Head of the Jury
United Kingdom
Christopher Hampton became involved in theatre while studying French and German at Oxford University and wrote the play, “When Did You Last See My Mother”, in his first year, making him the youngest writer ever to have a play performed in the West End – a record which still stands. Since then, his plays and musicals have included “The Philanthropist”, ”Savages”, “Tales from Hollywood”, “Dangerous Liaisons”, “White Chameleon”, “Sunset Boulevard” (with Don Black), “A Dangerous Method”, “A German Life” and “Visit From An Unknown Woman”. He has written the libretti for three Philip Glass operas and translated plays by Ibsen, Molière, von Horváth, Chekhov, Yasmina Reza, Daniel Kehlmann, and Florian Zeller. His plays, musicals and translations have so far garnered five Tony Awards, four Olivier Awards, five Evening Standard Awards and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award.
His many screenplays include “Dangerous Liaisons”, “Total Eclipse”, “Mary Reilly”, “The Quiet American”, “Atonement”, “Chéri”, “A Dangerous Method”, “The Father” and “The Son” (the last two with Florian Zeller). He both wrote and directed “Carrington”, “The Secret Agent” and “Imagining Argentina”. Prizes for his film and television work include two Oscars, three BAFTAs, a European Film Award, a Writer’s Guild of America Award, the Prix Italia, a Special Jury Award at the Cannes Film Festival, Hollywood Screenwriter of the Year and the Collateral Award at the Venice Film Festival for Best Literary Adaptation.
USA
David Stump ASC BVK AIP has been working in motion pictures and television production as Director of Photography, Visual Effects Director of Photography, Visual Effects Supervisor, and Stereographer earning an Emmy Award, an Academy Award for Scientific and Technical Achievement, an IMAGO Technical Achievement Award, an AIP Lifetime Achievement Award and an International Cinematographers Guild Award.
His credits include projects like “Little Fires Everywhere”, “The Morning Show”, “Breaking Bad”, “The Happytime Murders”, “American Gods”, “Immortals”, “James Bond 22 – Quantum of Solace”, “Flight Plan”, “Fantastic Four”, “X-Men” 1 & 2, “Into the Blue”, “Garfield”, “Batman Forever”, “Hollow Man”, “Men of Honor”, “Deep Blue Sea”, “Stuart Little”, “The Sphere”, “Contact”, “Batman & Robin”, “Mars Attacks”, “Executive Decision”, “Stargate”, “Free Willy”, “Adventures in Babysitting”, “Rambo 3”, “Stand By Me”, “The Day After” and many, many others. David authored the book “Digital Cinematography – Fundamentals, Techniques and Workflows” first edition and second edition, and is a contributing author to both the “VES Handbook” and the “ASC Manual 11th Edition”. David is currently residing in Alenquer Portugal and teaching cinematography at Universidade Lusofona in Lisbon.
France
Julie Billy is a Paris-based film producer who has spent over fifteen years supporting bold, distinctive voices in cinema. She has worked with acclaimed filmmakers including Jonas Carpignano, Nadav Lapid and Yorgos Lanthimos. In 2020, she founded June Films, where she develops and produces ambitious films and series with international reach.
Her recent productions include Hafsia Herzi’s “The Little Sister”, which premiered in Competition at Cannes in 2025, winning the Queer Palm and Best Actress Award; Emma Benestan’s “Animale”, presented at Cannes Critics’ Week in 2024; and “Green Eyes” by Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh, which opened Locarno’s Piazza Grande in 2026. June Films also produced “The Confidante”, directed by Just Philippot and named one of The New York Times’ Top 10 International TV Shows of the Year. Julie Billy is a co-founder of Collectif 50/50 and received the Trophée du Film Français Director-Producer Duo Award in 2021.
In films she looks for boldness in mise-en-scène, a singular vision of a director, emotion and what the film says about the world we live in. Does it propose a new perspective on the world?
Estonia
Tiina Tauraite is an Estonian actress equally at home on stage and screen. She spent a decade at Tallinn's Von Krahl Theatre before moving fluidly between film and stage, and since 2022 has taught as a senior lecturer at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre. Her film work favours emotional precision over flash — from “Autumn Ball” and “The Temptation of St. Tony” to “The Spy and the Poet”, “Who Shot Otto Mueller?” and “Frank”. Her role as a grieving schoolteacher in “8 Views of Lake Biwa”, Estonia's entry for the 97th Academy Awards, won her Best Actress in Estonia in 2025. A three-time Estonian Theatre Award winner, she recently starred on stage in “Murdja” (“Cougar”) and has written and performed her own play.
Lebanon
Myriam Sassine is a producer, film executive and mentor who has produced award-winning films such as “Costa Brava, Lebanon” by Mounia Akl, “1982” by Oualid Mouaness, “Amal” by Mohamed Siam, “Panoptic” by Rana Eid, “Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano” by Cyril Aris and “Diaries from Lebanon” by Myriam El Hajj. In 2016, she co-founded Maskoon Fantastic Film Festival, the only genre festival in the Arab region. She’s the programme curator of AFLAMUNA Connection, a co-production platform for Arab filmmakers and the head of Tatino Films’ international training programme Full Circle Lab Nouvelle-Aquitaine Hessen. In 2025, with Abbout Productions she received the Raimondo Rezzonico Prize at Locarno Film Festival, awarded to independent producers who have played a major role in international production. That same year, she joined producer Sophie Erbs in the France-based companies Gaïjin and Sarmadi, consolidating her presence within the European production landscape.
Myriam is drawn to bold and distinctive films that are willing to take risks, that challenge familiar forms, and, above all, films that surprise and move audiences, opening up new ways to see the world, and create connections between people across different experiences, cultures and perspectives.
Head of the Jury
United Kingdom
Ivana MacKinnon is a producer who started her career working across films as diverse as “The Descent” (2005) and “Slumdog Millionaire” (2008), before founding her production company, Wild Swim Films, in 2019. She has specialised in debut features, making the first films of Jack Thorne, Tom Harper, Michael Pearce and Molly Manning Walker. Her most recent films include “How to Have Sex” (2023) which won the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, and “Bring Them Down” (2024) which won Best Film at Fantastic Fest and Best Debut Director at the British Independent Film Awards. Her upcoming film “Sugar”, starring Naomi Ackie and Eve Hewson, is currently in post-production. She believes that cinema has the power to change things inside us, and that is what she values most of all in films.
United Kingdom
Lynn Nwokorie is a Film Relationship Manager for the British Council and a Programme Advisor for the BFI London Film Festival (LFF) and SXSW Austin. Lynn is also an Executive Producer for independent documentaries and has provided editorial consultancy for film organisations, including the Gotham Film & Media Week and We Are Parable, championing documentary and narrative filmmakers in their careers. Previously, Lynn was Doc Society Fund Manager for various film funds including the BFI Doc Society Fund, the Bertha Doc Society Journalism Fund and the Pulse Fund.
Estonia
Esko Rips is an Estonian producer, and co-founder and CEO of Nafta Films, a pan-Baltic production company with offices in Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius. Since establishing Nafta in 2009, he has built a diverse portfolio spanning feature films, television series and international co-productions. His credits include May el-Toukhy’s “Woman Unknown”, winner of the Golden Lion at the 2026 Venice Film Festival, the “Melchior the Apothecary” trilogy, the historical spy thriller “Dawn of War” and the family adventure “The Secret Society of Souptown”. Under his leadership, Nafta has also been involved in Baltic successes such as “The Southern Chronicles”, Lithuania’s most-watched domestic film. His upcoming projects include “Serafima” with Veiko Õunpuu and “The Reconstruction” with Viesturs Kairišs. Esko is a member of the European Film Academy and the European Producers Club, and an alumnus of ACE Producers, EAVE and Inside Pictures. In 2018, he was selected for European Film Promotion’s Producers on the Move programme at the Cannes Film Festival.
Head of the Jury
Germany
Mariëtte Rissenbeek was born in the Netherlands. After her Master studies in German Language and Literature in Utrecht she moved to Berlin and began her career in the film industry as acquisitions manager at the distribution company Tobis Filmkunst in 1986. She joined Regina Ziegler Filmproduktion in 1995, and produced films both for TV and theatrical release. As an independent producer she produced Mika Kaurismäki’s roadmovie “Highway Society” in 1999. In 2002, she joined German Films, a national institution for the international promotion of films made in Germany. In 2019, she was appointed Managing Director of the Berlin International Film Festival until 2024. Since then she has been working as a consultant, mentor, and producer for international filmmakers, festivals, and institutions with a focus on films which bring new perspectives and on regions which have been less visible in the cinematic world so far.
United Kingdom
Paul Gallagher leads the curatorial vision at Glasgow Film, as Head of Programme for both Glasgow Film Theatre and Glasgow Film Festival. He has been a key member of Glasgow Film’s management team for more than a decade, first as Marketing Manager and subsequently as Programme Manager, leading on year-round programming at Glasgow Film Theatre since 2018. Key successes during his tenure include the establishment of GFT’s long-running programming strands Scorsese of the Month and Coen Brothers of the Month; the diversification of GFT’s CineMasters programme to spotlight broader film industry talent; and the curation of GFT’s hugely popular 50th Anniversary programme. The 22nd edition of Glasgow Film Festival in 2026 was his first as the Head of Programme, and opened with the UK premiere of vital Scottish documentary “Everybody to Kenmure Street”. He responds to bold and confident storytelling, inventive craft and authentic emotion in cinema. “I want to be moved and provoked to reflect on the world around me in a new way, and to feel a sense of connection with people similar and different to me; something cinema is uniquely placed to do.”
Türkiye
Ali Vatansever is an Istanbul-based filmmaker with a background in design and film production. His second feature, “Saf”, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2018. His third, “LifeLike”, which moves between physical and virtual worlds, won Best Director at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival’s Official Competition in 2025. He teaches Film Production and XR at Koç University and mentors emerging filmmakers through m2 Film Lab. Drawn to human stories told with depth and subtlety, Ali values cinema that observes human experience without judgment, embraces ambiguity, and trusts audiences to find their own emotional and moral responses.
Germany
Heike-Melba Fendel founded the talent and event agency Barbarella Entertainment in 1991 and has been running it ever since. The agency has offices in Cologne and Berlin. As a writer she has published two novels (one using the Berlinale as the setting), numerous short stories and essays, and has been part of a feminist column for Die Zeit for over a decade. She lives in Berlin. Five years ago she started to conduct open-air screenings in social hotspots in Berlin, bringing the films and filmmakers closer to people who never watch films in a cinema – or at all. She prefers watching films knowing nothing more than the title and a few credits, and values the warmth a filmmaker puts into their work in all disciplines.
Lithuania
Jurgis Matulevičius is a Vilnius-based director, screenwriter and editor, whose filmography includes four short films – “Absurd People” (2011), “Anima Animus” (2012), “The Victim” (2013) and “The Interrogator” (2015) – as well as his first feature-film, “Isaac” (2019), which was nominated for the 2020 European Film Award for European Discovery of the Year. “Isaac” also won Best Score and Best Cinematographer at the 2020 Lithuanian Film Awards, and the Lithuanian Filmmakers Union named it the Best Film of 2020. His short film “Golden Flask” premiered as part of the 2021 Sheffield Doc/Fest international competition programme. His second feature, “China Sea” (2025), won Best Film in the Critics’ Picks section at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. He is currently working on a new screenplay. Jurgis is particularly interested in characters who are difficult to understand or judge. As a juror, he looks for a strong personal voice and for filmmakers who are willing to take risks, considering an imperfect film that tries something new to be more interesting than one made a thousand times before.
Italy
Hakim Zejjari is a film journalist, author, and TV producer graduated from Italy’s national film school, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. Over 20 years, he has interviewed icons like Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, creating a TV show for national broadcaster RAI and collaborating with Sky Italia, Mediaset, France 24, and The New York Times. Currently interviewing cultural figures for the Italian national newspaper Domani, he also served as a Golden Globes voter. In cinema, Zejjari looks for filmmakers with a unique perspective capable of holding up a mirror to the viewer, reflecting reality and the subconscious in all their facets – even when irritating, distorted, and painful. As a juror, he seeks courageous works that challenge audience assumptions.
United Kingdom
Jason Wood is currently the Executive Director of Public Programmes and Audiences at the BFI with areas of responsibility including BFI Southbank, BFI IMAX, the BFI London Film Festival and Sight and Sound. Having worked in the independent film sector for over 30 years, he is also the published author of multiple books on cinema, including “The Faber Book of Mexican Cinema” and the forthcoming “Guillermo del Toro: Fairytales for Troubled Times”. “Drift” co-written with Simon Barker and published by The Modernist is an imagined road movie novella and a loose follow-up to Chris Petit’s “Radio On”. Wood is also the co-director with Simon Barker of “Always (Crashing)” and with Bob Stanley an album curator for Ace Records.
United Kingdom
Samuel Abrahams is a BAFTA and Webby nominated writer and director. After studying Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art, Samuel began his career in television, self-shooting award-winning observational documentaries. His first dramatic short, “Connect”, was BAFTA-nominated for Best Short. His short “Offline Dating” went on to reach more than 20 million views, sparking international press and social media debate around the impact of technology on modern dating. Last year Samuel directed his debut feature, “Lady”, which he co-wrote with his partner, Miranda Campbell Bowling. Starring Sian Clifford (“Fleabag”), “Lady” gathered significant momentum on the festival circuit, with Samuel winning Best Director in the First Feature Competition at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. Alongside his narrative work, Samuel has an established career as a commercials director, having helmed international campaigns for brands including Google, Apple and British Airways. His commercial work has won two Cannes Lions.
Spain
Mireia Vilapuig is a Catalan actress, screenwriter, creator and visual artist based in Barcelona. Her selected acting credits include national and international productions and in 2025, she was nominated for the Gaudí Award for Best New Actress. In 2023, she co-created, co-wrote and starred in “Selftape”, which received Cinemanía’s Best New Performances award and a nomination for Best Drama Series at the 2024 Feroz Awards. She made her directorial debut with the award-winning short film “La desesperació de la pell”, selected for several international festivals, including VSFF (Vilnius), where it won the Grand Prix. She is currently developing “Callback”, her second series co-created with Joana Vilapuig, which was selected for the European Film Market at the 2026 Berlinale. She is drawn to films that may not have big budgets but have a soul. Mireia is also fascinated by archival footage and the possibilities of building narratives through unconventional forms of filmmaking, believing that some of the most compelling stories emerge from the unexpected, and from finding new ways of looking at images. Ultimately she expects that filmmakers have a story to tell – a story that truly matters to them.
Head of the Jury
France
Christian Popp is a senior film producer and former commissioning editor with over 35 years of experience in the film industry. Between 1998 and 2005, he served as a commissioning editor for ARTE, overseeing a diverse slate of international productions. Over the past two decades, Christian has produced more than 50 documentaries and short fiction films, collaborating with leading independent companies working across Germany and France. In early 2025, he founded the company TANJO FILMS. Christian’s productions have been selected for major international film festivals, including Cannes (“Becoming Cary Grant”), Sundance (“Sepideh – Reaching for the Stars”), Berlinale (“Beyond Punishment”), Venice (“Miyazaki: Spirit of Nature”), and TIFF (“Tehran Under the Skin”) to name a few. In addition to his production work, Christian has contributed to the documentary community for over 20 years as a consultant and mentor at industry events and training workshops. He has held jury positions at several prestigious festivals.
“In my work as producer, but more importantly as a viewer, I’m looking for emotional authenticity that unravels in front of the camera and eventually in the editing room. Form plays an important role for me; I love documentaries that transcend observation, if it serves the artistic vision and the goal the creators want to achieve in their films. Both content and form should challenge our views, opinions, and aesthetic norms instead of confirming what we believe is right. Bold documentaries should make sense of the world and change it – by changing how we see the world. Documentaries matter today more than ever, when we are flooded with unintentional images. They matter because they assert a point of view and an intention. Because they say: I am.” – Christian Popp
Netherlands
Rada Šešić a film director, lecturer and festival programmer, born in the former Yugoslavia and living in the Netherlands. From 2003 to 2024, she was associated with the IDFA in various capacities, including the selection committee and the IDFA fund selection. Since 2006, Rada has been the head of the Documentary Competition at the Sarajevo FF, and she co-heads Docu Rough Cut Boutique. She is on the selection committee at the Doha Fund, and in Italy, at WEMW, she is the artistic director of Last Stop Trieste (since 2014) and a programmer for the Documentary Competition at Trieste FF. From 2000 to 2020, Rada was a selector for South Asian cinema at the IFFR Rotterdam. Rada lectures at the Master of Film programme at The Netherlands’ Film Academy in Amsterdam. For 15 years she was artistic director of the Eastern Neighbours Film Festival in The Hague. At the University of Amsterdam, she taught Indian cinema for seven years and was a lecturer at the Netherlands Institute for Film Education (NOF). She lived in India in 2008 and 2010 while teaching at Srishti in Bangalore and has been a mentor at many workshops in Europe and Asia. As director she has made four documentary and dance films. In films, she gets excited by the symbiosis of the ‘how’ and the ‘what’.
USA
Carmen L. Vicencio is Supervising Director at American Documentary Inc. She leads special, strategic initiatives at the company, working directly with the Executive Director on building support, consensus and investment for key projects. She is currently designing a project to position non-fiction film as a vital public resource and infrastructure. Alongside this work, she’s launching a newly acquired YouTube documentary channel, bringing back two independent doc strands on TV and online, and continuing to program for her organization’s public television showcase, POV. Prior to independent documentaries, Carmen worked on narrative features as well as advertising commercials across Asia and the U.S. She loves films that demonstrate a clear editorial voice and vision, and thoughtful, creative storytelling that both challenge and entertain audiences.
Head of the Jury
Finland
Karin Pennanen is a director and screenwriter working in both documentary and fiction. She has a background in theatre and holds an MA in scenography from Aalto University. She went on to study film in Norway at the Nordland School of Arts and Film in the Lofoten Islands. Her films explore human relationships, memory and personal experience through a distinctive cinematic approach. Her acclaimed feature documentary “Days of Wonder” premiered at PÖFF in 2025, where it won the Doc@PÖFF International Competition, and later received the Best National Documentary Award at DocPoint in Helsinki and the Jury Special Prize at Tampere Film Festival. Karin appreciates films with an original voice that use the possibilities of the medium in bold ways.
Ukraine
Roman Bondarchuk is a Ukrainian filmmaker, artistic director of Docudays UA and co-founder of the Ukraine War Archive. His film “Ukrainian Sheriffs” won IDFA’s Special Jury Award and was Ukraine’s official Oscar submission. His documentary “Dixie Land” won the Golden Duke for Best Ukrainian Film. His fiction debut “Volcano” premiered at Karlovy Vary and has won 12 awards, including Ukraine’s Shevchenko National Prize. His latest film “The Editorial Office” premiered in the Berlinale in 2024.
“I value films that surprise me scene by scene, their pattern unfolding unpredictably yet forming a harmonious lacework – films in which I cannot tell where exactly the opening sequence ends or the third act begins. I am drawn to bold cinematic statements: films that notice the irony already present in life, and dare to say where they stand.” – Roman Bondarchuk
Mexico
Israel Bañuelos Loreto is a Mexican sound designer and re-recording mixer, he is the founder of Acousmatic Film Sound, a sound post-production studio based in Estonia. His collaborations on more than 100 films have been showcased in numerous festivals including Venice, TIFF, Cannes, HotDocs, Annecy, Red Sea and more. He’s been a guest lecturer at the Baltic Film and Media School in Tallinn and at the Lithuanian National Film School in Vilnius. He is a member of the European Film Academy and the Motion Pictures Sound Editors. His cinematic sensibility resonates with films that are honest, bold and vulnerable, films that expand the language of cinema, and that explore the complexities and contradictions of the human experience. He sees cinema as a vehicle for empathy, reflection, and a deeper understanding of ourselves and others.
Germany
After ten years working in the German cinema industry, Michel Rieck founded his own editorial platform specialising in film criticism, interviews and festival coverage in 2020. He regularly produces video interviews with national and international filmmakers and actors that have included Chloé Zhao, Richard Gere, Guy Ritchie, Jon M. Chu. Alongside this, he occasionally works for a public radio station and various magazines. As he watches up to 750 films per year, there is no film he isn’t interested in, but he prefers modern, creative, independent arthouse films with political and social criticism and likes to find unconventional ideas in storytelling and filmmaking techniques. In 2026, he served on the Film Critics Jury for documentary and feature films at the Max Ophüls Preis Film Festival.
Ukraine
Nataliia Serebriakova is a Berlin-based Ukrainian film critic and journalist with more than 15 years of experience. She writes for international and Ukrainian publications including. She curated Kyiv Critics’ Week in 2018, has been a member of the Ukrainian Film Critics Union since 2018, and has served as Programme Manager of the Scanorama Film Festival since 2022. She has also programmed Ukrainian Days at La Cinémathèque Française. She is a FIPRESCI member, a Golden Globes voter (2024–2026), and has served on juries at film festivals in Zurich, Palić, Miskolc, Warsaw and TIFF. She is also the originator of the AI short film “Distance Between Two Points of Me”, which was a finalist at the Webby Awards 2026. Her path into film criticism was shaped by French cinema, David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks”, and the work of critics such as David Hudson and Richard Brody. Her favourite filmmakers include Andrzej Żuławski, Terrence Malick and Michelangelo Antonioni. As a critic and juror, Nataliia values cinema that takes risks and searches for new forms of expression. She is particularly drawn to experimental approaches, unconventional narrative structures and films that challenge established cinematic language rather than simply reproducing familiar formulas.
Estonia
Ralf Sauter is an Estonian journalist and film critic who works in the culture section of the newspaper Postimees and is a member of the Estonian Film Journalists’ Association. For ten years, he has hosted a weekly film programme “Kinovärgiga mandariin” on the radio stations Raadio 2 and Retro FM. In 2023, he received the Jaan Tõnisson Media Award for his short-form film reviews written for Postimees, and in 2026, he was named Film Journalist of the Year by the Estonian Film Journalists' Association. Ralf served on the FIPRESCI jury at PÖFF in 2024 and has participated in the festival as a journalist for over a decade. He has contributed film-related articles to various Estonian cultural publications and newspapers.
Estonia
Jan Kaus is an Estonian writer, essayist, translator, and poet. He has published over twenty books and has translated primarily Finnish literature. Jan served as the chairman of the Estonian Writers' Union from 2004 to 2007, and since 2009, he has organised the HeadRead International Literary Festival in Tallinn. He has written two opera librettos and performed music in both rock and jazz bands; he has also participated in exhibitions as both an artist and a curator, and in recent years, he has become increasingly involved in the live performance of literature. Jan is a member of the Estonian Association of Film Journalists, and in 2019, he received an award from the magazine Theatre. Music. Cinema for his essays on film. He has also worked as a script editor for several Estonian feature films, including Veiko Õunpuu’s “Autumn Ball” (2007).
India
Supriya Suri is the Founder of the Creative Economy Forum (CEF) and a Film Producer and Director with over 15 years of experience across cinema and the creative industries. An Égide Scholar, she trained in film direction at the Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français in Paris and has produced documentary and feature films through Maison Su Entertainment. She has been nominated by the U.S. Government for the prestigious International Visitor Leadership Programme (IVLP). Through CEF, she leads national and international dialogues on India’s creative economy, bringing together policymakers, industry leaders and creative practitioners. She has also spearheaded the Sikkim International Film Festival and served on juries at national and international film festivals, including Kerala IFF and Kolkata IFF. Her work extends to cultural diplomacy and India’s creative and cultural exchanges globally.
Sri Lanka
Vindana Ariyawansa is a Sri Lankan writer-director-producer whose introspective, socially resonant films blend emotional authenticity with technical precision. His directorial debut, “Dirty, Yellow, Darkness” (“Premaya Nam”, 2015), co-directed with his brother Kalpana and drawn from his own decade-long experience with OCD, screened at the Beijing International Film Festival, Bangalore International Film Festival, and Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema (Best Feature Film), with further screenings in London, Shanghai, Kerala, Goa, New Delhi, Florida and Chicago. His latest work “The Storybook Daughter” (“Malaki Duwe Numba”) was nominated for NETPAC Award for Best Asian Film at the 31st Kolkata International Film Festival. As a viewer and juror, Vindana is drawn to films that approach difficult, often stigmatised subjects with honesty rather than spectacle and stories that trust silence, restraint, and lived detail to carry emotional truth.