Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 

41st Karlovy Vary IFF

June 30 - July 8, 2006

East of the West Jury

The East of the West Jury who will be presenting the prizes in the East of the West - Competitive section.

Gulnara Abikeyeva – Chairman

Gulnara Abikeyeva, director of the Centre for Central Asian Cinematography in Almaty, Kazakhstan, studied film science at the State Institute of Cinematography in Moscow (VGIK), where she also did a doctorate on cultural interaction. She is the Artistic Director of the Eurasia IFF. She has an extensive series of academic, publishing and teaching achievements behind her, both at home and abroad. She is particularly interested in Central Asian cinema and new Kazakh film, and was a consultant for the Kazakh film retrospective organised at Karlovy Vary in 1999.

Stefan Kitanov

Stefan Kitanov is Director of the Sofia IFF and has been organising the event since 2001. He studied economics and film science at the National Academy of Theatre and Film (1991). During the years 1992 to 1999 Kitanov was Director and Programmer of Cinema House, the most important art-house film centre in Bulgaria. In 2003 Kitanov was a member of the Opera Prima jury at the Venice IFF, and a year later he was Chairman of the Europa Cinemas jury for the section Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes. Kitanov is also a successful film producer and distributor.

Michaela Pavlátová

Michaela Pavlátová is one of the best known Czech creators of animated film. She graduated from the School of Applied Arts in Prague (1987), specialising in film and television graphics under Associate Professor Miloslav Jágr. In her highly original films, which take the form of existential anecdotes on the various pitfalls of love and precarious communication, she makes use of her expressive drawing skills through which she tries to cross the boundaries of standard stereotypes. All her animated works have been awarded at domestic and international festivals and she also received an Oscar nomination in 1993 for the film Words, Words, Words and a Golden Bear at the Berlin IFF for the film Repete (1995). After her tale from the film Prague Stories (1999) and the documentary On Grandma (2000), she made the feature film Faithless Games, awarded at the San Sebastian IFF in 2003. She completed the animated film Carnival of the Animals in 2006.

Ray Privett

Ray Privett is an American film distributor and programme director for the independent cinema Pioneer Theater in New York City, focused on foreign and genre films, which hosted a screening of films from Central and Eastern Europe this May, entitled Brave New Europe: New Films from and about Central and Eastern Europe. Privett was Program Director of the Chicago International Documentary Festival in 2003 and 2004. He regularly publishes articles in specialist magazines. In 2003 he presented the “Golem Trilogy” by Amos Gitai in Karlovy Vary.

Swetlana Sikora

Swetlana Sikora, Artistic Director and co-founder of the festival of Central and Eastern European film “goEast” in Wiesbaden, studied the history and aesthetics of film and theatre and art history at the State Institute of Cinematography in Moscow (VGIK). She worked as an editor for the film magazine Kinas in Lithuania. She has been working for the German film institute DIF in Frankfurt since 1992 and has been securing the programme for the “goEast” festival since 2001. She regularly publishes in Russian and Lithuanian specialist magazines and is a contributor for radio and television film programmes.