Feb 01, 2023
The International Juries of Generation 2023

The three jurors of the two International Juries each award the Grand Prix for the Best Film (worth 7,500 Euros) and the Special Prize for the Best Short Film (worth 2,500 Euros). The prize in the 14plus competition is provided by the Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung), in the Kplus competition the Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk (The Children’s Charity of Germany) is the sponsor.

The Members of the International Jury of Generation Kplus:

Venice Atienza (Philippines)

Venice Atienza is a Filipino documentarist. She co-founded Svemirko Film and Audiovisual Art Productions with Taiwanese director and producer, Fan Wu, and is a member of DAE (Documentary Association of Europe). Her first feature film, Last Days at Sea, premiered at the 71st Berlinale, Visions du Réel 2021, and Hot Docs and is supported by the IDFA Bertha Fund. It obtained a grant from DMZ Docs Rough Cut Presentation and awards at Visions du Réel – Rough Cut Lab 2020. Last Days at Sea is part of the IDFA Project Space 2020. Atienza is currently producing Taiwanese film director Fan Wu’s documentary entitled XiXi, which is part of CIRCLE – Women Doc Accelerator 2020.

Marco Alessi (United Kingdom)

Marco Alessi (they/them) is a BAFTA-nominated film director and screenwriter based in London. Their work spans fiction and documentary and their films have played at festivals including the BFI London Film Festival, Raindance, Sundance London and the Berlinale. A two-time participant in the Generation strand of the festival, toni_with_an_i was part of Generation Kplus in 2020 and Four Quartets was selected for Generation14plus in 2019 where it received a Special Mention from the Youth Jury. Alongside festival awards, their films have been shortlisted at the Grierson Awards, BIFAs, and nominated by the London Critics’ Circle. They are currently developing their first feature film with Film4.

Marco Alessi takes over the place in the jury for Alise Ģelze, who can’t come to Berlin due to illness.

Gudrun Sommer (Germany)

Gudrun Sommer is director of DOXS RUHR and founder of various festival formats in the documentary field. In 2002, the graduate in philosophy founded the festival doxs! and doku.klasse, a few years later the association Freunde der Realität e.V. and the regional festival DOXS RUHR. Before that, she worked as a committee member and festival director for Duisburg Film Week, and was a curator and jury member at Diagonale, steirischer herbst, the Golden Sparrow children’s media festival, the Goethe Institute, and the Grimme Prize, among others. Along with her office fair enough, as Green Consultant Film & TV she is committed to sustainable and collaborative cultural work.

The members of the International Jury of Generation 14plus:

Fion Mutert (Germany)

Fion Mutert is a cinematographer and freelance media educator. In 2020, his debut feature film Nackte Tiere (Naked Animals, directed by Melanie Waelde) screened in Encounters at the Berlinale. The film was also shown in the Cross Section screenings with Generation and received a Special Mention from the jury of the GWFF Award Best First Feature, as well as nominations in four categories for the German Film Critics Award, including Best Cinematography. Fion participated in the Children’s Jury at Generation, also making films as a teenager that were screened and received awards at several film festivals. Since 2021 he has been studying Image Design/Cinematography at the German Academy of Film and Television Berlin (dffb).

Juanita Onzaga (Colombia)

Juanita Onzaga is a filmmaker and artist born in Colombia, based between Brussels, Bogotá and México. Her films interlace fiction with non-fiction, touching the importance of mysticism, ancestral knowledge and transformation of trauma from violent conflicts. Her works have been presented at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, at the Berlinale in Generation, the MoMA of New York, IFFR and many more festivals and venues, while being awarded internationally. She is currently developing her first fiction feature film The Landscapes That You Seek and a series of installations about ancestral futurism.

Kateryna Gornostai (Ukraine)

Kateryna Gornostai is a Ukrainian director and screenwriter. After gaining a degree in journalism, she studied at the School of Documentary Film and Theatre run by Marina Razbezhkina and Mikhail Ugarov in 2012. She made her debut as a documentary film director but later began working with fiction films and hybrid forms. In 2015, her short fiction film Away won the National Competition at Molodist International Film Festival. In 2021, her feature-length fiction debut Stop-Zemlia won the Crystal Bear for Best Film, awarded by the Youth Jury at Generation 14plus at the Berlinale. Alongside her work as a filmmaker and editor, she also teaches documentary filmmaking. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine she has stayed at home in Kyiv.

The Children’s and Youth Jury

The youngest official Berlinale juries are staffed by seven Berlin children aged eleven to 14 for the Generation Kplus competition and five young people for the Generation 14plus competition. Independently of the International Juries, they award the Crystal Bears for the best short and long films. All young festival visitors who have shared their thoughts and comments on Generation films via the film questionnaires can qualify for participation in the Children’s or Youth Jury.

Press Office
February 1, 2023
(updated on February 16, 2023)