Jury 2024

Ivan Bakrač (ME)

Filmmaker (POSLIJE ZIME / AFTER THE WINTER, CE22)
festival programmer, Free Zone Film Festival
 
Ivan Bakrač (b. 1987) has written and directed films that participated in many international festivals and won awards. He participated in various programs such as Berlinale Talents, Talents Sarajevo and Zurich FF Academy. His debut feature POSLIJE ZIME / AFTER THE WINTER was premiered at the Karlovy Vary IFF. Apart from filmmaking, he also works as a festival programmer at the Free Zone Film Festival Belgrade. He is a part of the selection committee at the Less is More programme led by Le Groupe Ouest. A member of European Film Academy.

Barbara Wurm (AT/DE)

section head Forum, Berlinale

Barbara Wurm (b. 1973) studied comparative literature and Slavonic and German studies in Vienna, Moscow, Innsbruck, Munich and Leipzig. As a Slavonic scholar, she has researched the Eastern European avant-garde and (post) Soviet cinema. She was a member of the selection committee of the Berlin International Film Festival (2020-2023) and goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film (2012-2023) as well as working for almost 20 years as a presenter and programmer at DOK Leipzig and spending a year on the selection committee of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. Wurm has designed film programmes for international festivals and film archives and has been invited to serve on the juries of numerous festivals including the 2022 Settimana Internationale della Critica in Venice and the 2023 Proxima competition in Karlovy Vary.

Solenn Durmord (FR)

Head of Film Department; Programmer
Les Arcs Film Festival, Festival du Film de Cabourg, MyMetaStories
 
Solenn Durmord has a Bachelor's degree in Cultural Event Production and a Master's degree in Cultural and Creative Industries. Durmord joined Les Arcs Film Festival in 2019, where she managed the Communication Department for three years while sitting on the short and feature film selection committees. Since 2022 she has been Head of the Film Department for this festival dedicated to European cinema. In 2023, she joined the programming team of the Cabourg Romantic Film Festival while simultaneously programming the first edition of UniFrance's online festival MyMetaStories, which aims to ignite young audiences' interest in European cinema.

Ketevani Kapanadze (GE)

Filmmaker (ROGORI IKHO OTAKHI / HOW THE ROOM FELT, CE22)
 
Ketevani Kapanadze (they/them; b. 1997) is interested in the possibilities of thinking about cinema as collective memories and daily life journeys, that come exposed within small but significant stories of local phantoms and heroes. They first engaged with documentary filmmaking in 2018, when they started to work on their debut film, ROGORI IKHO OTAKHI / HOW THE ROOM FELT. It premiered in 2021 at IDFA’s in the International Competition, and was awarded Best Documentary at the 51st Sehsüchte film festival. The film was screened at more than 30 festivals worldwide. In 2019 they made a short documentary, LALA, A CAR MECHANIC, which was awarded locally in Georgia. In 2019 Ketevani worked as AD on Aleksandre Koberidze's acclaimed fiction WHAT DO WE SEE WHEN WE LOOK AT THE SKY? Currently they are studying in their last year of joint MA program DOC NOMADS and developing their second feature length documentary.

Diego Armando Aparicio (CY)

Festival director, Queer Wave – Cyprus LGBTQIA+ Film Festival
 
Diego Armando Elia Aparicio (b. 1993) is the founder and artistic director of Queer Wave: the Cyprus LGBTQIA+ Film Festival. He is an alumnus of the Festival Atelier, the Future of Film Festivals Forum, the Global Cultural Relations Programme and Developing Your Film Festival. In 2018 he served as an official jury member for Giornate degli Autori at the Venice International Film Festival. He has assisted the Giornate programming team as pre-selector every year since 2019. In 2022 he was part of the selection panel for the European Parliament’s LUX Audience Award. He has worked in the production and direction departments for several international co-productions, including feature films and limited series which have premiered in Venice, the Cannes Critics’ Week and the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. He is a member of the European Film Academy. photo: Angelos Charalambous

Marek Kozakiewicz (PL)

Filmmaker (SILENT LOVE, CE23; JESTESMY IDEALNI / WE ARE PERFECT)

Marek Kozakiewicz (b. 1986) is a director and cinematographer and particularly dedicated to working on documentary films. His directorial debut SILENT LOVE was officially selected for Visions du Reel, Hot Docs, IDFA, DOK Leipzig and received, among others, the MDR Award for the Best Film from Eastern Europe, the award for the Best Polish Film and the Best International Debut at MDAG 2022. His second film, JESTESMY IDEALNI / WE ARE PERFECT, produced for Netflix Poland, premiered this year at TIDF festival. He directed a series of social spots “WE, THE PARENTS” for BBDO Poland, for which he was awarded the Golden Sword for Best Direction by the prestigious Advertising Creators Club KTR. Marek is a member of both Polish and European Film Academy. photo: Aris Rammos

Elisa Andessner (AT)

Artist (photography, video, performance)
(STALINKA - HITLERBAU, CE13)
 
Elisa Andessner is a freelance artist working in the fields of photography, video, and performance art. From 2010 to2015 she organized the series “Performancelaboratorium” and participated in international performance festivals as an artist. She began working with self-timer photography and video art in 2012 and has since been dealing with the subjects of body, space, and feminism. Andessner is currently developing an extensive work on the topic of femicide. She is a frequent participant in artist-in-residence programs, most recently in Iran, Montenegro, and Mexico, from which she develops exhibition projects with international artists and artists living in Austria. photo: Zoe Goldstein

Nana Thurner (AT)

Artist (animation) (FILM STILL, CE14)
Festival curator, Tricky Women/Tricky Realities Animation Festival, Best Austrian Animation Festival
 
Nana Thurner studied photography at the University of Applied Arts Vienna as well as Intermedia Art at Tokyo University of the Arts. As an artist she is working in the field of animation and drawing. As a cultural worker she is coordinating and organising Tricky Women/Tricky Realities international animation festival, Best Austrian Animation Festival, curating film programs and co-organising networking events. She was project manager of Ars Electronica Animation Festival and Prix Ars Electronica in the category of Computer Animation. Thurner is part of the team of the yearly Expanded Animation symposium and the organisation ASIFA Austria as well as teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. photo: Ernst Jäger

Joshua Jádi (DE/HU)

Scriptwriter, director, festival curator
FilmFestival Cottbus
 
Joshua Jádi is a German-Hungarian scriptwriter, director, and festival curator who studies at the Vienna Film Academy and is currently co-writing Rosa Friedrich’s feature film debut WER HAT ANGST VOR GOTT. Jádi is an alumnus of Torino ScriptLab 2023, Sarajevo Talents, and Locarno Academy. Until 2023 he was the Deputy Program Director of FilmFestival Cottbus, where he was responsible for the selection of more than 100 features and shorts from Eastern and Central Europe and where he still works as a curator.