International Documentary Competition

Jacek Petrycki

Chairperson
Poland

Born in 1948, he is a cinematographer, documentary and feature film director and a scriptwriter with a degree from the Cinematography Department of the Film School in Łódź. As a cameraman, he debuted in 1971 filming documentaries. The several dozen documentaries he has co-created as an author of photography include films by Krzysztof Kieślowski, Marcel Łoziński (including the Oscar nominee “89 mm from Europe”), Tomasz Zygadło and Bohdan Kosiński – the artists representing the so-called “cinema of moral anxiety”. Since 1976, he has also worked on feature films with, among others, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Agnieszka Holland and Andrzej Wajda. His achievements include photography for the television theatre and features and documentaries for Channel 4 and the BBC, with which he has collaborated since 1987. He has won numerous awards, including a BAFTA Award for photography to the documentary “The Betrayed” (1995, dir. Clive Gordon).

Talal Derki

Germany, Syria

Born in 1977 in the family of Syrian Kurds in Damascus, he works as a film director, scriptwriter and a producer. After the completion of his film study in Athens, he made films and television programmes for Arabic stations as a director’s assistant. He has also worked as a cinematographer for CNN and Thomson Reuters. Already an author of several short films, he debuted in 2013 with the feature film “The Return to Homs”, which was shot in extreme conditions and involved the participation of the revolutionaries defending the city. The film received over twenty awards, including those at IDFA in Amsterdam, in Sundance, in Zagreb and the Silver Horn at the Krakow Film Festival in 2014. His next picture “Of Fathers and Sons”, a documentary about the “children of the caliphate”, turned out to be an even greater success. Along with numerous awards, it won an Oscar nomination in the category of a documentary feature.

Marja Pallassalo

Finland

Since the 1980s, she has been actively involved in the promotion of documentary and short films.

In 1998-2018 she worked for the Finnish Film Foundation where she was in charge of the international promotion of Finnish documentaries and short films. At present, she is a PhD student of Cultural History at the University of Turku in Finland. In her research, she explores the transnational entanglement of direct documentary films of the turn of the 1950s in the US and France as well as in Canada and the UK. “My love for and interest in documentary films rise up from their capacity to escape definitions and the ability to show us the several layers of time”.

Shane Smith

Canada

He is the Director of Programming at Hot Docs, North America’s largest Festival and Market for documentary film. Smith previously worked at the Toronto International Film Festival as Director of Special Projects, and Director of Public Programs. Prior to TIFF, he was Executive Producer, In-Flight Entertainment, Spafax, overseeing all entertainment on Air Canada; Director of Programming at Channel Zero Inc; Director of the CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival; Short Film Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, and Programming Director for Inside Out LGBT Film Festival. Smith has served on juries or participated in panels at festivals and events around the world including Sundance, Cannes, TIFF, Sheffield Doc Fest, DocNYC, IDA, DMZ Docs, IDFA, Tokyo Docs, the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, the Guadalajara International Film Festival, and the Bangkok International Film Festival.

Ágnes Sós

Hungary

She is an internationally acclaimed documentary film director, cinematographer, scriptwriter and producer who worked as an editor and a director for the Hungarian National Television for 11 years. Since 1991, she has made about 30 feature-length and short documentaries. They have been screened and awarded across the world (including “Invisible Strings” and “Stream of Love”). She is a co-founder of the Budapest International Documentary Festival, the first prestigious international competition of the genre in Hungary, and a laureate of the Balázs Béla Prize, the most important award in Hungarian cinematography.

International Short Film Competition

Xawery Żuławski

Chairperson
Poland

He made his debut with the film “Chaos” for which he received, among others, the Golden Lions for the Best Directing Debut in 2006 at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia and the Grand Prix “Great Jantar” at the Koszalin Debut Film Festival “Youth&Film” in 2007. One of his greatest directing successes so far is the adaptation of Dorota Masłowska’s novel “White and Red” produced in 2009. For this film he received, among others , the Silver Lions at the Gdynia Film Festival, the Audience Award at the International Off Camera Film Festival in Krakow, the prize at the International Film Festival “Tofifest” in Toruń or the Wrocław Film Award in the “New Polish Cinema” competition at the “New Horizons” International Film Festival . He also directed highly praised drama series as “Diagnosis”, “Summer’s Blood” or “Agatha’s Law”. He recently finished shooting his latest film “Mowa ptaków (Birds Speech).

 

Zbigniew Czapla

Poland

Born in 1972, he works as a screenwriter, film director, animator, painter and a graphic designer. He graduated from the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. His experimental animated films have been awarded at film festivals in Poland and abroad. He has been a scholar of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation (Canada), DAAD (Germany) and the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. He is a member of ASIFA, the International Animated Film Society.

Mohammad Fahimi

Iran

A graduate of Tarbiat Modarres University in Tehran, Iran, he has worked for the Iranian National and International Television producing documentaries for the latter, among others. He is Director of International Affairs at the Iranian Youth Cinema Society and Artistic Director of the Tehran Short Film Festival, where he has also been Head of the selection committee. He has organised numerous cultural short film events in collaboration with foreign embassies, both in Iran and outside its borders.

He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Short Film Conference, an international body for short films

Alexei Medvedev

Born in 1969 in Moscow, he studied Film Directing under the tutorship of Arkady Sirenko at Moscow’s VGIK in 1989-1994. In the 1990s he pursued his career as a journalist, film critic and a translator. He has been a member of the selection committee of the Moscow International Film Festival and a programmer at the festival in Cannes and many other film events. Since 2012, he has co-organised the Sakhalin IFF “On the Edge”. He also curates film festivals in Yakutsk, Arkhangelsk and Kaliningrad. His primary occupation, however, is the Director of competition programmes for the IFF “Message to Man” in Saint Petersburg.

Sari Volanen

A commissioning editor for short and documentary films at YLE (Finnish Broadcasting company), she started her career in television over 30 years ago. Currently, she works at YLE’s co-production department producing films, primarily with Finnish independent film makers and producers. She is in charge of the short and doc film strand called New Cinema on YLE Teema channel. When she was a film student in Finland, she also participated in such training programmes as EAVE – training in 1999, Eurodoc 2006 and Sources 2 – Documentary Mentor training 2008. She holds a Master’s degree in Arts.

Międzynarodowy Konkurs DocFilmMusic

Brett Morgen

Chairperson
USA

A director, screenwriter and a producer. In 1992 he earned his BA in Mythology and US History from Hampshire College and in 1999 – MFA in Film from New York University. His graduation film “On the Ropes” (1999) received, among others, the Special Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival and an Oscar nomination in 2000. His consecutive pictures have been screened and awarded internationally, including “The Kid Stays in the Picture” (2002) – which premiered in Cannes, “Chicago 10” (2007) – which was honoured with an Emmy Award, “Crossfire Hurricane” (2012), “Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck” (2015) – a laureate of the IDA Creative Recognition Award and “Jane” (2017) – a winner of the Primetime Emmy Award. He produces television series and programmes (e.g. “Nimrod Nation”) as well as advertisements (for Nike, HSBC and Marlboro, among others).

Adam Thorsmark

Denmark

Born in 1985. He has a Master’s degree in Film and Media Studies from the University of Copenhagen. Since 2011, he has been a programmer and the head of music at CPH:DOX, the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, where he is responsible for the programme of AUDIO:VISUALS, a curated and collaborative concert series with bands and visual artists, and Sound & Vision, a music dBocumentary film section. Previously, he worked at the music and culture magazine “Soundvenue” as an editorial staff member.

Mikołaj Trzaska

Poland

Born in Gdańsk, he is a saxophonist, bass clarinettist, film music composer and the key figure of the Polish improvisation scene. He grew up on yass, an artistic and social movement which rebelled against fossilised jazz circles at the turn of the 1980s. He co-founded Miłość, the most prominent yass band, and Łoskot. He has collaborated with many artists on musical and literary projects. He is a leader of the international trio Volumen, a member of the supergroup Bassisters Orchestra and a member of Shofar, a band performing Jewish music. In his artistic endeavours, he primarily focuses on radical free jazz collaborating with such international giants of free improvisation as Peter Brötzmann, Joe McPhee, Ken Vandermark, Peter Friis Nielsen, Michael Zerang, Clementine Gasser, John Tchicai and Noel Akchote. He is also a recognised film and theatre music composer who regularly cooperates with Wojciech Smarzowski, among others.

National Competition

Maciej Karpiński

Chairperson
Poland

A scriptwriter, author, dramatist, essayist and a translator, he has authored or co-authored scripts for such films as “A Lonely Woman” (dir. Agnieszka Holland, 1981), “Game is Over” (dir. Feliks Falk, 1991), “The Ring with a Crowned Eagle” (dir. Andrzej Wajda, 1992), “Far from Each Other” (dir. Feliks Falk, 1995), “The Purim Miracle” (dir. Izabella Cywińska, 2001), “Little Rose” (dir. Jan Kidawa-Błoński, 2011) or “The Fastest” (dir. Łukasz Palkowski, 2017). He has also written novels, books about theatre and film, theatrical plays and stage adaptations as well as numerous essays and articles. In 1990-1994 he was Deputy President of the Polish Filmmakers Association and currently he presides over the Scriptwriters Club at this association. In 1992-2005 he was Artistic Director of the Polish Feature Film Festival in Gdynia and in 2005-2010 – representative of the Director of the Polish Film Institute in charge of international relations. He is a member of the Polish Film Academy, the European Film Academy and the Board of the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe.

Weronika Bilska

Poland

A cinematographer, graduate of the Radio and Television Faculty of the University of Silesia in Katowice and a member of the Polish Society of Cinematographers, she has been an author of photography to several documentary and short films screened and recognised at festivals in Poland and abroad. She is a laureate of the Golden Tadpole (2009) presented at the Camerimage Festival and a double winner of the Jan Machulski Polish Independent Cinema Award (in 2014 and 2018). Her first feature film “How to Disappear Completely” was created in 2014 in collaboration with Przemysław Wojcieszek. Since then, she has shot “Camper” (2016, dir. Łukasz Grzegorzek) and “Waves” (2016, dir. Grzegorz Zariczny) as well as the next two films of the same directors intended for cinema distribution – “A Coach’s Daughter” by Łukasz Grzegorzek, which came out in March, and “Simple Things” by Grzegorz Zariczny, currently at the post-production stage.

Damian Nenow

Poland

A graduate of the Film School in Łódź, he entered the international animation scene with the short films “The Aim” and “The Great Escape”. His position among the best European short filmmakers was solidified when he made “Paths of Hate” (2010), a winner of 25 awards which was short-listed for an Oscar and screened at over 90 festivals. His achievements include the documentary “City of Ruins”, the social spot “Hunger is a Tyrant”, game cinematics for “Watch_Dogs 2”, “Skull & Bones” or “Crossfire HD” and the short film “Fish Night” made for Netflix. In 2018, his animation “Another Day of Life”, developed together with Raúl de la Fuente, won the European Film Award for the Best Animated Feature Film. Screened across the world, the film has been honoured with numerous prizes.

Marta Prus

Poland

A graduate of the Film Directing Department at the Film School in Łódź, she has currently joined a PhD programme. She is a double winner of the Award of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage for outstanding artistic achievements and a recipient of the Wiesław Nowicki Prize for the most promising young filmmaker. After her debut with the award-winning documentary feature “Over the Limit” in November 2017, her name was included in Variety magazine’s prestigious list of 10 European talents whose careers should be followed closely. She is an author of such recognised film studies as Vakha and Magomed” (2010), “Eighteenth Birthday” (2012), “Talk to Me” (2015) and “Hot and Cold” (2017). She has also made the documentary series “Teen Mom Poland” (2014) and worked as the director of the second crew for the film series “Illegals” for Canal+ (2018).

Tomasz Raczek

Poland

A graduate of the Aleksander Zelwerowicz Theatre Academy in Warsaw, he is a film critic who has published his articles in such newspapers and magazines as Polityka, Rzeczpospolita, Przegląd Tygodniowy, Kino and Film. He is an author of many popular television programmes, including the legendary “Perły z lamusa” co-hosted with Zygmunt Kałużyński on TVP2. He was Deputy Director in charge of programming at TVP2 (1989-1990) and Director of the television channel nFilmHD. He has been Literary Director for the Komedia Theatre in Warsaw, the Muzyczny Theatre in Gdynia, the Rozrywka Theatre in Chorzów and the Oko Film Studio. He was Editor in Chief of the Polish edition of Playboy (1992-1997) as well as Voyage (1999-2000) and Film (2012-2013). In January 2017, he became Editor in Chief of Magazyn Filmowy. In 2002, he founded Instytut Wydawniczy Latarnik, a publishing house. He is an author of a 5-volume cinema lexicon “Perły kina” (in collaboration with Z. Kałużyński).

FIPRESCI

Irena Kotelovich

Belarus

Nino Kovačić

Croatia

Nachum Mochiach

Israel

FICC

Anita Moe

Norway

Grzegorz Pieńkowski

Poland

Michael Schäfer

Germany

Students’ Jury

Dominika Dąbek, Agata Grudzień, Natalia Klejdysz, Jędrzej Kościński, Małgorzata Mączko, Marta Pęcak, Maja Sanders, Viktoriia Semenska, Bartek Tesarz, Wojciech Tutaj, Iga Wójtowicz, Małgorzata Zagórska, Dorota Żak

Poland