Elias Grootaers (Belgium, 1981) is a documentary filmmaker and lecturer in documentary film. His filmography includes Cinema Central (2005), Lignes. En quête d’une mémoire (2006), Not Waving, But Drowning (2009), the video installation The season has changed but we are still standing in the same place (2009) and Inside the Distance (2017). Amongst other films, he worked as a co-editor on Muito além (Mario Gomes, 2010), Kosmos (Ruben Desiere, 2015) and Un pays plus beau qu’avant (Hannes Verhoustraete, 2018), and edited La fleurière (Ruben Desiere, 2017) and Zlata (Mattias Bavré, 2023). From 2006 to 2022, he was a professor at KASK / School of Arts Ghent. He has also taught at LUCA School of Arts, P.A.R.T.S. (Performing Arts Research and Training Studios) and the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and has been a guest professor at the Beijing Film Academy and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Together with Gerard-Jan Claes, Ruben Desiere, Nina de Vroome, Olivia Rochette and Hannes Verhoustraete, he founded Sabzian, for which he has written, translated and edited texts. From 2013 to 2019, he was Sabzian’s artistic director. He also co-founded the production and distribution platform Zéro de conduite. For Sabzian and under the moniker Zéro de conduite, he has curated several film programs.