Jury 2012

President of the 2012 jury

Stefano Savona, Film Director – Italy

Since 1999, Stefano Savona has been directing and producing documentaries and video installations. He was awarded in several international film festivals and his film “Carnets d’un combattant kurde” (2006) won the SCAM International Prize at the Cinéma du Réel festival and was also nominated for the David di Donatello Award. He is also the producer and the main director of “Palazzo delle Aquile”, which won the 2011 Grand Prize of the Cinéma du Réel as well as the Buenos Aires’ BAFICI Human Rights Award. This film was also selected in the ACID Program in the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

Other members

Nadia Kamel, Film Director – Egypt

Egyptian filmmaker, Nadia Kamel was born in Cairo, where she continues to live and work. The daughter of journalist parents with a long history of political activism, Kamel grew up in a house steeped in progressive politics and a passion for the arts and popular culture. She studied microbiology and chemistry before turning her full attention to her life-long romance with the cinema in 1990. Working as an assistant director to leading independent filmmakers in contemporary Egypt including Atteyat El-Abnoudy, Youssef Chahine and Yousri Nassrallah, Kamel has considerable experience in the making of both documentary and feature films.

Antonio Vigilante, Director of the UN Office in Brussels

Antonio Vigilante is the Director of the UN Office in Brussels and Director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Previously, he has been in missions based in Egypt, Eastern Europe, New York, Barbados, Ethiopia, Honduras and Bolivia. He has supported awareness programmes through audiovisual projects and has been the author of newspaper articles and publications, featured in specialist reviews, on the stake of development. He has also been a stage actor, a translator of novels and plays, and author of children’s stories.

Meike Martens, head of Blinker Filmproduktion

She is amongst Germany’s most successful young producers of creative documentaries, with a focus on international coproduction. Blinker Filmproduktion was founded by Meike Martens and Heino Deckert in 2007. Meike Martens is a member in prestigious juries such as the German Short Film Award and works as a tutor in project development like in Berlinale Talent Campus. She is project director for dok you, a German pilot project for the production and distribution of creative children’s documentaries.

Liisa Juntunen, Kinocompany.fi Finnish producer

Liisa Juntunen is a producer based in Helsinki, Finland. She graduated as Bachelor of Arts from Stadia University of Applied Sciences (Helsinki) in 2005. She started producing films in 2007 after working in numerous documentary and fiction films in different kind of jobs. She founded her own production company Napafilms ltd. in 2009 and loves to explore new worlds with fun films and fun filmmakers.


Frédéric Noirhomme, Cinematographer – Belgium

Frédéric Noirhomme was born in Namur (Belgium) in 1981. In 2002, he co-directed and held the camera on a short documentary called « Auguste & Marie » awarded in various documentary film festivals. He is, from it’s starts, member of Michigan Films, a production company very active in documentariy and experimental. Since 2002, Frédéric works as a cinematographer and director of photography on many documentaries and feature films.

Antonia Kovacheva, journalist and film critics

Antonia Kovacheva graduated Film Studies at the National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts of Bulgaria in 1980. Since then, she works as researcher at the Bulgarian National Film Archive, editor-in-chief of its bilingual (Bulgarian-English) almanac “Cinema and Time”, head of International Relations. Author of numerous publications on film in Bulgarian and international press. Winner of the Best Film Critic Award of the Union of Bulgarian Film Makers for 2000-2002. President of the Bulgarian Film Critics Guild, member of the Commission for Feature Film Projects at the National Film Center, member of the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) and its juries at international film festivals in Rotterdam (Jury president), Karlovy Vary, Leipzig, Cottbus, Troia, Oberhausen and others.

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