JURY

BIKET ILHAN
director, producer

Biket Ilhan

Biket Ilhan started her professional career as assistant director in 1981 and has worked with well known directors until 1988.

She has worked for National TV films as director. Then established her own production company and directed and produced 6 feature films and some TV work, also co-produced Greek and Bulgarian features supported by Eurimages.

As a board member, she is a member of the Turkish Producers’ association and the See Cinema Network representing Turkish Ministry of Culture. Currently she is the vise president of Directors’ Association. Meanwhile she is doing a feature film project in co-production with Greece, working title ‘Lost Miracle’. Planning shootings October 2011.

Filmography:
As director and producer: Nazim Hikmet - Blue Eyed Giant (feature, 2007), Ayın Karanlık Yüzü/ Dark Side Of the Moon (2005, feature), Kayıkçı/Boatman (1999, feature), Sokaktaki Adam/The Man in the Street (1995, feature);
As co-producer: His Life’s Sole Journey (2000, feature), Unwanted (documentary, 1999)
TV Work, director: Kurtlar Sofrası/Feast of The Wolves (1997, TV series), Senin Için Bir Kadeh/A Toast For You (1993, TV film), Bir Kadın Yüzü/A Woman’s Face (1992, TV film), Tele-Flash (1991, TV series).


BRANISLAVA DZUNOV
journalist, film critic

BRANISLAVA DZUNOV

In Serbia, Branislava Džunov-Stošić applies to the most renowned expert on television and film. She graduated in journalism from the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade. Journalist's longstanding culture and criticism of film and television's oldest daily newspaper in the Balkans - Politika.
On radio, she directed the show Why I love TV.

Outstanding expert in global production in television and film. For a long time artistic director of documentary films for the MEFEST SRBI. She was a member of the jury at the festival in Monte Carlo, Plovdiv, Montreux. She now works for the Serbian edition of the Swiss daily newspaper Blic.

Married, two sons. She speaks French.


ELENA YONTCHEVA
journalist

Elena YontchevaElena Yontcheva is a renowned freelance journalist. She has made many documentary films in some the world’s hottest spots. She has been at the heart of the conflicts in Kosovo, Algeria, Chechnya, Israel, Afghanistan, Iraq, Venezuela and Colombia. She was born in 1964. In the year when the Berlin Wall fell down she graduated TV journalism with honors at Lomonosov Moscow State University. She began work for the Bulgarian National television, and later developed an impressive work record – by 1999 she was a reporter and editor of the Panorama weekly political magazine; she founded and authored the Reporter section; For two years she worked in the information feature of the Bulgarian National Television – Team 4. She specialized at Oxford, BBC - London and Cardiff, and The German Marshall Found and United States Information Agency in the United States. She taught investigative journalism at the New Bulgarian University in Sofia 1998-2000. In 2000 she founded the “Authors TV” producing company and continued working as author and producer of TV documentaries. She has been awarded the prize for Bulgaria’s best TV reporter 1995-2000 without exception. Some of the work that has attracted the attention and interest of the TV audience are the documentary films Sarajevo, The Russian Elections – Who Said Perestroika?, The New Colours of South Africa, Bosnia’95 – the Last Summer of War?, The White Wolves, The Russian Tango, Welcome to Afghanistan, Ten Days in Kosovo, Japan – Profile of a Nation, Iraq – the 21st Day, Ukraine – the Orange Revolution, the Common Borders documentary series in six installments filmed in UK and Bulgaria, Iraq – two years later, Azerbaidjan – the big challenge, Azerbaidjan – the petrol revolution, etc.


EMILIYA STOEVA
cinematographer, lecturer

Emiliya Stoeva

Ass. Prof. Dr. Emiliya Stoeva is a lecturer of cinematography in the National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts “Kr. Sarafov”, Sofia, Bulgaria. She has been Director of Photography on over 40 documentaries, popular science and corporate films in ‘Vreme’ Studio. Co-founder of the first Bulgarian creative association for film and TV commercials Emmy Action Team. Emiliya Stoeva has participated in numerous seminars, local and international workshops and other activities, being the organizer in many of them. She has presented reports in many international practical application conferences - Istanbul, Tel Aviv, The Netherlands, Moscow and others. She has taught lecture courses in many cinematographic schools including Vilnius (Lithuania), Bratislava (Slovakia). She was a jury of numerous national and international short film festivals.

Emiliya Stoeva has over 30 articles in technical journals on the problems of documentary filmmaking, student films and cinematography. He is the author of 4 books in the same area. Particularly popular and appreciated by professionals and students are her books The Visual Marriage of Electronic and Photochemical Film and English-Bulgarian Dictionary for Photo, Film and Video Terms and Definitions, which was issued twice. Emiliya Stoeva is a favorite lecturer of film students, who recognize her not only as an erudite adviser and assistant, but also as a loyal friend.

Asst. prof. Dr. Emiliya Stoeva is the Vice President of Academica 21 Association – the association of the academic Screen Arts lecturers.


LINDA O. OLSZEWSKI

Linda O. Olszewski Head Acquisition Executive for Oscar Shorts theatrical, iTunes, VOD, TV and airline releases for the Academy Award nominated short films.

Linda O. Olszewski co-heads world acquisitions of Shorts International Ltd. – the largest company distributing short films and for ShortsHDTV, Shorts on iTunes, Oscar Shorts.

She has an extensive studio feature and doc production background (Shrek, The Road To El Dorado, Prince of Egypt, Last Images of War, Los Voladores de Ueuetla, The Life of David Gale, car-ma, Cannes or Bust, Reality Bites, Cohen and Tate).

She has participated in numerous global film festival juries and panels, where she has made it her mission to explain the ins and outs of the short film world, the path to Oscar and the rules on how to qualify a short for consideration for the Oscar short film live-action, animation and documentary categories.

Linda O. Olszewski has served as senior programmer of the Palm Springs Short Film Festival, Programmer for the Newport Beach Film Festival and also as a feature, doc and shorts screener for the Sundance Film Festival.


MALGORZATA POTOCKA
actress, movie director and producer

Malgorzata Potocka Studied at the School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź: acting (1975-78) and film directing (1978-82).

As a film artist she played lead roles in almost 30 movies, making her debut 1968 in Andrzej Wajda's Everything for Sale (Wszystko na sprzedarz). Personal art forms include: photography, experimental film, video, performance and music;

Malgorzata Potocka is one of the cofounders of the Polish Association of the Independent Film Producers and was its first president until 1994.

In 1989 she founded the first private Polish film company, M.M. Potocka Productions, which she is in charge of until now. The company has produced many feature films for both Polish and International producers.

2006 – 2010, she was director of the State TV channel 3 (Lodz).

In 1975 Malgorzata Potocka received The Zbyszek Cybulski Award.


MILA NOVIKOVA
Head of the Selection Board and co-founder of the Kyiv IFF Molodist

Mila Novikova

Film critic and festival organizer. The author of a study on contemporary Ukrainian cinema.

In the 90's led the Department of Audiovisual Arts Institute for Cultural Policy and the Information Department of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine.

Works in the festival business since the late 80's.

Since 1989 she is a member of the Kyiv IFF Molodist (www.molodist.com) directorate of the festival. In 2000-2008 headed the program division of the festival.

In 2003-2006 she was the program director of the International Documentary Film Festival "Contact".

A FIPRESCI member.


ROUJA KOLEVA
animation professional

Rouja Koleva

Rouja Koleva is an animation professional with over 12 years of experience, specializing in feature animated films, animated TV series and shorts. Rouja has extensive knowledge and experience in different areas of the animation field. She has been involved in animation; design; lay-out and production work. She was born and studied animation in Sofia, Bulgaria. In 1997 Rouja moved to Budapest, Hungary where she worked for Varga and Loonland studios on Babar, King of the Elephants, Pettson and Findus, Kipper and other projects. Two years later it was time for her next stop - Toronto, Canada, where she worked as a character animator on Dreamworks' Joseph, King of Dreams and later as a lay-out artist on Prodigal Son. A year later Rouja relocated to Montreal where she worked for the large Canadian studio Cinar, doing lay-out and character posing for children's TV series including the award-winning Arthur and Caillou

In 2000, Rouja was offered the position of a lead character animator (Mme Souza) on the acclaimed Animated feature film The Triplets of Belleville, a.k.a. Belleville Rendezvous, directed by Sylvain Chomet.  At a later stage of the project she also worked as a 2D Special Effects Supervisor.

Rouja then moved to Berlin, Germany, where she did storyboards for the German/American BFC Studio on the Warner Bros TV series Boom Crew. In 2004 she moved to Edinburgh, United Kingdom to work at Sylvain Chomet's newly formed Studio Django. She was involved in the early stages of the development of his latest Oscar-nominated film The Illusionist (doing animation for the pitch). In addition Rouja did animation for various commercials produced at Django. In 2005 she became a Company Director and partner at Pop-Off Productions, a small animation; production design and art direction company in Edinburgh. Two years later she took a job offer in London, United Kingdom to work as a designer on the Universal Studio’s 3D animated feature The Tale of Despereaux. After the completion of the design work for the film Rouja became a Coordinator/Supervisor of the Art Department.

Currently Rouja is residing in Los Angeles, California with her husband and young daughter. She speaks Fluent English, Spanish and Bulgarian and basic French and Russian.


SANDI SISSEL
cinematographer, director, lecturer

Sandi SisselSandi Sissel began her career as a cinematographer at NBC and ABC where she received two Emmy awards on Her Majestys Britannia and coverage of the war in Vietnam. During the 70’s and 80’s she shot countless segments for ABC’s 20/20, Saturday Night Live and 60 minutes.

Sandi served as Director Of Photography on the Oscar nominated motion picture Salaam Bombay which also received the Camera D’Or at Cannes. In addition she photographed Yellow Card, Barneys Great Adventure, Drug Wars, Soul Of The Game, The Reef, Camp Nowhere, Full Eclipse, Double Switch, Drop Dead Fred, Drag Strip Girl, The People Under The Stairs, Passions Way, New York Minute, and Tyler Perrys Meet The Browns.

Among her numerous Oscar and Emmy winning documentary credits are Seeing Red, The Wobblies, Americas In Transition, Mother Teresa, Jane Goodall: Chimps So Like Us, Blood In The Face, Chicken Ranch, Broken Treaty At Battle Mountain, Krik Krak Tales Of A Nightmare, Calling The Shots, Speaking Our Peace, Heavy Petting, Chisholm 72: Unbought and Unbossed, Free Angela, Witness To War, Going Upriver: The Long War Of John Kerry, Lord God Bird, One Heartbeat and Before Stonewall. She received a Bafta nomination for her work on The Endurance. She photographed the Imax film Roving Mars.

She has done 2nd unit photography on major films including Uncle, Dangerous Minds, Black Knight, Exit Wounds, Rock Star, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Roommates, Daredevil, Stealing Harvard, The Believers, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Allan Quartermain and The City of Lost Gold, The Ballad Of Jack and Rose, Blow, Cellular and the Oscar winning Master and Commander: The Far Side Of The World. She also received a Satellite Award nomination for Master and Commander.

In addition she has been Director Of Photography on several network television and mini-series including Class Of 96, The Flash, Young Americans, Matt Waters, Philly Heat, Night Stalker, Night Sins and two Emmy winning shows Wonder Years and Drug Wars: The Camarana Story. Among her cable and television movie credits are In The Echo, Toothless, Suddenly, Radiant City, Great Mom Swap, Dad, The Angel and Me, In The Company Of Darkness, Keeping Secrets, Its Nothing Personal and For Richer, For Poorer.  

Sandi directed Chicken Ranch which won Sundance and Bafta awards in addition to Highwire, Cowgirls, Looking Good America and HBOs Nerve: Natacha Merritt.  

In 1994 Sandi received the Kodak Crystal Award for lifetime achievement from Women In Film. She has appeared in the films Visions Of Light, Shooting Women and Women Behind The Lens.  

Sandi is a member of the International Photographers Guild Local 600 and Women In Film. She was inducted into the American Society Of Cinematographers in 1994 and the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2004. 

Sandi presently serves as Head of Cinematography in the graduate film program at New York University. 


VICTORIA MARINESCU
producer, script writer, director

VICTORIA  MARINESCU Victoria Marinescu worked exclusively in the field of film for 30 years.

She was born in Bucharest. Graduated from the Bucharest University (Faculty of Philology), gained a diploma of a postgraduate journalism course.

1966 -2000 she worked for RTV as a film producer, scriptwriter, director.

1977 - 1994 she headed the TV Film Studio, and 1994-2000 Victoria Marinescu was its deputy director.

1991 – 1996 she was Vice President of the Romanian Scriptwriter's Association within UCIN (Romanian Film Makers’ Union).

1990 – 1993 she was Vice President of the A.P.T.R.(The Association of the Roumanian TV Professionals).

1991 – 1992 she was Deputy Editor in chief of the Balkan Media Magazine.

1996 – 2008 she was President of the Scriptwriter's Association (within UCIN).

At present Victoria Marinescu is President of the Scriptwriter's Association within UCIN and member of the board of UCIN.