Film Olympiad Founder and Chairman
Ioannis Makro, Greece
Film Olympiad focuses in having a multinational and multiprofesional jury.
Currently our VIP Jury is consisted by 6 jurors from 5 different countries: Greece, USA, Romania, Ukraine, and Turkey. They are esteemed professionals in their fields of expertise as academics, actors, directors, filmmakers, journalists, photographers, producers, and writers.
Ioannis Makro is the founder of Film Olympiad. He has worked as a theatre director and as an actor in over 20 theatre productions in Greece.
Ioannis is an awarded filmmaker, writer and video producer with four short films and over 80 commercial videos. He has worked for seven years as festival assistant director in the multi-art festivals “Petit Paris d’ Athenes” and “Chessnale” and as a volunteer at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 2017.
In 2018, he was director of the creative material in the World Chess Championship in London, with an estimated online and TV reach of over 1 billion people. He was also a consulting/associate producer of the broadcasts which had distinguished guests, such as Woody Harrelson, Bennet Miller, and Jimmy Wales.
In 2020, he was the creator and coordinating organiser of the online chess project “Checkmate Coronavirus” by the World Chess Federation. This project was a marathon with a social extend during the Covid-19 pandemic – 2,762 chess tournaments and 517,661 participations. To date, it is the most massive sports event ever organised by an International Federation in terms of participation, in the history of sports.
Film Olympiad's VIP Jury
Head of VIP Jury
Henry Biggs, USA
Henry Biggs (PhD) is an academic, writer, and performer. He has held important positions in international entities, such as CEO of Eusabian Technologies (2015 – present), Vice – Chairman at the International Boxing Association Ethics Commission (2020 – present), and Member of the Board of Directors at the Harvard Alumni Association (2014 – present).
Henry has been engaged in the arts for over twenty-five years. Most recently, he was featured in the documentary “Swimming to Ferguson” (Amazon), but he has also been prolific as a musician. His first album was produced by Mylene Farmer and featured even then his signature “Trompe l’oeil” acrostic lyrics.
With a vast academic background, Henry has a BA in Classics, Latin from Harvard University, PhD in Romance Linguistics and Literature from the University of California, J.D. on International Law from Saint Luis University, and more. In his teaching career, he worked first at Houghton University, then at Washington University St. Louis as an Associate Dean at the College of Arts & Sciences (1999 – 2011), and as an Adjunct Professor (2011 – present) at the School of Law and School of Arts & Sciences.
Programming Director – VIP Jury
Irini Stamatopoulou, Greece
Irini Stamatopoulou (PhD) is a university professor, film critic and writer. For the last 22 years she has been teaching Film Theory and History at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Film Studies Department, at the Panteion University Communication and Media Department and others.
Her main research subject is Film Narratology, along with her interest in Gender Studies. Her PhD was on “Cinematic and literary discourse: a comparative study of cinematic narration”. She has published two books on cinema, “The Romantic Hero in Cinema” and “Theology and Mysticism in Modern American Cinema” and has taken part in several other collective books on cinema.
Irini has also participated, with an advisory or evaluating role, in committees and institutions having to do with film creation and production, and she has published dozens academic essays.
VIP Jury
Takis Papamatthaiou, Greece
Takis Papamatthaiou is an actor and director. He has been working for 40 consecutive years in theatre, participating frequently in some of the most successful theatre productions in Greece.
Takis has been the lead actor in performances of Ancient Greek Drama and Aristophanes, participating countless times at the Athens & Epidaurus Festival and in the Ancient Epidaurus theatre, which has been described by Dame Helen Mirren as “Acting in Epidaurus is equivalent to winning an Oscar”. With these performances he has also participated in the International Theatre Festivals of Florence, Berlin, Hamburg, Zurich, Sofia and Budapest. Moreover he has interpreted roles in plays of emblematic playwrights such as Tennessee Williams, Harold Pinter, Eduardo de Filippo and others.
In Greek television he has participated with various roles since 1988 and in cinema since 1995, receiving two international awards in the USA. He has been considered as one of the most talented character actors in Greece and working with many important directors and actors, including Donald Petrie, Karolos Koun, Giannis Smaragdis, Nia Vardalos and Richard Dreyfuss.
VIP Jury
Monica Savulescu – Voudouris, Romania
Monica Savulescu – Voudouris (PhD) is a sociologist, director and writer with over 20 published books. She has a multitude of nationalities, having been born, studied and worked in Romania with Hungarian and Greek ancestry. She has also lived and worked in the Netherlands and France.
She is most famous for her achievements in literature as an awarded writer, having written more than 20 books translated in many different languages, and published in Romania, the Netherlands, Greece, England, Peru, etc. She is the president of Balkania Contemporary Cultural Society of Athens, founded in 2004. She is also a member of the Writers’ Union of Romania, the Netherlands, France and Belgium. As a theatre director she has directed over half a dozen of theatrical performances, which have also received several awards.
Monica has lived in the last 40 years in various countries and as a sociologist with a PhD in Philosophy, she has worked in European research centres, specialising in social psychology of immigrant and refugee populations.
VIP Jury
Anastasiya Karlovich, Ukraine
Anastasiya Karlovich is an awarded photographer and journalist. She has covered massive international sports and cultural events from India, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia to Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Turkey, Greece, USA and many more countries.
She is a Woman Grand Master in chess and as a journalist she has taken literally thousands of interviews from top chess players in the world, including all world champions of the last 15 years. Her photographies in these events have been also published by several major news outlets.
One of her most recent projects, was the Saudi Comic Con where she worked as a press officer. The event had hundreds of Hollywood stars as guests and was a breakthrough success in Saudi Arabia.
VIP Jury
Ali Nihat Yazici, Turkey
Ali Nihat Yazici is an entrepreneur, a communications engineer and an international sports organiser. He was Vice President of the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT), from 1991 – 2001.
With an academic background in Broadcasting Administration and Radio-TV-Cinema, Ali Nihat has worked for 27 years in TRT, which he also represented in EBU European Broadcasting Union. He is also owner and CEO of Zumbul R&D since 2014.
He was president of the Turkish Chess Federation (2000-2014), serving also as Vice President to the World Chess Federation (2007-2014) and during his tenure he organised more than 100 events, including 12 European and 14 World Championships for Clubs, Men, Women or Youth. In 2012, he organised the Chess Olympiad in Istanbul.
Ali Nihat has also been a member of the Turkish National Olympic Committee, which declared him sport manager of the year in 2006.
Film Olympiad's Team
Film Olympiad Communications Ambassador
Eleonora Atsi, Greece
Eleonora Atsi is an actress, dancer & educator.
She is a graduate of “Vassilis Diamantopoulos Drama School” in Thessaloniki and of “Primary Education of University of West Macedonia” in Florina.
She has participated in 12 plays during her studies in drama school and University and she has attended seminars about Actors Studio Method and Stanislavsky System by Konstantinos Bibis and Meitner Technique by Dimitris Sporidis and Hera Papakonstantinou. She is also a dancer in ballet and contemporary dance since 2005
Film Olympiad Roundtables Manager
George Satilmis, Greece
George Satilmis is a professional actor & contemporary music DJ.
He is a graduate of “Vasilis Diamantopoulos Drama School” in Thessaloniki and has attended seminars with Hera Papakonstantinou, Dimitris Sporidis, Yannis Paraskevopoulos, Stefania Goulioti, Yannis Varkas and Charis Pechlivanidis.
He has participated in over 10 plays including a part in Aeschylus the Persians by Dimitris Karatzas. He has starred in the video clip “Broken Paradise” by Litha Foster and has also experience in TV series.
Film Olympiad Communications Ambassador
& People’s Choice Voting Commissioner
Nick Panaytopoulos, Greece
Nick Panaytopoulos is a musician, graduate of the Odeio Opera of Athens and political scientist, graduate of the Panteion University of Political Science and History.
He has composed numerous songs, and has a specialisation on Music Technology and Engineering.
He has also worked as Customer Service Agent in multinational companies, such as Client X, Apple, IntouchCX, and in the Greek Consular Department in Pristina, Kosovo.
Social Media Manager
Efi Kiouki, Greece
Efi Kiouki is a theatrologist, a culture manager and an awarded actress. She has performed in 11 theatre performances in Athens, mainly in leading roles. Moreover, she has dozens of appearances in TV series, commercials and films.
Efi is a graduate of the historic “Greek Art Theatre of Karolos Koun”, and she has focused on the “Actors Studio Method and the Stanislavsky System” in seminars with Andreas Manolikakis and the “Ivana Chubbuck Technique” at her studio in Los Angeles. In 2015, she participated in Disney’s (UK) Star Wars promo event. In 2021 she was awarded in the USA for the performance in the short film “For Electra’s Love”, for which she was also a nominee in Philippines in 2016.
She has a BA in Theatre Studies from the University of Patras and she is currently completing her MA on Art & Culture Management, at the Rome Business School (Double degree-Universidad Internacional de Valencia). Her academic focus is on Ancient and Modern Theatre Festivals, Cultural Heritage and Cultural Events Management. Besides Greek, she speaks English, Spanish and French.
Film Olympiad Art Administrator
Andreea Burlea, Greece
Andreea Burlea is studying at the Athens School of Fine Arts majoring in Art History.
She is also a performer at Thalia Diaspora (Studio of Professional Theater of Diaspora within the Association of Romanian Artists in Greece) since the age of 13, and was part of the theater team at the tours organized by the General Consulate of Thessaloniki (2017 & 2024)).
Within the activities of this association, she participated in the Thessaloniki International Book Fair as a translator in the year 2023.
She is active (as a commentator and as a text lecturer in archaic Greek) at the cultural meetings of the Society of Romanian Artists in Greece held within the Franco-Hellenic League. Another cultural association with which she permanently collaborates, as the head of the library, in the Romanian Cultural and Educational Center in Athens.