He has decades of experience as an illustrator, director of animated commercials and artistic director of the internationally acclaimed animated feature films. As a production designersupervisor and art director, he has worked on famous animated films such as MOMO, OPOPOMOZ and LUCKY AND ZORBA, winner of the Special Silver Ribbon in 1999 and the Audience Award at the Montreal International Children's Film Festival in 2000. He has also directed a special sequence of PINOCCHIO, winner of the 2012 Silver Ribbons, in competition at the International Film Festival of Annecy and at the European Film Academy awards 2013. Fuzellier has directed, for Gertie production, several short films including WHAT KIND OF ANIMAL ARE YOU ? - based on the best selling novel by Paola Mastrocola- and he is working on a television series entitled SBRAIN!, developed in co-production with RAI Fiction.

Babak Payami
Iranian by birth and Canadian by adoption, in 1998 he founded the Payam Films Institute with which he produced several successful movies. His directorial debut was ONE MORE DAY presented in the Panorama section at the Berlinale 2000. The following year he won the Leone d'Argento for best director, the UNICEF Prize and the Pasinetti Cup for best film with the feature SECRET BALLOT, selected at the Venice film Festival. In 2003 he managed, despite the confiscation of government authorities, to re-edit and promote in Venice the film SILENCE BETWEEN TWO THOUGHTS, shot in eastern Iran, on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Between 2007 and 2010 Payami was head of the Media Studio department at Fabrica, the communication research center of The United Colors of Benetton. In May 2014 Payami established, in the heart of Toronto, the Imagist Creative Studio, dedicated to training, photography and film production.