Juries

Jeremy Irons is one of the most distinguished character actors in the international film and theatre world. He achieved worldwide recognition in front of the camera in 1981, notably for his leading role in the series Brideshead Revisited and for the Victorian drama The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981) by Karel Reisz, in which he starred together with Meryl Streep. Previously, he had been best known as a theatre actor, including performances at London’s West End. As a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he remained loyal to the theatre, even following his successful screen debut. Jeremy Irons has gained numerous international film honours during the course of his career: For his portrayal as Claus von Bülow in Reversal of Fortune by Barbet Schroeder, he received both the Golden Globe and the Oscar for Best Actor in 1991. In 2006, he was also awarded a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in the series Elizabeth I. He is also the recipient of an Honorary César Award in 2002. In 2011, Jeremy Irons was a guest at the Berlinale for the first time, appearing as the main actor in the Competition entry Margin Call by J.C. Chandor. The actor returned to the festival in 2013 with Bille August’s Night Train to Lisbon, which the Berlinale showed out of competition. Jeremy Irons can currently be seen in the HBO series Watchmen.

Born in Argentina, Bérénice Bejo moved to France at the age of three. Her acting career launched in 2000 with Meilleur espoir féminin (Most Promising Young Actress) by Gérard Jugnot. She had her international breakthrough in 2011 as the lead in the Academy Award winner The Artist (2011), directed by Michel Hazanavicius. For this role she was awarded the César as Best Actress and received recognition and awards worldwide, including a nomination for a BAFTA as Best Actress and a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the Golden Globes and Oscars. Bejo is also known for her work in Le passé (The Past, 2013) by Asghar Farhadi for which she won the Palme for Best Actress. Her filmography also involves The Childhood of a Leader (2015) by Brady Corbet, Éternité (Eternity, 2016) by Trần Anh Hùng, L’économie du couple (After Love, 2016) by Joachim Lafosse, Fai bei sogni (Sweet Dreams – Fai Bei Sogni, 2016) by Marco Bellocchio and is currently working on Un drago a forma di nuvola by Sergio Castellitto and Shake Your Cares Away by Tom Shoval.

After studying production and media business at the University of Television and Film (HFF) in Munich and a longer stay in Los Angeles, Bettina Brokemper established herself as a producer in Cologne in 2001. Two years later, she – along with Helmut Hartl and Stefan Telegdy - founded Heimatfilm, her own company. Its productions include the Berlinale winner Bal (Bal – Honey, 2010) by Semih Kaplanoğlu; Margarethe von Trotta's worldwide success, Hannah Arendt (2012); Nicolette Krebitz's Wild (2015), which was highly acclaimed in Sundance; and most recently, Jan Bonny's Wintermärchen (Germany. A Winter’s Tale, 2018), which premiered in Locarno. Furthermore, as managing director of Zentropa Köln, Brokemper, who has often taught at various film schools and was awarded the Prix Eurimages in 2008, has contributed to co-producing all of Lars von Trier's films since Dogville (2003). She has also worked with many other directors, including Eran Riklis, Christoph Hochhäusler, Małgorzata Szumowska and Rupert Everett.

With her first full-length fiction film, Milh Hadha al-Bahr (Salt of This Sea), Annemarie Jacir was invited to take part in the official programme of the Cannes Film Festival in 2008. Her short film Ka'inana Ashrun Mustaheel (Like Twenty Impossibles, 2003) was screened there five years earlier, making it the first short film in Arabic ever selected in Cannes. Her second feature film, Lamma shoftak (When I Saw You), premiered at the Berlinale Forum in 2013 and won the NETPAC award for Best Asian Film; and Wajib was in the Locarno competition in 2017. All three of these films were selected as Palestinian entries for an Oscar. With a commitment to teaching and hiring locally, Jacir founded Philistine Films and collaborates regularly with fellow filmmakers as an editor, screenwriter and producer. In 2018, she was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and served on the Un Certain Regard jury in Cannes. Jacir recently co-founded the Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research, an artist-run space in her hometown of Bethlehem.

Kenneth Lonergan is an American playwright and filmmaker best known for writing and directing Manchester by the Sea (2016), which garnered over 200 international nominations and awards, including an Oscar and BAFTA for Best Screenplay in 2016. His other films are Margaret (2011, extended version 2012) and You Can Count on Me (2000), which received Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for Best Screenplay. He is the co-writer of Gangs of New York (2002), which received international recognition with multiple awards and nominations including an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay. Lonergan’s work for the theatre can be seen on Broadway, Off- Broadway, and internationally. His plays This Is Our Youth (1996), Lobby Hero (2001) and The Waverly Gallery (2000) all appeared on Broadway between 2016-2019, each nominated in turn for the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. His play The Starry Messenger was produced on the West End in London in 2019. Work for television includes the teleplay for the 2017 BBC mini-series adaptation of E.M. Forster's “Howards End”.

After graduating from the renowned Accademia Nazionale d’Arte Drammatica Silvio D’Amico in Rome and the first theatre engagement with Carlo Cecchi, Luca Marinelli played a leading screen role for the first time in Saverio Costanzo’s La solitudine dei numeri primi (The Solitude of Prime Numbers), which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2010. For Tutti i Santi Giorni (Every Blessed Day) by Paolo Virzi, he was nominated for many important Italian film prizes in 2013. Earlier that same year he had been honoured as a European Shooting Star at the Berlinale. Marinelli’s other standout roles were in films such as Claudio Caligari’s Non essere cattivo (Don’t Be Bad), which represented Italy at the Oscars in 2016; Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot (They Call Me Jeeg) by Gabriele Mainetti, for which he received the David di Donatello Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2016 and Una questione privata (A Private Affair), directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani with its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2017. Most recently, he excelled under the direction of Pietro Marcello in Martin Eden, for which he won the best actor award at the Venice Film Festival in 2019.

In the 1990s, while still working full-time as a programmer, film critic and journalist for various media, Kleber Mendonça Filho began making his own short films. For Crítico, his documentary debut feature, the Recife-born Brazilian filmmaker gave 70 directors and critics a chance to speak their minds. O Som ao Redor (Neighbouring Sounds), Mendonça’s first fiction feature film, had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2012 and Brazil selected it as its entry for an Oscar. The film has been shown at over 100 festivals and “The New York Times” listed it as one of the ten best films of the year. Four years later, Aquarius, starring Sonia Braga, was invited to participate in the competition in Cannes. The film sold to more than 100 countries and was nominated for a César and an Independent Spirit Award. In 2019, Bacurau, Mendonça’s most recent work, co-directed and co-written with Juliano Dornelles, screened in the competition in Cannes and won the Jury Prize. Kleber is also artistic director of Janela Internacional de Cinema do Recife.

Born in 1963 in the Yamaguchi Prefecture of Japan, Shôzô Ichiyama graduated at Tokyo University in 1987 and worked as the producer for the films Muno no hito (Nowhere Man, 1991) by Naoto Takenaka and Hao nan hao nu (Good Men, Good Women, 1995); Nan guo zai jian, nan guo (Goodbye South, Goodbye, 1996) und Hai shang hua (Flowers of Shanghai, 1998), all by Hou Hsiao-hsien. Apart from his work as a producer, Ichiyama founded the Tokyo Filmex film festival in 2000 and has been acting as its director. Since 2013, Ichiyama serves as a visiting professor at Tokyo University of Arts. His latest productions include Ryu san (Mr. Long) by SABU, which ran in the Competition at the Berlinale in 2017 and Jiang hu er nü (Ash is Purest White) by Jia Zhang-Ke, which was selected for the competition at Cannes in 2018. His latest film Aru sendo no hanashi (They Say Nothing Stays The Same) by Joe Odagiri was selected for the Venice Days 2019 and The Horse Thieves. Roads of Time by Yerlan Nurmukhambetov and Lisa Takeba was shown as the opening film at Busan in 2019.

Dominga Sotomayor is a film director, writer and producer born in Santiago de Chile in 1985. Her first feature film De Jueves a Domingo (Thursday Till Sunday, 2012) was developed at the Cannes Cinéfondation Residence. It won the Tiger Award in Rotterdam and has been gaining international recognition ever since. In 2015, she premiered her medium-length film Mar at the Berlinale Forum and also co-produced the collective project Aqui, em Lisboa: Episódios da Vida da Cidade (Here in Lisbon – Episodes of a City). For Tarde para morir joven (Too Late to Die Young, 2018) she became the first woman to receive the Leopard for Best Direction at Locarno. Sotomayor is also one of the founders of the production company CINESTACIóN and the CCC, Centro de Cine y Creación, a new arthouse cinema and centre in Santiago de Chile.

Eva Trobisch assisted first in theatre, then in film. Previous to her MA in screenwriting at the London Film School, she studied directing at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts and at the University of Television and Film Munich. With her graduation film Alles ist gut (All Is Well, 2018), she received the Young German Cinema Award as well as the FIPRESCI Prize at the Munich Film Festival in 2018. The film also gained international recognition and took home many awards, including the Woman in Motion Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019 and the Best First Feature at the Locarno Film Festival in 2018. Her filmography also includes the short films Wie Du küsst (The Way You Kiss, 2013) and Es ist egal, aber (2018).

Réka Bucsi’s (Hungary) magical-surreal animated films Symphony no. 42, LOVE and Solar Walk celebrated their premieres at the Berlinale Shorts, were shown at festivals worldwide (Sundance, SXSW, Annecy, Pictoplasma, etc.) and won over 50 prizes. For Solar Walk, she received the Audi Short Film Award 2018 at the Berlinale. This film is based on a 45-minute film symphony, a work which she realised on behalf of and in collaboration with the Aarhus Jazz Orchestra. Bucsi received both a BA and a MA from Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design. Her clients include Adult Swim, FX Networks or Cartoon Network. She lives and works in Budapest.

Fatma Çolakoğlu has been a curator for exhibitions as well as for film and video art for 15 years now. In 2005, she established the film department of the Istanbul Modern - Museum of Contemporary Art. Subsequently, she was responsible for the film and video programme of Pera Film and headed the communications department of the Pera Museum in Istanbul. Today, Çolakoğlu is associate director for research and programming at SALT in Istanbul. Çolakoğlu received her BA in film history and production from Emerson College in the USA and her MA in Theatre Directing from Goldsmiths, University of London.

Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese is a filmmaker and artist from Lesotho, currently based in Berlin. He works also as an author, director and cinematographer. His award-winning short films and video art works have been presented internationally. Mosese’s long film essay Mother, I am Suffocating. This is My Last Film About You. celebrated its premiere in 2019 at the Berlinale Forum. His feature film This Is Not A Burial, It's A Resurrection was screened at the International Film Festivals in Venice and Rotterdam, the Museum of Modern Art “MOMA”. At the Sundance Film Festival 2020 it won the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Visionary Filmmaking.
Mosese is an alumnus of Berlinale Talent Campus (2012) and was a participant of the “Focus Features Africa First”, the “Realness Screenwriter’s Residency”, the “Final Cut Venice” and “Venice Biennale Cinema College” as well as “Cannes L’Atelier”.

The cinematographer and director Marine Atlan studied at La Fémis in Paris and worked as a camera woman for films by Louise Hémon, Benoît Bouthors, Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel. Her debut film Les amours vertes (2016) was awarded the main prize at the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival. For the sensitive staging of the film Daniel fait face, she received a Special Mention in the Kplus competition in 2019.

Mexican filmmaker María Novaro premiered with her feature film Tesoros at Generation in 2017. Her films have been shown at all renowned film festivals worldwide, including Danzón in 1991 in Cannes and Sin dejar huella (Leaving No Trace) in 2000 at Sundance. In the 1970s, she was part of the artist collective “Cine-Mujer”. Today, she heads the Mexican film institute IMCINE.

The German director Erik Schmitt has a close connection with Generation. Following his two short films Nashorn im Galopp (2013) and Berlin Metanoia (2016), his feature film debut Cleo opened the Generation Kplus competition in 2019. He received the German Short Film Award for Nun sehen Sie Folgendes (Now Follows, 2011). He is currently working on the science fiction film Rebel Girl with his Berlin production company Seven Elephants.

Abbas Amini has been a filmmaker since he was 13. Living and working in Tehran, he is actively committed to the protection of human rights. In particular, he is a dedicated opponent of child labour, as demonstrated by his artistic work and engagement in the NGO “Association for the Protection of Child Labourers (APCL)”. His two films Valderama (2016) and Hendi va Hormoz (Hendi & Hormoz, 2018), both of which tell about the lives of young Iranians, were shown at Generation 14plus.

Jenna Bass lives in South Africa and works as a writer and filmmaker, and she is also former magician. Her award-winning films include The Tunnel (2010) as well as Love the One You Love (2014) and High Fantasy (2017), both developed in a collective. High Fantasy premiered in 2018 at Generation 14plus. Her third feature film, Flatland, was the opening film of Panorama in 2019. Most recently, she completed the short film Sizohlala, which was produced by Jia Zhang-Ke.

As a self-taught cinematic all-rounder and as an advocate for gender equality, Rima Das was recognised by GQ India as one of the “Most Influential Young Indians 2018”. Her film Village Rockstars premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival 2017 and subsequently received the Indian Film Award. With Bulbul Can Sing, for which she was responsible for the script, direction, camera, montage, production design and production, she was a guest at Generation 14plus last year and received a Special Mention from the 14plus International Jury.

Born in 1985, the Serbian director and writer Ognjen Glavonić studied Film and TV directing at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. His remarkable filmography includes Živan pravi pank festival (Živan Makes a Punk Festival, 2014), which premiered at the Cinéma du Réel festival in Paris and Dubina dva (Depth Two, 2016), which garnered numerous awards at 70 festivals, after premiering at the Berlinale Forum in 2016. His latest work, Teret (The Load, 2018), is his first feature fiction film. It debuted at Cannes in the Director’s Fortnight section and went on to win 26 awards at more than 90 festivals. Glavonić is also the director and co-founder of the Pančevo Film Festival in Serbia.

Hala Lotfy is an Egyptian director, producer and the founder of Hassala Films collective. Ann Al Sho'our Bel Berouda (Feeling Cold, 2005) is one of her notable documentary works, which received numerous awards including the Special Jury Prize at the National Film Festival in Egypt. Lotfy also created seven documentaries for the TV series Arabs of Latin America for Al Jazeera. In 2011, she was chosen by Charlotte Rampling to receive the Katrin Cartlidge Foundation Award. Lotfy’s feature fiction debut Al-khoroug lel-nahar (Coming Forth by Day, 2012) had its European premiere at the Berlinale Forum in 2013 and won many awards including the Prize of the FIPRESCI jury and Best Director from the Arab World at Abu Dhabi Film Festival. EXT./Night (2018) is the latest feature fiction she produced, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2018.

Gonzalo de Pedro Amatria is a film programmer and scholar from Pamplona, Spain. Working as a university professor for Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, he also published essays on filmmakers, such as Hong Sangsoo, Ross McElwee, Jem Cohen or Werner Herzog. His programming experience involves the work as a programme coordinator at the Punto de Vista Festival in Pamplona until 2014 and curating film series for the likes of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, FIDMarseille and Museo Reina Sofía. He worked at Locarno Festival from 2014 to 2018 in the selection committee of the Pardi di domani section, as associate programmer for Filmoteca Española and the International Film Festival de Valdivia. Currently he is the artistic director of Cineteca Madrid.

Gerd Kroske completed an apprenticeship as a concrete craftsman before he started his cultural sciences studies in Berlin. During his studies, he also pursued a degree in direction at the Film University in Potsdam-Babelsberg in 1982 and already worked from 1987 to 1991 as a writer and dramaturg at DEFA-Dokumentarfilmstudio. Kroske founded the production company realistfilm in 1996. His most noted documentary films include VOKZAL–Bahnhof Brest (Berlinale Panorama 1994), which won the Grand Prize of the Cinéma du Reél in 1995 in Paris, Der Boxprinz (2000) and the KEHRAUS trilogy (1990-2006). His most recent film SPK Komplex premiered at the Berlinale Forum in 2018.

Marie Losier is a French and American filmmaker and curator. She has made a number of film portraits of avant-garde directors and musicians such as The Kuchar Brothers, Guy Maddin, Richard Foreman and Tony Conrad. Her films won numerous awards and have been shown at prestigious museums, biennials and festivals. She presented several of her films at the Berlinale, including The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye in 2011 for which she won the TEDDY AWARD and three awards of the Independent Juries at Forum. Her new film Felix in Wonderland on the German composer Felix Kubin, premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in 2019. Losier recently showed a retrospective at MoMA in New York City and at Jeu de Paume in Paris and will present a solo exhibition at the Gallery Barrault in Paris in 2020.

Alanis Obomsawin, a member of the Abenaki Nation, is a distinguished Canadian filmmaker, singer, artist and activist. She wrote and directed more than 50 documentaries on First Nation issues for the National Film Board of Canada, including Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (1993) and Incident at Restigouche (1984). Her latest film, Jordan River Anderson, The Messenger, celebrated its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019. It completes a seven-film cycle devoted to the rights of Indigenous children and peoples, which began in 2011 with her first interviews for The People of the Kattawapiskak River (2012). Obomsawin was named a “Companion of the Order of Canada” and received numerous honours and awards.