Live Action Competition Jury
Émilie Poirier has been working in programming at the Montreal Festival du nouveau cinéma (FNC) since 2017. She is now head of short film and feature film programmer at FNC as well as an independent curator, moderator and writer. She is a member of the preselection committee at the Busan International Short Film Festival since 2022 and she was also on the Directors' Fortnight selection committee at the Cannes Film Festival for the 2025 edition.
Live Action Competition Jury
Augustė Gerikaitė is a Lithuanian film director and screenwriter currently pursuing her Master’s degree in Film Directing at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, where she in 2024 completed her Bachelor’s degree. Her directorial debut short film, Closer (Artumo jausmas), was selected for international film festivals and received recognition abroad. Her second short film, Glitter Kiss (Artimas kontaktas), continued its festival journey internationally and received a Jury Mention at the 2025 Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF).
In 2026, Augustė received a Gold Award at the Young Director Awards in Cannes. Alongside her studies, Augustė continues to develop her practice as a director and screenwriter. Over the past year, she has directed two new short films, I Wish I Was Them (Norėčiau būti jos) and The Greenhouse (Šiltnamis), both currently in post-production.
Augustė also works as an actress. She made her acting debut in the feature film The Visitor (Svečias), with which she attended the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Live Action Competition Jury
Jaanika Arum graduated from the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre as an actress in 2014. She has extensive experience in film, having appeared in more than 20 films and worked with many of Estonia’s leading directors. She also obtained a Master’s degree in Contemporary Art from the Estonian Academy of Arts. Arum wrote and directed the short film Skin of a Mandarin. The project received the main award at the Baltic Pitching Forum in 2021. Jaanika Arum is currently developing her debut feature film Beyond the Visible Flowers as a writer-director. She is also developing the script for the feature film Flourishing Desert. The project was selected for the 2026 main programme of LIM – Less Is More.
Animation Competition Jury
Sandra Brunkow Simonsen is currently working as the Head of Film at Viborg Animation Festival where she is employed by The Animation Workshop, and as the project manager of the collaboration, Northern Animation Network joining animation festivals from the Nordics and Baltic. Her animation career started in the Copenhagen-based VOID International Animation Festival where she curated films and industry events. She has a master's degree in Cultural Mediation from the University of Copenhagen and has previously worked with advertisement, product merchandising, and building museum exhibitions for art and cultural institutions.
Animation Competition Jury
Mait Laas is an Estonian animation artist, author and director. Internationally has held lectures and led programmes about animation, organized animation work-shops. His paintures and graphics have hanging in the walls and texts have been published in papers. He is well known in the animation world for his unique stop-motion works in Nukufilm studio like The Way to Nirvana (2000) and the 3D puppet opera Lisa Limone and Maroc Orange (2013).
Animation Competition Jury
Violette Delvoye made several short films during her animation studies in France, Norway and Belgium. In 2016 she graduated from La Cambre (Brussels) with "Projection on Sofa". Then she created with Chloé Allez "World in Stop-Motion", an itinérant and participative animated series around Europe. The duo keeps on with a comedy in stop-motion called « Inglorious Liaisons ». In 2024, Violette directed "The Mud Under My Window", in 2D. Her 3 shorts films received several awards, and traveled in many festivals worldwide (including Sundance, Annecy, Berlinale, ITFS, Anima...). When she doesn't direct films, Violette works as a technician in 2D and stop-motion animation.
National Competition Jury
Daniel Sterlin-Altman (he/him) is a Canadian interdisciplinary filmmaker based in Berlin. Having completed his MFA in Animation Directing at the KONRAD WOLF Film University Babelsberg, Daniel's work including Carrotica (2024), has been awarded a Cristal at the Annecy Animation Festival, Best Student Film at PÖFF Shorts, amongst other honours. Alongside filmmaking, Daniel is a lecturer at Kunsthochschule Weißensee and facilitates workshops throughout Europe in the field of animation and storytelling. Development of his first feature film began in 2026 during a fellowship at MacDowell.
National Competition Jury
Sari Volanen is commissioner of short films at Yle (Finnish Broadcasting company). Producer of short film programme “New Cinema” on Yle Teema channel since 1999.
In addition she is a board member of Tampere international short film festival. Graduate of EAVE, Eurodoc and M.A. degree in Visual culture, curating and contemporary art.
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.