Live Action Competition Jury
Florian Fernandez, holding a Master’s degree in Film Studies, has coordinated the various industry initiatives elaborated as part of the Short Film Corner | Rendez-vous Industry for ten years, before becoming head of this four-day forum organized by the Festival de Cannes. The event aims to highlight short film forms, emerging talents and facilitate the interactions between the filmmakers and the industry.
In 2024, he joined Drama International Short Film Festival (Greece) as the Head of Short Film Hub, launching a residency program for projects in development and building the whole schedule of industry events. Florian is also involved in the pre-selection of short films for Montreal Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, for the Doc Shorts section of SXSW, and formerly took part in Encounters Film Festival pre-selection team for several years.
Since 2023, he has partnered with Protest Studios to take care of the festival distribution & sales of a handful of short films carried by unique voices. He also collaborates yearly with initiatives such as European Short Pitch or The Short Film Lab.
Live Action Competition Jury
Tonia Mishiali is a director/producer, member of the European Film Academy and the Hellenic Film Academy, Oxbelly fellow and Berlinale Talents alumna. She has acted as creative advisor at Rawi Screenwriters Lab and juror at the film festivals of Karlovy Vary, Thessaloniki and Tirana among others. Her films have been presented at major markets (TFL Midpoint, FFF, coco, Sofia Meetings, Meetings on the Bridge, European Genre Forum, Eastern Promises, Euroconnection) and selected at prestigious festivals including Locarno, Karlovy Vary, Cairo, Palm Springs, Clermont Ferrand, Cinemed Montpellier, PÖFF, Seattle, Cork, Transilvania, Sofia, Santa Barbara, and Sydney at which she was presented as 1 of Europe’s 10 most outstanding women directors. Her film PAUSE was awarded the FIPRESCI among others and received rave reviews from THR and LA Times, while it was listed 1 of “20 most daring films of 2019” by Rotten Tomatoes. Its screenplay is listed in the core collection of the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It was released theatrically in the USA and Europe, and streamed on Amazon Prime and HBO Europe. She is now developing several projects under her production label Bark Like A Cat Films, including two feature films that she will direct.
Live Action Competition Jury
Eeva Mägi is an Estonian writer-director based in Tallinn, who’s active in the field of fiction films and documentaries. She graduated from Directing Documentaries at the Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School of Tallinn University in 2015. Since then, she has directed successful shorts as Lembri Uudu (2017) that had its premiere at DOK Leipzig and has later participated in many festivals such as PÖFF Shorts, Go Short, Sarajevo among others. Her hybrid doc The Weight of All the Beauty (2019) was longlisted for the Oscars after winning “Best Short Documentary” at Melbourne IFF, her latest short 3rd Octave F (2022) won at PÖFF Shorts and was also longlisted for the Oscars. Recently she finished her first long form documentary Who Am I Smiling for? that premiered at Giffoni IFF (2023) and was the opening film of PÖFF Just Film (2023). Eeva received the Young Filmmaker’s Award by the Estonian Cultural Endowment in 2018, then the Docpoint Tallinn Young Filmmaker Award in 2019. Mo Mamma (2023) is her first feature film that received a jury’s special mention at PÖFF Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival’s first feature competition (2023). Mo Papa (in post-production 2024) was part of the Goes to Cannes work in progress competition.
Animation Competition Jury
Annegret Richter is artistic director at the International Festival of Animated Film Stuttgart, managing director of the Animation Association Germany/ ASIFA Germany, and vice president for communication at ASIFA.
She has been working as head of animation at the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Films (DOK Leipzig) and as festival director at the International Short Film Festival Dresden (Filmfest Dresden). She is a frequent member in international juries and selection committees for film funding and has curated many programs for festivals and events worldwide. Her background is in Communication, Film and Media Studies which she studied and taught at Leipzig University and New York.
Animation Competition Jury
Martina Meštrović graduated in sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. She has exhibited at several solo and group exhibitions. In 2004, she joined the artistic collective Kreativni sindikat and has since worked on films as a 2D and 3D set designer, animator, and director. She is the author of four animated films shown at some of the most important film festivals, such as Animafest, Annecy, Ottawa, PÖFF, DOK Leipzig, Warsaw Film Festival, Tampere, Sheffield Doc, etc. Her films have won numerous awards and recognitions. Since 2024, she has worked at the Academy of Fine Arts as a Production Coordinator and Distributor in the Animation and New Media Department.
Animation Competition Jury
Roland grew up in a rural area of south Estonia where he started to create animation and video games quite early on.
After graduating from the Animation Workshop in Denmark, he worked as an art director on the short animation Amalimbo which made it to the Venice Biennale and the European Film Awards. Now focusing more on raising a family, teaching, and running a company called Tartu Multifilm where they produce animation and video games.
National Competition Jury
Kitty Florentine is an Estonian artist who has captivated international audiences with standout performances, including one of Europe’s largest showcase festivals Eurosonic and MENT Ljubljana in 2024, as well as a sold-out show at Performa Biennale 2023 in New York alongside Kris Lemsalu. She has supported renowned acts like Hatari (IS) and Fever Ray (SW) and performed in cities like Milan at Santeria, Prague Liveurope Festival, Øyafestivalen in Oslo, and What’s Next in Music in Vilnius.
In addition to her global performances, she has played at some of the most prominent Estonian festivals, including Intsikurmu, Station Narva, and Tallinn Music Week. Kitty was honored with the Raadio 2 Debut Artist of the Year award, and her album was nominated for Indie/Alternative Album of the Year at the Estonian Music Awards 2023.
National Competition Jury
Since 2018 Michał Bobrowski is an Assistant Professor at the Culture Studies Institute, Faculty of Philology, Marie Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin (UMCS). He holds a PhD in Film Studies (degree obtained at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland in 2010). In 2012 he authored a book Akira Kurosawa. Artist of the Borderland, in 2016 and 2019 he co-edited two monographs Obsession, Perversion, Rebellion. Twisted Dreams of Central European Animation and Propaganda, Ideology, Animation. Twisted Dreams of History. Co-author (with Radosław Bomba) of the book Beyond Cinema Screen. Postmedia Contexts of Animation published in 2021.
Since 2010 he is a programme director and co-founder of StopTrik International Film Festival (Slovenia/Poland), an event dedicated to the art of stop motion animation. He collaborates with various European film festivals and culture institutions as a curator and activist. He has authored a number of peer-reviewed articles and chapters in books as well as popular film critiques mainly discussing issues of Japanese and American cinema and art-house animated film.
National Competition Jury
Laima Grazdanovica divides her work between theory and practice. Since 2019 she is programme director at Riga International Short Film festival 2ANNAS and has been a curator of short films since 2015. She has graduated from theater and film theory studies in Latvian Academy of Culture, and has an MA in Visual Communication at Latvian Academy of Arts. Lately she is working as a guest lecturer teaching about short film history and video art. Her own work focus is researching personal and collective histories through interconnectivity.