Head of the Jury
North Macedonia
Teona Strugar Mitevska began her career in the film industry as a child actor, going on to study film at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Her directorial debut, the short film “Veta”, premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and received a Special Jury Mention. She has since directed several critically acclaimed feature films. Most notably “God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya”, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and received more than 40 awards internationally, including the 2019 LUX Film Prize. Her sixth feature film, “The Happiest Man in the World”, premiered at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals in 2022. The following film, no-budget hybrid feature “21 Days Until the End of the World”, premiered at the 2023 Venice Film Festival’s Giornate Degli Autori. Her latest project, “Mother”, her first English-language film, opened the Orizzonti competition at the 2025 Venice Film Festival.
In 2018, France’s Ministry of Culture awarded Strugar Mitevska the title of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. She is currently a part of the ESFUF Jury, a CNC-initiated emergency fund for Ukrainian cinema. She defines herself as a ‘femartivist’, blending her artistic work and activism with a strong feminist perspective.
USA
Debra McGuire is a fashion and costume designer and fine artist whose career has spanned almost 50 years. She is primarily a fine artist whose career began as a painter. She later became an instructor at colleges and universities in Northern California, as well as a jewellery and accessories designer in New York. Additionally, she has worked as a fashion designer, fashion consultant, couturier, and costume designer. Passionate about theatre, she began designing costumes for a dance theatre company in Paris in the early 1980s. In 2006, she was nominated for an Ovation Award for Best Costume Design for “Boston Marriage”, and in 2007, she won the NAACP Award for Best Costume Design for “Atlanta” at the Geffen Playhouse. Yet, she is best known for her 10-year run on the hit show “Friends” and for designing many of David Mamet’s film and theatre projects, including “Phil Spector” (starring Al Pacino and Helen Mirren), for which she received an Emmy nomination for Best Costume Design. Debra also worked on “Sonic the Hedgehog” #1 and #2. She currently designs costumes for Jennifer Aniston in “The Morning Show”.
Mongolia
Nomuunzul Turmunkh is a film producer and screenwriter whose work has significantly contributed to the international recognition of Mongolian cinema. She started out in media and production before founding her own film companies and producing both narrative features and music projects. Her filmography includes “Life”, “The Sales Girl”, “Restart” and “Silent City Driver”, the latter of which won the Grand Prix for Best Film and Best Production Design at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in 2024. Her films have been selected to major film festivals such as Busan, Adelaide, Udine, Barcelona, Minneapolis St. Paul, and Bangkok. In addition to her creative work, Nomuunzul is a board member of the Mongolian National Film Council and a member of NETPAC. Drawing on her experience as both a filmmaker and a curator, she continues to play a vital role in advancing Mongolian and Asian cinema.
Germany
Ingo Fliess has been running if... Productions Film GmbH (formerly if... Productions) since its foundation in 2007. The Munich-based company is renowned for the global hit “The Teachers’ Lounge” which was nominated for the Best International Feature Film Oscar in 2024 and also screened at the Tallinn Black Night Film Festival. Initially focusing on documentary features, Ingo Fliess produced the classic “El Bulli: Cooking in Progress”, and the German Film Award-nominated documentary “Elternschule”. Other notable feature films produced by if... Productions include “Wackersdorf” (Tallinn Black Night Film Festival 2018) and “I Was, I Am, I Will Be”. In addition to his work as a producer, Ingo Fliess is a professor of production at the University of Television and Film Munich, a member of the board of PROG (Producers of Germany), and a member of the German and European Film Academies.
USA
Roberto Schaefer, ASC/AIC, is an accomplished cinematographer who has shot tens of feature films, hundreds of TV commercials, industrial films, music videos, and documentaries in the USA and around the world. In 2000, the American Film Institute honoured him for his work as cinematographer on “Best in Show”. He was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography for the 2003 film “Finding Neverland”, and in 2013, he received the Golden Frog for Cinematographer-Director duo Award with Marc Forster for their nine-film, 15-year collaboration. He has worked in the motion picture and TV industry on many independent and studio films including “Stranger Than Fiction”, “The Kite Runner”, “James Bond 007 Quantum of Solace”, “Leaves of Grass”, “The Host”, “Miles Ahead”, “The US vs. Billie Holiday”, “Westworld” and “The Peripheral”. He has also given cinematography workshops and masterclasses around the world. He is currently a member of the American Society of Cinematographers, the Autori Cinematografica Italiana, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Oscars), British Academy of Film and Television Arts and the International Federation of Cinematographer’s Societies (IMAGO).
Head of the Jury
USA
Nina Paskowitz is one of Hollywood’s leading hairstylists and the go-to person for A-list actors. She began her career on an indie film titled “The Night Before”, starring a then newcomer Keanu Reeves. Her first box office hit and the film that launched her as one of Hollywood’s leading hairstylists was “Internal Affairs”, starring Richard Gere and Andy Garcia. Her additional film credits include “Clueless”, “Sweet November”, “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”, “Species”, “The Mask”, “The Green Mile”, “Ironman”, “The Majestic”, “Something’s Gotta Give”, “Meet the Fockers”, “Night at the Museum”, “Bad Teacher”, “Jobs”, “Real Steel”, “Muppet Movie”, “The Lake House”, “Pirates of the Caribbean”, and “Valentine’s Day A proponent of all things organic and eco-friendly, Nina is a vocal advocate for a more sustainable hair and beauty industry. In addition to jury duty, Nina Paskowitz will share her 30-year journey in the film industry at Industry@PÖFF Black Room.
Chile
Giancarlo Nasi is a film producer, political scientist, and intellectual property lawyer with over a decade of experience leading international co-productions across Latin America, Europe, and Asia. He is the founder and first president of the Chilean Film Academy and a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). He has served on the jury and as a mentor at major festivals and labs, including Sundance, LALIFF, Berlinale Talents and the Hubert Bals Fund. He holds degrees from Sciences Po Paris and an MBA from UCLA Anderson, where he developed Rampante VC, an investment fund for film and entertainment tech, which he now manages from Los Angeles and Santiago. His work bridges finance, law, and the arts to develop scalable, sustainable creative ventures. He also co-produced the feature film “The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo”, which is screening at PÖFF this year. The film has been chosen to represent Chile in the Best International Feature Film category at the Oscars.
Sri Lanka
Ilango Ram is an award-winning film director and cinematographer, best known for the Sri Lankan blockbuster “Nelum Kuluna (Tentigo)”, which ran successfully in cinemas for over 111 days. “Tentigo” won the Special Jury Prize at the 2023 Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival and was remade in India as “Perusu”, which became a Netflix hit. Remakes are planned in Hindi, Italian, Spanish and English. A graduate of NIT Trichy with a degree in engineering, he also studied filmmaking at Rockport College in the USA. He is also an alumnus of Berlinale Talents, Rotterdam Lab, Produire Au Sud – Nantes, and BAFA Korea. He co-founded Silent Frames Productions and has directed over 450 TV commercials. His film projects have been selected for leading film markets such as Film Bazaar in Goa and the Asian Project Market in Busan. Ilango has worked as a lecturer in filmmaking, conducted master classes and served on juries at various film festivals.
France
Tania El Khoury joined the Parisian independent production company Moby Dick Films as legal and financial manager after filmmaking and psychology studies in Beirut. In 2017, she founded the production company Khamsin Films in Beirut. For international projects she founded the Paris based company, Les films de l’Altaï in 2020 where she produced Ghassan Salhab’s “The River” (International Competition at the Locarno International Film Festival, 2021), Sonia Ben Slama’s feature documentary “Machtat” (ACID Cannes, 2023) and the short film “Manity” by Hussen Ibraheem for which she received the Netflix Fund for Creative Equity X AFAC in 2022. In 2024 she was selected for the prestigious programme of ACE Network.
Estonia
Marianne Ostrat is an Estonian film producer and the founder of Alexandra Film and Fork Film Animation Studio. Active in the field of documentary, fiction and animation her films have screened at festivals such as Venice, Karlovy Vary, Locarno, SXSW. Her most recent feature as the delegate producer – European Documentary 2023 “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood” by Anna Hints – won the Directing Award at Sundance and earned Ostrat a PGA Award nomination. Marianne Ostrat is a member of the European Film Academy and the Producers Guild of America.
Germany
Daniel Abma studied film directing at the Film University Babelsberg in Potsdam, Germany. His feature length documentaries “Beyond Wriezen” (2012), “Transit Havana” (2016), “Autobahn” (2019) and “The Family Approach” (2024) have been shown at film festivals around the world, including the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, IDFA, Vision du Réel and DOK Leipzig. They have won several audience and jury awards. Abma focuses on observational, character-based documentaries about social issues. Since 2017 he has worked at Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf, teaching documentary directing. He also works as a tutor and trainer at pitching workshops, including DOK Leipzig, Baltic Sea Docs Riga, Cinedoc Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev. From 2018 to 2022, he was part of the selection committee of the DOK-Leipzig Film Festival, where he moderated Q&As with filmmakers.
Spain
Ana Fernández Saiz is a UK-based documentary consultant and founder of a boutique sales agency focused on international non-fiction. With over 12 years of experience in documentary production and distribution across the UK and Europe, she has worked closely with independent filmmakers, producers, and sales agencies to bring powerful, globally resonant stories to market. Ana began her career in production and later moved into international sales, combining creative insight with strong market strategy. She holds a Master’s degree in Media and Business and is passionate about championing distinctive voices and cross-cultural collaborations.
USA
Pamela Cohn is a moving image curator, arts and culture journalist, project mentor and nonfiction story consultant. She is the author of “Lucid Dreaming: Conversations with 29 Filmmakers” (2020) and she co-produces, writes and hosts “The Lucid Dreaming Podcast: Conversations on Cinema, Art, and Moving Image” with LONO Studio in London. She serves on DokuFest's selection committee and writes a regular column of first-person conversations with filmmakers for Documentary Association Europe in Berlin. Pamela is an independent member of FIPRESCI, and leads workshops for aspiring film critics across Europe. She was the 2024–2025 curator-in-residence at HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme on Suomenlinna island in Helsinki. She is currently working on a second volume of “Lucid Dreaming” with a focus on artists from the Nordic countries.
Netherlands
Koen Suidgeest is a documentary filmmaker, photographer and educator. His projects focus on the human rights of people living on the fringes of society. With his documentary, “Casting”, (2006) he became the first Dutch filmmaker to be nominated for a Spanish Academy Award (Goya). His multiple award-winning feature film “Karla’s Arrival” (2011) was selected for more than 45 film festivals and broadcast in 15 countries. Most recently, he worked on the Uruguayan production “My New Way of Seeing”, about a filmmaker who becomes blind after a stroke.
As a photographer, Koen has created various travelling exhibitions and two books, “Why I Cry on Airplanes” (2020) and “Leiden, Metropolis” (2022). The latter was the product of his year as City Photographer, an honorary position in his hometown of Leiden in the Netherlands. He teaches filmmaking at a variety of universities, is a sought-after tutor for international writing, pitching and impact workshops, and has served on the jury of several film festivals.
Germany
Thomas Schultze is the co-founder and one of the editors-in-chief of THE SPOT media & film, a media and industry trade service which he helped launch in April 2024. He was a member of the editorial board and head of the film editorial department of the German film industry magazine Blickpunkt:Film for more than 20 years. Previously, he worked as a film editor and head of the film editorial department at kino.de, VideoWoche and VideoMarkt. In 1986, he was one of the founders and editors of the German punk magazine Trust, for which he wrote until 1991. It is now the longest-running punk magazine in the world. He is also a freelance writer who contributes to publications such as GQ, SZ, Spiegel Online, Musikexpress, Glamour and Cinema, writing about film, cinema and music.
France
Jean-Baptiste Babin co-founded Backup Media Group in 2002. It is now a European leader in bridging creativity and finance. Over the past two decades, Backup has supported the production of over 450 films and TV series, from renowned directors such as Bong Joon-ho, Wim Wenders, François Ozon, Jonas Arnby, Dome Karukoski, and Susanne Bier. These works have earned over 60 A-list festival selections and over 20 major awards, confirming the company’s reputation for enabling ambitious cross-border projects. In addition financing, Babin has launched tech ventures such as MovieChainer.com, which helps producers to manage film portfolios, and Gemster.app, which is dedicated to content discovery. Having previously served as COO of Millimages, Babin is recognised for his expertise in structuring international capital stacks and forging lasting alliances across Europe’s creative industries.
Bhutan
Dechen Roder is one of the few female filmmakers from the kingdom of Bhutan. She began making short films and documentaries in 2005, many of which were broadcast on Bhutanese national TV. In 2015, she wrote and directed the short film “Lo Sum Choe Sum,” which competed in the Berlinale Shorts programme and at many other festivals around the world. In 2016, she wrote and directed her debut feature “Honeygiver Among the Dogs”, which premiered in Busan and at the Berlinale and won three awards at the Fribourg International Film Festival. This was the first film from Bhutan to be nominated for an Asia Pacific Screen Award. Her second feature. “I, the Song” premiered at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in 2024 in the Critics’ Picks Competition, winning the Best Director award. The film won 8 National Film Awards (including Best Film) and is Bhutan’s entry for the 2025 Oscars. Dechen Roder also works as a visual editor and producer on other films. She is also the co-founder and co-organiser of Bhutan’s first film festival, Beskop Tshechu.
Spain
Alicia Reginato has degrees in Film Studies and Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley. After settling in Europe in the late 1990s, she began directing experimental pieces for public television and eventually founded her own production company, La Chula Productions, in 2003. Over the past two decades, she has produced work in a wide variety of mediums, including short films, commercials, documentaries, and children’s TV shows. Alongside her work as a producer, she was Head of Talent at the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival for 20 years, later helming four editions of the Brain Film Fest as Executive Director. In autumn 2022, she joined the development team of director Juan Antonio Bayona’s production company, Películas La Trini. She is currently based in Barcelona, bridging talent and logistics to bring projects to fruition.
United Kingdom
Rógan Graham is a South London-based writer, film critic and programmer. She curated the highly successful BFI season “Black Debutantes: A Collection of Early Works by Black Women Directors” (May 2025), which attracted international media attention. Since 2019, Rógan has worked as a freelancer, contributing written work to Little White Lies, i-D, Curzon Journal, New York Magazine’s The Cut, and Polyester Zine. She has hosted on-stage Q&As with talent such as Kneecap, Pamela Anderson, numerous first-time directors, and the veteran filmmaker Mike Leigh. Rógan also edited the Clio Award-winning The Underground Railroad campaign book for Barry Jenkins and has worked with the national film charity Reclaim The Frame as a programme producer.
Iran
Ali Asgari is a prominent writer, director and producer, renowned for his films that explore the lives of marginalised individuals in Iran. His short films “More Than Two Hours” (2013) and “Il silenzio” (2016) were nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and “The Baby” competed at the Venice Film Festival in 2014. In 2017, his debut feature film “Nāpadid šodan” premiered in the Orizzonti section at the Venice Film Festival and was also selected for the Toronto Film Festival. His second feature, “Until Tomorrow,” premiered in the Panorama section at the 2022 Berlinale. “Terrestrial Verses,” a cross-genre film, premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in 2023 and was released theatrically in many territories worldwide. His fourth feature film, “Higher than Acidic Clouds”, a boundary-pushing hybrid, was selected for IDFA 2024. His most recent film “Divine Comedy” just premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival and will also be screened at PÖFF.
Türkiye
Gözde Kural is a director and screenwriter. After graduating from Advertising and Film–TV at Istanbul Bilgi University, she worked as an assistant director on various productions. Gradually moving into directing, she developed her own visual language through a series of commercial and independent projects. Her debut feature film, “Dust” (2015), was shot in Afghanistan and explored themes of memory, displacement, and resilience. It premiered at major international film festivals, including Montreal, Shanghai, and Mumbai, and received several awards. In 2022, she directed “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia”, a 13-episode docu-drama series tracing Anatolia’s layered cultural heritage through dramatized real stories. Her second feature film, “Cinema Jazireh”, premiered at the 59th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where it received the Ecumenical Jury Award.
Georgia
Alexandre Koberidze is a filmmaker and screenwriter. He studied film and television in 2001–2005 in Tbilisi. In 2008, he moved to Berlin to study film directing at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin. His first feature film, “Never Let the Summer Come Again” (2017), won the Grand Prix and the Prix Premier at the Marseille Film Festival, as well as the German Film Critics' Award for Best Experimental Film. His second feature film, “What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?” (2021), celebrated its world premiere in the main competition of the 71st Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize, and in the following year it won the German Film Critics' Award for Best Feature Film. His feature film “Dry Leaf” (2025) had its world premiere in the main competition of the 78th Locarno Film Festival. The film will also be screened at PÖFF.
Spain
Montse Triola is a renowned creative and executive producer. She has received a BA in Performing Arts at the Institut del Teatre, Barcelona, an MA in "Theatre Practice" on 20th Century Visual and Performance Theories at the Rose Bruford College, UK, and has completed English Philology Studies at the Universidad Autònoma de Barcelona. In 2003, together with Albert Serra, she founded the film production company Andergraun Films, and went on to produce the whole illustrious filmography of the Catalan director: “Honor of the Knights” (2006), “Birdsong” (2008), “Story of My Death” (2013), “La Mort de Louis XIV” (2016), “Liberté” (2019), “Pacifiction” (2022), and the documentary “Afternoons of Solitude” (2025). She also produced “Afterwater” (2022), by Dane Komljen and “Miséricorde” (2024), by Alain Guiraudie” and “Magellan” (Cannes 2025, also at PÖFF), by Lav Díaz. She is the executive producer of the art pieces “Personalien”, “Roi Soleil”, “Singularity” and “Three Little Pigs”, all by Albert Serra. She is currently working on the feature “Out of This World” by Albert Serra in coproduction with France, Portugal, Germany.
Canada
Jason Gorber is a film journalist, programmer and member of the Toronto Film Critics Association, the Critics Choice Association and Online Film Critics Society. He is the Editor-in-Chief/Chief Critic at ThatShelf.com, Director of Film Programming at the Blue Mountain Film + Media Festival, CBC Radio Metro Morning's Film Correspondent, and regularly contributes to POV Magazine, Collider, Paste Magazine, A.V. Club, RogerEbert.com. Jason's writing has appeared in Esquire, The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, Screen Anarchy (aka TwitchFilm), SlashFilm, HighDefDigest, Birth.Movies.Death, IndieWire and more. He has appeared on CTV NewsChannel, CP24, and many other broadcasters. Jason has been a jury member at the Reykjavik International Film Festival, Calgary Underground Film Festival, RiverRun Film Festival, TIFF Canada's Top 10, Reel Asian, Festival Regard and Fantasia's New Flesh Award. He is a longstanding Tomatometer-approved critic and additional links to his writing can be found at Metacritic.
Armenia
Alexander Melyan is a film critic and video essayist who regularly contributes to the Cine[scope] multimedia platform, Epress.am, and EVN Report. His main area of interest lies in exploring the historical and cultural context of various cinematic waves. His video essay series Mov(i)ements and Auteur Theory are currently being broadcast on Boon TV, one of Armenia’s public television channels. Since 2020, he has also worked as a programmer at the Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival.
Estonia
Martin Oja has made two short films and has worked as a film critic and lecturer at both the Baltic Film and Media School (BFM) and the University of Tartu, giving lectures on film semiotics and mythology. His scholarly articles in film studies have dealt with issues such as film trailers, film sociology, and problems of multimodal meaning-making. In 2024, he defended his doctoral dissertation at the University of Tartu titled “Semiotics of Multimodal Conflict”, which examines the conflict between visual and auditory information in film as a distinctive artistic and social device.
Mongolia
Tsengel Davaasambu has been a professor at the Mongolian State University of Arts and Culture since the 2000s. She specialises in teaching film production, business English, and Mongolian cinema history. Her extensive educational background includes a PhD in Public Administration for Cultural Studies from Cheongju University South Korea, a Master’s from the Mongolian State University of Arts and Culture, and professional development courses at Harvard Extension School and Busan Asian Film School. As the founder of Culture Distributor LLC, Tsengel champions Mongolian cinema, promoting local filmmakers at international festivals and distributing their work, including films like “The Mother” and “White Blessing”. She is a respected figure in the film industry, having served as a jury member at numerous prestigious festivals worldwide, such as the Busan International Film Festival and the East West Festival. She is also a proficient simultaneous translator in the IT, AI, and cybersecurity sectors. She has been a Mongolian member of NETPAC since 2015.
India
Santanu Ganguly is a Delhi-based film festival curator and freelance writer who has been active in the field for the last 23 years. He has curated over fifty national and international film festivals. He has served on the jury at the Bengaluru International Film Festival (2016), the NETPAC jury at the Kolkata International Film Festival (2017), the Prakriti Film Festival (2016) and the nomination jury at the CMS Vatavaran (2019). He was an Organising Committee Member of the 16th Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF – 2020) and NETPAC Jury Chairperson at the Busan International Short Film Festival. In 2012, he received the “Future Leader of South Asia” award from the Taiwanese government in recognition of his contributions to the cultural field. As editor of www.incredible-india-info.com, he regularly writes about cinema, literature, art, culture, and travel and hospitality.
Estonia
Teet Kask is an Estonian choreographer, stage director, and professor whose career spans ballet, contemporary dance, and physical theatre. A graduate of the Tallinn Ballet School, he has performed with the Royal Swedish Ballet and worked as a ballet artist and director-choreographer with the Norwegian National Ballet and Balletto di Milano. His works, presented across Europe and Asia, often bridge classical and contemporary forms, exploring philosophical and existential themes through movement.
In addition to his creative work, Kask has participated in numerous film, television, and advertising projects in Estonia and abroad. He serves as a professor at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, is a curator of interdisciplinary art events, and is a jury member at several dance and theatre festivals and competitions in South Korea and Japan. He is the initiator of the dance series “Life Dances for Eternity” at the Niguliste Museum in Tallinn, Estonia.