International Jury
Tara Najd Ahmadi
Born in Tehran, Tara Najd Ahmadi is a scholar, artist, and non-fiction filmmaker. Her recent body of work focuses on creating a panorama of untold, marginalised stories that can be gleaned through unofficial oral histories. In that space, she is interested in the ways in which thinking and resisting subjects withstand their times and deal with unagreeable results. Her essay films have been shown in various venues, including the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, the Institute of Contemporary Arts London, and the Burchfield Penney Art Centre. In 2019, she received her Ph.D. in Visual and Cultural Studies from the University of Rochester (NY), where she was awarded the George Eastman Museum graduate fellowship. Her film collection is preserved at the Slovenian Cinematheque.
Andrius Blaževičius
Andrius Blaževičius, who was born in 1985 in Vilnius. He earned a master's degree in film directing at the Lithuanian Music and Theatre Academy. Ten Reasons (2011), his final short film, won two Lithuanian Film Academy Awards, while The Saint (2016), his debut feature film, won six Lithuanian Film Academy Awards, premiered at the Warsaw and Busan Film Festivals, and became one of the most well-received Lithuanian independent films. His sophomore film, Runner (2021), premiered at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. Runner has won two Lithuanian Film Academy Awards, one each for the main and supporting actresses. Andrius reads scripts at the Lithuanian Film Centre and, on occasion, serves as a jury member at international film festivals. Since 2010, he has also been a member of the selection committee at Vilnius ISFF.
Borjana Gaković
Borjana Gaković is a film and media scholar, curator, and author, as well as film and cinema culture lecturer. Her work focuses on the representations of history and the mediality of historiography, European cinema of the 1960s, women and film, and war and trauma in film. Borjana was the German Association of Municipal and Cultural Cinemas’ media representative (2017–2021) and the editor of the cinema quarterly Kinema Kommunal. Since 2020, she has served on the Programme and Selection Committee of DOK Leipzig, the International Leipzig Festival of Documentary and Animated Film. Borjana has worked on a variety of film, theatre, exhibition, and media theory projects, including co-curating the film programme Materiality of Memories.
Film Critics’ Jury
Ana Jurc
Ana Jurc has been a reporter and film critic at the MMC RTV Slovenija for over 15 years. She is a member of the FIPRESCI federation of critics and has been one of the jurors at the Festival of Slovenian Film and the Ljubljana International Film Festival (Liffe). In addition, she helped choose the winner of the Melies d'argent award at the 18th Grossmann Fantastic Film and Wine Festival. Occasionally, Ana also contributes to the ARS radio and the Ekran magazine.
Maruša Kuret
Maruša Kuret has a master’s in sociology and French, so it is not surprising that she is especially fond of French films. She used to volunteer at film festivals until she fell in love with writing film reviews, which she now publishes in the Ekran magazine.
Muanis Sinanović
Muanis Sinanović is a film critic, a writer, and a poet. His film reviews are published in Ekran and the Kino! journal or broadcast on Ars Radio. He has received the Stritar Award for Young Critics, as well as the Slovene Literary Critics Association Award and the Best First Book Award.