News We are introducing juries of the 52nd Karlovy Vary IFF

Published: June 19, 2017| 10:35 AM

Grand Jury

Anna Brüggemann

German actress and screenwriter. Born in Munich, Brüggemann grew up in South Africa and various parts of Germany. She got her first part at age 15, having wanted to act since childhood. She has appeared in numerous motion pictures, including Sebastian Schipper’s Sometime in August (Mitte Ende August), Kleinruppin Forever by Carsten Fiebeler, and in several episodes of the cult series “Crime Scene” (“Tatort”). In 2006 she and her brother Dietrich started writing scripts together for his films, in which she also took one of the leads (Run If You Can / Renn, wenn du kannst, 2010; Move / Drei Zimmer/Küche/Bad, 2012). At the 2014 Berlinale, the siblings received the Best Script Silver Bear for Stations of the Cross (Kreuzweg). A year later, Brüggemann shone in her brother’s satire Heil, presented in competition at KVIFF. She is currently writing her first novel, Split Up.

Sarah Flack

Film editor based in New York. Flack won a BAFTA for editing Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, and their cooperation continued with Marie-Antoinette, Somewhere, The Bling Ring, A Very Murray Christmas, and The Beguiled (presented this year at Cannes). She won an Emmy and an American Cinema Editors Award for co-editing the HBO movie Cinema Verite. Her first film job came on the Prague set of Steven Soderbergh’s Kafka, and she later edited three of his films: Schizopolis, The Limey, and Full Frontal. She graduated from Brown University with degrees in political science and semiotics, and in 2016 she was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Ciro Guerra

Colombian director born in Río de Oro. Guerra’s first two pictures, Wandering Shadows (La sombra del caminante, 2004) and The Wind Journeys (Los viajes del viento, 2009), are widely ranked with his country’s best cinematic output, and they traveled to more than 160 festivals, including Cannes (Un Certain Regard), Toronto, San Sebastián, Rotterdam, Locarno, and Tribeca. Both films were released commercially in several countries and received more than 40 international awards. His third feature Embrace of the Serpent (El abrazo de la serpiente, KVIFF 2015) won the top prize following its premiere screening in Cannes’ Director’s Fortnight (2015) and became the first Colombian movie to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Michel Merkt

Golden Globe-winning producer based in Monaco. Merkt focuses on international feature films for cinema with a very strong artistic trademark. After ten years and more than 50 movies by the likes of Paul Verhoeven (Elle), Maren Ade (Toni Erdmann), Xavier Dolan (It’s Only the End of the World), David Cronenberg (Maps to the Stars), and Walter Hill (The Assignment), he returns this year to Karlovy Vary, where he entered one of his films in 2012. He holds Monaco’s Medal of Cultural Merit, and this year at Cannes he was honored with the title Variety Creative Producer of the Year.

Štefan Uhrík

Slovak screenwriter, producer, festival organizer, and journalist. Uhrík graduated in scriptwriting and script editing from Prague’s Film Academy (FAMU). During the 1980s and early 1990s he worked for Slovak Television as a commissioning editor, and then for Barrandov Film Studios in Prague. As the head of Miloš Havel’s Script Foundation he focused on the Czech film industry, continuing his support for screenwriters as a member of the RWE Barrandov script fund board. He has scripted a number of made-for-TV movies and the film Only a Day (Iba ďeň, 1988). In 1992 he created the Forum of Independents section at KVIFF, serving as programmer until 2007. In 2007-16 he was program director of Febiofest (Prague IFF). Between 1993 and 2011 he produced and directed “Filmopolis,” a monthly TV magazine.

East of the West Jury

Evrim Ersoy

Journalist, festival programmer, and filmmaker. Ersoy was born in Istanbul but has spent most of his life in London. His study of criminal psychology had a marked influence on his decision to work in film. After first earning a living as a journalist, he moved on to festival programming. He is currently the creative director of the largest festival of genre movies in the United States, Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, but is also a programmer for Beyond Fest, MotelX, the Boston Underground FF, and more. He has written and directed a number of award-winning shorts, including Abdullah, and he is currently working on his first feature.

Cosima Finkbeiner

Representative for the world sales and co-financing company Beta Cinema. Finkbeiner graduated in communication studies in England, where she also co-managed an art house cinema and volunteered for the Cambridge Film Festival. She went on to take a master’s in media culture in the Netherlands. She worked briefly for German Films, an organization focused on promoting German movies abroad. In 2012, after travelling around South America for nine months, she joined the renowned sales and co-financing company Beta Cinema, where she worked to present a number of films at KVIFF. At Beta Cinema she is in charge of festivals and non-theatrical/non-commercial screenings.

Rusudan Glurjidze

Georgian director and screenwriter. Glurjidze graduated in French language and literature, then went on to study film directing and screenwriting under Giorgi Shengelaia at Shota Rustaveli Theater and Film University. She has made commercials and music videos, worked as a producer and art director at Cinetech Film Production Company, and was first assistant director on Giorgi Shengelaia’s comedy The Train Went On and On (2005). Her feature film debut The House of Others premiered last year at KVIFF, where it won the East of the West Competition. It subsequently screened at dozens of festivals, winning a number of prizes, and represented Georgia in the contest for Best Foreign Language Film at the American Academy Awards.

Igor Soukmanov

Belarusian festival organizer and film publicist. Soukmanov graduated in film history from Belarusian State University and from Moscow’s renowned VGIK film school. In 1999-2004 he hosted weekly shows on motion pictures for a variety of radio stations and TV channels in Minsk. Since 2010 he has served as program director for the Minsk International Film Festival, where he is responsible for the main program and for curating retrospectives and special tributes. His recent publications include articles and reviews in the Russian film magazine Iskusstvo Kino.

Karla Stojáková

Czech producer. Stojáková graduated in production from Prague’s Film Academy (FAMU). In 2001 she cofounded the film production company Axman Production, and in 2013 she was a founding member of Film Kolektiv. In 2006 she was invited to join the European Film Promotion initiative Producers on the Move at the Cannes festival, and that same year she became a member of Europe’s ACE Producers network. In 2005 she founded Filmasia, Prague’s first Asian film festival. In addition to numerous documentaries, she has produced the features Restart and Normal by Julius Ševčík and Roman Kašparovský’s Lousy Bastards (Všiváci), among others. She also coproduced the drama Corn Island, which won the Crystal Globe at KVIFF 2014.

Documentary Film Jury

Roberto Cueto

Spanish festival programmer, film teacher, and journalist. Cueto is a member of the selection committee for the San Sebastián IFF. He was in charge of film programming for Cineteca theater at the Matadero Cultural Center in Madrid, with a program entirely devoted to documentary film. He is a professor of audiovisual communication at Carlos III University in Madrid. He has taught at several Spanish universities and at the Madrid Film School (ECAM). He formerly worked as a film journalist and collaborated with the Gijón and Sitges festivals. He has coordinated various publications, in addition to having contributed articles to numerous collective books.

Anne Fabini

German film editor. Fabini has worked on a number of films premiered at Sundance: Morris from America (2016, dir. Chad Hartigan), Houston (2013, dir. Bastian Günther, KVIFF 2013), and Return to Homs (dir. Talal Derki), winner of the 2014 World Documentary Grand Jury Award. Her editing of More Than Honey (2012, dir. Markus Imhoof) was highly acclaimed. The 2014 Visions du Réel festival in Nyon screened Bastian Günther’s genre-flexible California City (2014), another of her editing efforts. She also works internationally as a script consultant.

Pavla Janoušková Kubečková

Czech producer. Janoušková Kubečková studied journalism at Charles University and film production at Prague’s Film Academy (FAMU). In 2009 she cofounded nutprodukce productions. She has produced many documentaries, including Show! (Czech Critics’ Award), Great Night, Fortress (both premiered at CPH:DOX), and FC Roma (documentary competition at KVIFF 2016). She is also one of the producers of the HBO miniseries “Burning Bush,” directed by Agnieszka Holland, and “Wasteland,” whose international premiere took place at Toronto 2016. She coproduced Agnieszka Holland’s latest film Spoor, awarded a Silver Bear at the 2017 Berlinale.

Nonstatutory Juries:

FIPRESCI Jury

Kaan Karsan

Peter Kremski

Karin Svensson

Ecumenical Jury

Ennio Terrasi Borghesan

Laura Lots

Petr Vacík

FEDEORA Jury

Eva af Geijerstam

Blagoja Kunovski