Juries

Since her 2014 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 12 Years a Slave (director: Steve McQueen), the Kenyan-Mexican actor, director, producer and New York Times bestselling author Lupita Nyong'o has become one of the most high-profile international actors, inspiring audiences and film critics alike. The daughter of Kenyan parents was born in Mexico City and grew up in Kenya. Lupita Nyong'o then studied Film and Theatre Studies at Hampshire College (USA). After further studies at the Yale School of Drama, she began her acting career and celebrated her breakthrough with 12 Years a Slave. For which, in addition to the Oscar, she received the Screen Actors Guild Award, the Critics' Choice Award, the Independent Spirit Award and the NAACP Image Award. Her screen successes include the Marvel film Black Panther, the sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Us, Little Monsters, Queen of Katwe, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and the horror film The 355. She will soon be taking on a role in the horror franchise spin-off series A Quiet Place: Day One. In addition to her film career, Lupita Nyong'o is also active on the Broadway stage and wrote the children's book “Sulwe” in 2020, which was on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Lupita Nyong'o is currently preparing a podcast focussing on non-fictional storytelling from the African diaspora and she is developing a series based on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “Americanah”. She was recently executive producer of the Sudanese film Goodbye Julia (directorial debut of Mohamed Kordofani). Goodbye Julia was selected by the Sudanese National Committee operating in exile to compete for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards.

Brady Corbet is an American director and actor known for his varied roles in the film industry. His acting credits include roles in Thirteen (2003), Mysterious Skin (2004), and Funny Games (2007). Transitioning to directing, Corbet debuted with the short film Protect You + Me (2008), which was presented at the Sundance Film Festival and received an Honorable Mention in Short Filmmaking. His first feature-length directorial work The Childhood of a Leader (2015) gained attention at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival in the Orrizzonti section, winning awards for Best Debut film and Best Director. In 2018, he directed Vox Lux, a film that was nominated for a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Corbet is currently working on his third feature film, The Brutalist, which is in post-production.

Ann Hui grew up in Hong Kong, where she studied literature before attending the London Film School. She won the Golden Horse Award for her first feature film, The Secret (1979). The Story of Woo Viet (1981) and Boat People (1982) both premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. The Romance of Book and Sword screened in the Berlinale Forum in 1988, followed later by invitations to the Competition for Summer Snow (1995) - awarded the Silver Bear for Best Actress - and Ordinary Heroes (1999). My American Grandson (1990), Stunt Woman (1996), Eighteen Springs (1997), July Rhapsody (2002) and Goddess of Mercy (2003) also screened at the Berlinale. In 2011, A Simple Life celebrated its world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival. Ann Hui has been honoured six times at the Hong Kong Film Awards and three times at the Golden Horse Awards for Best Director. She has also received the Berlinale Camera (1997), several honorary doctorates and was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).

Christian Petzold is one of the most distinguished directors of contemporary German cinema. After studying directing at the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin, his TV work was followed by his cinema debut The State I am In (2000), which was invited to the Venice Film Festival and won the German Film Award. After Wolfsburg screened in the Panorama section of the Berlinale in 2003, he was selected for the Competition for the first time in 2005 with Ghosts. Five more Competition entries followed. In 2012, he was awarded the Silver Bear for Best Director for Barbara, and in 2023, Afire received the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize. Nina Hoss also won the Silver Bear for Best Actress for Yella (2007) and Paula Beer for Undine (2020). Other awards that Petzold has received in the course of his career include the Bavarian Film Award, the Grimme Preis, the German Film Critics Award and the FIPRESCI Prize for Phoenix (2014) at the San Sebastián Film Festival.

The Spanish director Albert Serra initially studied literature in Barcelona. In 2006, his debut film Honour of the Knights premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where Birdsong (2008) was also shown in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs. Story of My Death (2013) was honoured with the Golden Leopard in Locarno. After The Death of Louis XIV was shown Out of Competition in Cannes in 2016 and Liberté in Un Certain Regard in 2019, Pacifiction was invited to compete in Cannes in 2022. The film was awarded two Césars, three Prix Lumières and three Premis Gaudí, among others. In 2012, Serra's 101-hour work Els tres porquets was shown at dOCUMENTA (13) and three years later his project Singularity at the Venice Biennale. Retrospectives of his work have been held at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Tate Modern in London and the Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art in Berlin, among others.

Jasmine Trinca, born in Rome in 1981, took on her first cinema role in Nanni Moretti's The Son’s Room in 2001. She also worked with Moretti in The Caiman (2006) and shot Romanzo Criminale (2006, Berlinale Competition) and The Big Dream (2009) with Michele Placido. In 2007, she was honoured as a European Shooting Star at the Berlinale, and two years later she received the Marcello Mastroianni Award at the Venice Film Festival. In France, she made the films House of Tolerance (2011) and Saint Laurent (2014) with Bertrand Bonello. Other directors with whom she has worked in front of the camera include Marco Tullio Giordana (The Best of Youth, 2003), Valeria Golino (Miele, 2013, Euphoria, 2018), Pierre Morel (The Gunman, 2015), the Taviani brothers (Wondrous Boccaccio, 2015) and Ildikó Enyedi (The Story of My Wife, 2021). For Sergio Castellitto's Lucky (2017), she not only received the Un Certain Regard Prize for Best Actress at Cannes, but also various Italian film awards. Trinca's directorial debut Marcel! celebrated its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022.

Oksana Zabuzhko, who wrote her first poems in her youth, is perhaps the most important living writer in Ukraine and has already published more than 20 books, including poetry, prose and non-fiction. She initially studied philosophy at the University of Kyiv and completed her doctorate at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences before teaching as a guest professor at US universities such as Penn State, Pittsburgh and Harvard. Since the publication of her novel “Fieldwork on Ukrainian Sex” in 1996, she has also worked as a freelance writer. Zabuzhko's works have been translated into countless languages and she has received numerous awards in her home country as well as the French Legion of Honour. She received the Angelus Central European Literary Award for her novel “The Museum of Abandoned Secrets” and most recently the Book of the Year Award in 2022 for “The Longest Journey” about the historical background to the current Russian-Ukrainian war in her home country.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1975, Lisandro Alonso studied directing at the Universidad del Cine. His first feature film, La Libertad, celebrated its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section in Cannes in 2001. After founding his own production company, he made Los Muertos three years later, which screened in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in Cannes, followed by Fantasma in 2006 and Liverpool (2008). Viggo Mortensen played the lead role in Alonso's film Jauja, which was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in 2014. The two also worked together on Eureka, which also celebrated its world premiere in Cannes in 2023

After studying film, Denis Côté made short films and worked as a critic for several years. In 2005, his feature debut Les états nordiques was awarded the Golden Leopard in the Video Competition at Locarno. After the Forum screened his internationally acclaimed film Bestiaire in 2012, he went on to participate in the Berlinale with Vic + Flo Saw a Bear (Competition 2013), Joy of Man’s Desiring (Forum 2014), Boris Without Béatrice (Competition 2016) and Ghost Town Anthology (Competition 2019). In 2021, he won the prize for Best Director in the Encounters section with Social Hygiene, and in 2022 he presented That Kind of Summer in the Competition. Over 40 retrospectives have been dedicated to Côté worldwide.

Italian-born director Tizza Covi studied photography in Vienna and soon after started collaborating with Rainer Frimmel on photography, theatre, and film projects. Their documentary Babooska (2006) won the Wolfgang Staudte Award in the Forum section, their debut feature, La Pivellina (2009), premiered at Cannes and was later screened at the Berlinale in the Generation section. Their second feature, The Shine of the Day, which screened in Perspektive Deutsches Kino in 2013, won the Silver Leopard at Locarno for Best Actor. Their documentary Notes from the Underworld (Panorama 2020) received a Special Mention at the Berlinale Documentary Award. In 2022, their most recent film, Vera, won Best Directors and Best Actress in the Orrizonti Section of the Venice Film Festival.

Ilker Çatak is a director and screenwriter from Berlin. He grew up in Berlin and Istanbul and spent four years working for German and international cinema productions before studying film formally. He has realised over a dozen short films; his graduation film Sadakat won the Student Academy Award in Gold in 2015. His fourth feature film Das Lehrerzimmer (The Teacher's Lounge), which premiered last year in Panorama, is nominated for the Oscar® as Best International Feature Film of the Year 2024. The film has been honoured with multiple distinctions, including five German Film Awards. Çatak has also received numerous prizes for his other short and feature-length works, such as Es gilt das gesprochene Wort (I Was, I Am, I Will Be).

Xabier Erkizia is a sound artist and researcher from the Basque region. In his works, he examines the acts of listening to, producing and shaping sound. He realises projects both as a solo artist and in collaboration with other artists and bands. He also creates sound installations for exhibitions and stage productions as well as radio productions and film soundtracks. El sembrador de estrellas (Berlinale Shorts 2022) and Samsara (Encounters 2023) by Lois Patiño are two of over 100 films he has worked on. In addition, Erkizia is active as a filmmaker, researches and publishes on sound in all its forms, curates music festivals and teaches.

Jennifer Reeder is a director, screenwriter, video artist and lecturer from Chicago. Alongside her training as a ballet dancer, she began her artistic career with the trilogy The White Trash Girl, shot on VHS, in which she played the lead role. In her short films, she has devoted herself to the world of young girls, making her own mark in the teen-film genre in the process. Her films have been shown around the world, both in fine art contexts and at prestigious film festivals. Reeder's past Berlinale highlights include premieres of Blood Below the Skin (Berlinale Shorts 2015), Crystal Lake (Generation 2016), her first feature-length film Knives and Skin (Generation 2019) and the horror-thriller Perpetrator (Panorama 2023).

Born in Dubai, Sudanese director Amjad Abu Alala studied at United Arab Emirates University, where, among other projects, he realised several short films under the tutelage of Abbas Kiarostami. His first feature-length fiction film, You Will Die at Twenty, celebrated its world premiere in 2019 in the scope of Venice Days at Venice International Film Festival, where it received the Lion of the Future Award for best debut feature film. The film was subsequently screened at Toronto International Film Festival as well, and was Sudan's Oscar entry in the "Best International Film" category. Since 2014, Abu Alala has been responsible for the programme of the Sudan Independent Film Festival and has been involved through his production company in films such as Mohamed Kordofani's Goodbye Julia (2023), which was honoured in Cannes.

Banafshe Hourmazdi studied acting at the Academy of Performing Arts Baden-Württemberg and Zurich University of the Arts before beginning her career in the theatre. In 2015, she won the Newcomer Prize of the City of Vienna for her production "Meine Nase läuft" at Theater Drachenstraße. For her role in Faraz Shariat's Futur Drei (No Hard Feelings), which celebrated its premiere in the Berlinale Panorama section in 2020, she received the First Steps Award. Following roles in series such as Loving Her and Oh Hell, as well as in the film Kokon (Cocoon, 2020), directed by Leonie Krippendorf, she most recently appeared in the comedy Ein Fest fürs Leben (2023). She has already completed shooting for Wo keine Götter sind, walten Gespenster by Bastian Gascho, Turning Tables by Angelina Maccarone, as well as for Burhan Qurbani's new film.

The work of director Ira Sachs, who makes his home in New York City, has been featured regularly in the Berlinale programme for many years now. Whereas Forty Shades of Blue (2005), Teddy-winner Keep the Lights On (2012), Love is Strange (2014) and most recently Passages (2023) were all screened in the festival's Panorama section, he has also appeared in Generation with Little Men (2016). In 2023, together with his husband, the artist Boris Torres, and their two children, Sachs attended numerous Generation screenings, and he is now delighted to have the opportunity to return as a member of the jury. In addition to his work behind the camera, Sachs is also the founder of the organisation QueerArt, which supports LGBTQ+ artists in film, performance, literature and visual arts.

Born in New York, director, screenwriter and producer Eliza Hittman studied art at the California Institute of the Arts. Her feature film debut It Felt Like Love, which she produced and for which she also wrote the screenplay, premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. There, her second film, Beach Rats (2017), also premiered and won the Directing Award. Her third feature film Never Rarely Sometimes Always was presented in the Berlinale Competition in 2020 and was awarded the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2018 and served as jury president at the 2021 Locarno Film Festival. Hittman is currently an associate professor of film/video at the Pratt Institute.

Andréa Picard is a Senior Film curator at the Toronto International Film Festival where she programmes retrospectives at TIFF Cinematheque and oversees the Wavelengths section dedicated to artist film and video. She is also an advisor to the Marrakech International Film Festival and was previously the artistic director of the 40th edition of the Cinéma du Réel festival at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. She has curated exhibitions internationally and, as an author and critic, she has published in numerous artist monographs and repeatedly in Cinema Scope magazine, as well as in Artforum, Sight & Sound and Mousse.

Katrin Pors is a Danish producer known for bridging Latin America with Northern Europe. She is one of the founders of the production company Snowglobe and has worked as a producer, executive and co-producer on numerous projects with some of the most esteemed directors in contemporary art house cinema. Her most recent work as a producer includes The Untamed (2016) by Amat Escalante, the opening film of the 50th Directors’ Fortnight, Birds of Passage (2018) by Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego, Godland (2022) by Hlynur Palmason, as well as the co-productions Monos (Panorama 2019) by Alejandro Landes, The Worst Person in the World (2021) by Joachim Trier and A Chiara (2021) by Jonas Carpignano, which had their premieres at Cannes.

Born in Iraq, Abbas Fahdel studied film and graduated from the Sorbonne, where he studied under Jean Rouch, Eric Rohmer and Serge Daney, among others. After starting out as a film critic, he began his career as a director in 2002. He made three documentaries in Iraq, including Homeland: Iraq Year Zero (2015), which won awards at various festivals. In 2008, he directed his first feature film, Dawn of the World. His second, Yara, which was shot in Lebanon, celebrated its world premiere in Locarno in 2018. The documentary Bitter Bread (2019) was shown at the New York Film Festival before Fahdel returned to Locarno in 2022 with Tales of the Purple House. His first novel, “Ce que le temps fait à la pierre”, will be published in April 2024.

Born in Berlin (GDR) in 1955, Thomas Heise has been working as a writer and director since the 1980s. After three years as a master student of Gerhard Scheumann at the Akademie der Künste (GDR), his documentary films began to attract increasing attention alongside various theatre productions. His work has been invited to the Berlinale Forum seven times, most recently in 2019 with Heimat Is a Space in Time, which was honoured with the German Documentary Film Award and the German Film Critics Award, among others. Heise, who has received awards at numerous international film festivals, has also taught at various universities, for example in Karlsruhe and Vienna, for many years.

Director, artist, and anthropologist Véréna Paravel's work couples an ethnographic sensibility with political and ecological imperatives. Her work is in the permanent collection of New York's MoMA, and has been exhibited at the Tate, documenta 14 and elsewhere. Since 2006, she has been working at Harvard University's Sensory Ethnography Lab. Her award-winning films include Foreign Parts (2010), Leviathan (2012), somniloquies (Berlinale Forum 2017) and De Humani Corporis Fabrica (2022), all co-directed, have been shown in Berlin, Cannes, Locarno, Toronto, Venice and other film festivals. Paravel is Visiting Professor of Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University and a member of the Master Class Faculty at Sciences Po Paris' École des Arts Politiques.

American actor, screenwriter and director Kristen Stewart is considered one of Hollywood’s major young talents. In 1999, at the age of nine, she celebrated her screen debut. Just three years later, she starred alongside Jodie Foster in David Fincher’s Panic Room and achieved wider public recognition. Her international breakthrough came with the five-part Twilight saga (2008–2012). In 2010, she attended the Berlinale with the independent production Welcome to the Rileys (directed by Jake Scott). That same year, she received the Orange Rising Star Award for Best Newcomer at the BAFTAs.

In 2014, she played alongside Juliette Binoche in Clouds of Sils Maria, directed by French auteur Olivier Assayas, and in 2015 she became the first American to receive the French film award César for her role in the film. She continued her work with Assayas in 2016 on Personal Shopper, in which she played the lead. The following year, she celebrated her directorial and screenwriting debut with the short film Come Swim and in 2018, she was a member of the International Jury at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2019, she made a foray into the action genre in Charlie’s Angels (directed by Elizabeth Banks) and delivered a fascinating performance in the biopic Seberg (directed by Benedict Andrews) which celebrated its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. In 2020, she presented her next work as a director – the short film Crickets. Most recently, she wowed audiences as Princess Diana in Pablo Larraín’s film drama Spencer, garnering nominations for an Academy Award and at the Critics Choice Awards for Best Actress. She has just completed production on Love Me, opposite Steven Yeun and just wrapped production on Love Lies Bleeding, directed by Rose Glass.

Kristen Stewart has become one of the most eminent international actors, thrilling audiences and critics alike. She is currently working on her feature-length directorial debut, the film adaptation of the bestseller “The Chronology of Water” by Lidia Yuknavitch.

Born in Iran in 1983, Golshifteh Farahani began her acting career as a teenager. When she was just 16, she won Best Actress at the Fajr International Film Festival for her role in The Pear Tree (1998) by Dariush Mehrjui. Later, she was in Bahman Ghobadi’s Half Moon (2006), and in Iran’s submission for the 2008 Academy Awards, M for Mother (2006). Her first appearance at the Berlinale was in 2009, starring in Asghar Farhadi’s About Elly, which won the Silver Bear for Best Director. Since 2009, the actor and musician has been based in Paris, working primarily in French and English language films. Her filmography includes Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies (2008) and Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014), Chicken with Plums (2011) by Marjane Satrapi, Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson (2016), Arab Blues (2019) by Manele Labidi, and most recently, Arnaud Desplechin’s Brother and Sister (2022). In 2014, she was nominated for a César Award for her role in Atiq Rahimi’s The Patience Stone (2012).

After first studying German and philosophy, Valeska Grisebach began her film studies in Vienna. For her graduation film Be My Star (2001), she not only received the First Steps Award and was nominated for the Grimme Prize, but also won the top prize at the Torino Film Festival as well as the FIPRESCI Prize in Toronto. Already her second feature film Longing was invited to the Competition of the Berlinale in 2006. The film subsequently won prizes at numerous international festivals, including Buenos Aires, Gijón and Warsaw. In 2017, her film Western celebrated its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section in Cannes. She received the German Film Award in Bronze, the German Film Critics’ Prize as well as prizes in Tromsø, Ludwigshafen, Seville, Mar del Plata and Istanbul, among others. In addition, Grisebach, who also taught at the DFFB (German Film and Television Academy Berlin), has already served as a jury member at festivals such as Locarno and the Cinéfondation in Cannes.

The Bucharest native Radu Jude, born in 1977, was already a popular guest at the Berlinale before receiving the Golden Bear in 2021 for the comedy Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn. His first fiction film The Happiest Girl in the World celebrated its world premiere in 2009 in Forum, where Everybody in Our Family (2012) and Uppercase Print (2020) also screened, as well as the documentary The Exit of the Trains (2020) - which he co-directed with Adrian Cioflâncă. His first film in Competition, Aferim! (2015) won the Silver Bear for Best Director. One year later, Radu Jude received the Jury Award in Locarno for Scarred Hearts, and in 2018, I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians won the Crystal Globe for Best Film in Karlovy Vary. Most recently, his short film The Potemkinists screened in 2022 at Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in Cannes.

Francine Maisler is one of the film industry’s most recognised and prolific casting directors. Already a ten-time recipient of the Artios Award of the Casting Society of America, Francine Maisler’s other distinctions include an Emmy, a Hollywood Film Award, two Independent Spirit Awards, and two BAFTA nominations. To date, she’s worked with directors such as Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig, Steve McQueen, Denis Villeneuve, Nora Fingscheidt and Yorgos Lanthimos. Films she has cast have been screened frequently at the Berlinale, including Gus Van Sant’s Milk (2008) and Don’t Worry He Won’t Get Far on Foot (2018), Knight of Cups (2015) by Terrence Malick, Jeff Nichols’ Midnight Special (2016) and Vice (2018) by Adam McKay. Most recently, Francine Maisler worked on the films Dune (2021) by Denis Villeneuve, She Said (2022) by Maria Schrader and Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All (2022). Her upcoming films include Bong Joon-Ho’s Mickey 17, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part 2 and Joker: Folie à Deux by Todd Phillips.

Filmmaker Carla Simón’s career is closely connected to the Berlinale. In 2017, her autobiographical feature-length film debut Estiu 1993 celebrated its world premiere in the section Generation, and won both the Best First Feature Award as well as the Grand Prix of the Generation Kplus International Jury. The film went on to win three Goyas and over 30 more awards at international festivals. It was also nominated for an European Film Award in the category Best First Feature, and selected as Spain’s submission for the Academy Awards. This past year, the director, who grew up in a Catalan village, won the Berlinale Golden Bear for her second film Alcarràs. In addition, the film was nominated for eleven Goyas and three European Film Awards. Already in 2019, Carla Simón won the Eurimage Co-Production Development Award for the project at the Berlinale Co-Production Market. Her most recent short film Letter to My Mother for my Son screened at the 2022 Venice Film Festival.

The multi-award-winning director and producer Johnnie To began his career in television in Hong Kong before his breakthrough as a cinema director in the late 1980s with All About Ah-Long (1989), among others. To’s cross-genre oeuvre as a director includes over 50 films. From the 1980s to the 2000s, he gave the crime film genre a new form that still serves as a reference point for the younger generation of Asian filmmakers today. In 1996, he founded the production company Milkyway, for which he first directed the film A Hero Never Dies in 1998. With Election (2005) and Vengeance (2009) he took part in the Cannes Competition, and in 2008 he competed for the Golden Bear at the Berlinale with Sparrow, where his films were also frequently presented in Forum. To has also been a repeated guest in Venice or Toronto with e.g. Exiled (2006), Life Without Principle (2011) and Office (2015). Most recently, he produced Soi Cheang’s Ming On (Mad Fate), which will be shown in this year’s Berlinale Special.

Born in 1986, filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili garnered international attention with her first full-length fiction film Beginning in 2020. After screening in the official programme at Cannes, the film went on to win not only the FIPRESCI prize in Toronto, but also Best Film in San Sebastián, along with awards for its direction, screenplay and female lead. In 2014, her first short film Invisible Spaces competed for the Short Film Palme d’Or in Cannes, and in 2016, her film Léthé celebrated its world premiere at Quinzaine des Réalisateurs. Her audio-visual installation Captives was part of the exhibition “Vive Le Cinema” at the Tabakalera Art Centre in San Sebastián in 2022 and is currently exhibited in the section Art Directions: Installations at the 2023 Rotterdam International Film Festival.

Paolo Moretti worked for several film festivals and institutions including the Pompidou Center, Filmoteca Española, Cinemateca Portuguesa, Leeds Film Festival and Cinéma du Réel. From 2008 to 2011 he was assistant director and programme advisor at the Venice Film Festival. He later worked as a programmer for FIDMarseille, Visions du Réel, the Rome Film Festival, and directed La Roche-sur-Yon IFF for six years. Between 2018 and 2022 he was general delegate and artistic director of Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes. He is currently the head of the film department at ECAL, Lausanne’s university of art and design, curator of Fondazione Prada’s film programme in Milan and directs the Grütli arthouse film theatre in Geneva.

After graduating from the Empros Theatre Drama School in her hometown of Athens, Angeliki Papoulia founded the blitz theatre group in 2004, where she was active as a writer, director and actor in Europe for 13 years. In front of the camera, she caused a sensation in Dogtooth (2009) by Yorgos Lanthimos, which won an award in Cannes and was nominated for an Oscar. She then starred in Lanthimos' Alps (2011) and The Lobster (2015), as well as Syllas Tzoumerkas' A Blast (2014) and The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea (2019). In 2022 she was a guest at Berlinale Encounters with I Poli ke i Poli by Christos Passalis and Syllas Tzoumerkas and A Little Love Package by Gastón Solnicki. She also played in Human Flowers of Flesh (2022) by Helena Wittmann.

Cătălin Cristuțiu has worked as an editor on over 70 feature films, short films and TV series. He has edited the entire works of Radu Jude including the feature films Aferim!, which won the 2015 Berlinale Silver Bear for Best Director, and Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, winner of the 2021 Golden Bear. Other notable editing works include If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle (Florin Şerban, 2010 Silver Bear Jury Prize) and Blue Boy by Manuel Abramovich, which won the 2019 Silver Bear Jury Prize (Short Film). Cristuțiu also works as an editing adviser; in recent years, he has been focusing on films which use editing as a central means of artistic expression.

Sky Hopinka’s poetic, non-fictional video, photo and text works deal primarily with homeland, landscape, language as a carrier of culture and the deconstruction of classic narrative structures. A member of the Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, he focuses on Indigenous life experiences and perspectives. His works have been presented at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Biennale, the Tate Modern London, in a 2022 solo exhibition at LUMA Arles and at renowned international film festivals. In 2022, Kicking the Clouds screened in Berlinale Shorts. A solo exhibition of his work can be seen at the Tanya Leighton gallery in Berlin until the end of February 2023.

Isabelle Stever completed a degree in mathematics before turning to filmmaking. Her graduation film Portrait of a Married Couple won several prizes including the FIRST STEPS Award while Gisela won the Crossing Europe and the Best Baltic Debut awards, among others. Blessed Events premiered at the Toronto International Filmfestival in 2010 and The Weather Inside at Busan International Filmfestival. Her work screened at the Berlinale for the first time in 2009 with the segment A Democratic Discussion at Designated Times in the anthology film Germany 09 and caused a sensation in 2022 with Grand Jeté in Panorama. She also works as a freelance lecturer at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB) and the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg.

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.