Live Action Competition Jury
Adrian Barber holds a Master’s degree in Multimedia Journalism and has travelled through more than forty countries, often working with charities to create books, videos and websites supporting their fundraising efforts. Carrying a Super 8 camera on his journeys led to experimental screenings at underground parties, 3D mapping for music festivals, and participatory projects amplifying marginalized voices. His feature documentary The Death of the Postcard, a mosaic of travellers’ footage, music and email stories, was self-distributed across hippe markets, beaches, mountain tops and even screened on a barge on the River Ganges. The project evolved into Sunset Cinema, a pop-up travelling cinema that carried films around the world. Back in England, Adrian developed long-term projects including Four Years On, a three-decade chronicle of working-class families watching the World Cup, and collective works Family Album and Something Beautiful. In 2017, he founded Bolton International Film Festival, now the largest short film festival in the North West of England and a BAFTA & BIFA qualifying event that amplifies bold new voices.
Live Action Competition Jury
Gert Põrk is the founder and festival director of the newest and hottest short film festival in the Baltics – Valga Hot Shorts. His initiative has turned the frontier town Valga into a midsummer meeting point where all the best short films from Estonia and all over the world gather. In addition to directing the newest film festival, as of this autumn, Gert is also running one of the oldest Estonian cinemas that is still operating today – Kino Sõprus – and he works as a film distributor in the Kino Pavasaris Distribution team.
Live Action Competition Jury
Naomi Smith works with the team at Ken Loach’s production company Sixteen Films, and has worked as an Associate Producer on their slate of independent feature films in the UK that have been written and directed by upcoming European talent. These include Harvest which premiered in main competition at the Venice Biennale 2024, and On Falling, which won the Silver Shell in San Sebastián, and the Sutherland Award at the London Film Festival. In 2022, she graduated with a degree in Producing and Documentary practice from Bournemouth Film school and was awarded the Harriet Craigs’ Prize for Film and Animation Production. She is also an independent short film producer, of which her last short was nominated for best British/Irish short film of the year by the London Critics Circle in 2024.
Animation Competition Jury
Izabela Plucińska is a director of animated films originally from Poland. She is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz and of Film Animation at the Cinematography Department of the Lodz Film School, where she also completed her Ph.D. and was promoted to Doctor of Fine Arts. She specializes in clay animation. She has made 18 films, including “Jam Session” (2005), winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. She is currently a lecturer at the Academy of Art in Szczecin. As a producer, she produced films with her own company Claytraces until 2023. In 2024, she founded a production company with another animation director Wait a Second Film in Berlin. Her latest film is “JOKO,” inspired by a short novel by Roland Topor. It is a Polish-German-Czech co-production.
Animation Competition Jury
She is the artistic director of Animac Lleida, the International Animation Film Festival of Catalonia, and serves as curator of Animario: International Contemporary Animation Film Festival of Madrid. She has a degree in Fine Arts by the University of Barcelona (Spain) and holds a Degree in Animation Film by WSCAD (Farnham, England). She is the creator of Anima’t, the official animation section of the Sitges Film Festival, which she led for a decade, and launched the animation section of the FICG (Mexico) together with Guillermo del Toro. As a curator, she has delivered landmark projects such as “Metamorphosis. Fantastic Visions of Starewitch, Švankmajer and the Quay Brothers” (Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona and La Casa Encendida in Madrid) and “From Doodles to Pixel: Over a Hundred Years of Spanish Animation,” a program co-produced by the CCCB and AC/E and presented at the Annecy Festival in France and MoMA in New York, among other venues. In 2023 she programmed “Revelations. New Spanish Animation” in Cannes for Spanish State agency ICEX. Her writings have been published in books and specialized media. She is a frequent speaker on animation and has served on juries at international festivals such as in Annecy, Ottawa, and Zagreb.
Animation Competition Jury
I'm an animation director hailing from Estonia. My work often blends surrealism, pop art, grotesque elements, and humor.
I studied Fine Arts (BA) and Animation (MA) at the Estonian Academy of Arts. I have directed animated short films that have been screened at many international film festivals and have won both national and international awards.
In addition to my own short films, I have directed music videos, commercials, infomercials, commissioned works for museums, and other types of animated content. I have also been invited to speak about my work in Estonia, Australia, Turkey, Kosovo, and Mexico, and I have mentored animation students at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Currently, I’m enrolled in practice-led PhD studies at the same university. I am researching how to develop new narratives by combining creative methods from animation and improv theatre.
National Competition Jury
Ann Vaida is a comedian who enjoys both self-irony and sharp social wit. She likes to test the boundaries but does it in a humane and sometimes even adorable way. Ann loves everyday absurd and great humour, plus she’s able to present even serious and complex topics in a funny manner. Before becoming a comedian, Ann worked as a tour guide and in Political Communication, and Journalism. She has a Politics and Government degree from Tallinn University and a Contemporary Media degree from Baltic Film, Media and Arts School of Tallinn University. Ann hosts a weekly news podcast called “See on suvariik”.
National Competition Jury
Jana Riemann is a German-Ukrainian film programmer and curator with an academic background in film studies. Currently she is part of the Berlinale Shorts selection committee, head of the short film section at the Ukrainian Film Festival Berlin, and preselector for Docudays UA and Kyiv International Short Film Festival.
National Competition Jury
Holger Lang is an Austrian filmmaker, artist, educator and curator based in Vienna. His work ranges from experimental film and animation to installation, performance and interdisciplinary projects, and has been shown internationally in exhibitions, screenings and festivals. For over 30 years he has taught animation, media arts and aesthetics at universities in Europe and the US. He is the founder of UNDER_the_RADAR, Vienna’s festival for experimental film and animation, and curates film series, art exhibitions and symposia. Lang is a board member of ASIFA Austria and the European Animation Awards, a member of Künstlerhaus Vienna and the Austrian Directors Association, and has run an independent gallery in Vienna since 2010. He has co-edited publications such as Global Animation Theory, ASIFAKEIL 101 and Animating Art, and collaborates with the artist collective “mutual loop” on site-specific media interventions.