Selection Committee

Mathilde Henrot has been a member of the selection committee since September 2024.

Mathilde Henrot studied at HEC Business School, INALCO (B.A. in Chinese), Paris X (B.A in Philosophy) and Paris II (LLM in Literary and Artistic Copyright Law) and worked as director of sales at MK2 for eight years.

In 2010, together with Alessandro Raja, she founded Festival Scope Pro, the benchmark online service for film professionals. Festival Scope, launched by the duo in 2016, focuses on festivals' catch-up screenings for film lovers worldwide. With ARTE, they developed ArteKino, a festival that presents emerging and confirmed European talents to European audiences online and in cinemas. Henrot also founded the production company Maharaja Films, producing artist films by Camille Henrot and co-producing films of directors Anissa Bonnefont, Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche and Yorgos Lanthimos.

As a film programmer, she was a member of the selection committee of the Locarno Film Festival from 2018 and additionally adjoint artistic director from 2021 to 2024. She has curated the Kinoscope programme of the Sarajevo Film Festival since 2012.

Since its inception in 2002, Henrot has been a member of the nonprofit organisation Le Deuxième Regard, which became Le Collectif 50/50, a standard in the promotion of equity, diversity and inclusion in the film industry.

Jessica Kiang has been a member of the selection committee since September 2024.

Jessica Kiang is a critic, essayist and programmer who has been writing about film for almost 15 years, since an epiphany on a Dublin canal bridge prompted her return to the field she had studied at the University of East Anglia and UC Santa Barbara.

She was features editor at The Playlist for five years and since 2014 has written for Variety, Sight & Sound, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Film Comment and Rolling Stone. Her long-form essays have appeared on Mubi and Criterion as well as dotting the booklets of many a DVD/Blu-ray release.

Jessica Kiang attends the Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Locarno, Karlovy Vary, Sundance and Busan film festivals and has twice been a mentor at the Melbourne Film Festival's Critics Campus.

She has served on numerous festival juries, including at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, the 2021 BFI London Film Festival, IDFA 2021, Film Fest Gent 2023 and CPH:DOX 2024.

Since 2022 she has been the international programmer of the Belfast Film Festival, Northern Ireland's foremost film event, where she has successfully established its first-ever international competition.

Jacqueline Nsiah has been a member of the selection committee again since September 2024.

Jacqueline Nsiah holds a Master’s degree in Visual and Media Anthropology from Freie Universität Berlin and a Bachelor’s degree in African Studies and Politics from SOAS – University of London and is a film festival, art and culture consultant and freelance curator.

In addition to her work for the Africa Film Festival in Cologne, some of her past roles include the Cambridge African Film Festival and the Festival do Rio.

She was co-director and curator of the African film festival UHURU in Rio de Janeiro, and a programmer for Film Africa in London. She also worked as project manager for a film platform at the Goethe-Institut.

Jacqueline Nsiah was a member of the selection committee at Berlinale Forum from 2019 to 2023 and co-curated the special programme “Fiktionsbescheinigung”. In August 2023, she was appointed to the selection committee of the Berlinale Competition 2024.

Elad Samorzik has been a member of the selection committee since September 2024

Elad Samorzik is an experienced film programmer who served for over a decade as artistic director of the Jerusalem Film Festival (2014-2024). During his tenure, he oversaw the programming of over 200 films annually, and organized retrospectives and tributes to renowned filmmakers such as Jean-Pierre Melville, Chantal Akerman, and Bernardo Bertolucci.

Currently, Samorzik consults for the Sarajevo Film Festival’s Cinelink platform and programs for the Arava International Film Festival. Additionally, he advises Featurette, an agency specializing in film acquisitions for distributors across Europe.

His extensive career also includes managing six film channels on Israel’s largest cable platform, HOT, and writing full-time for Haaretz. He has held key roles at the Haifa International Film Festival over seven years. Samorzik has also taught film courses at Tel Aviv University and conducted workshops at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design.

Over the years, Samorzik has participated as a juror at international film festivals, including Thessaloniki, Cartagena, Vilnius, Les Arcs, BAFICI, and Festival Nouveau Cinéma de Montréal.