Jurors

Serbian director and screenwriter Ognjen Glavonić (1985) creates both documentary and feature films. He has already successfully expressed a feel for lyrical gripping themes from modern Serbian history – his first extraordinary success, however, came with his light documentary portrait Zivan Makes a Punk Festival (2014). His films were shown at festivals in Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, Rotterdam and numerous others, winning several awards. Glavonić is also the director and co-founder of Pančevo Film Festival.

Jessica Kiang is a film critic and programmer. She has written regularly for Variety, Sight & Sound, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Film Comment, Rolling Stone, Mubi and Criterion among others. She has served on numerous festival juries, including at the Toronto International Film Festival, the BFI London Film Festival, IDFA, Film Fest Gent, Karlovy Vary, Taipei Film Festival and CPH:DOX. She previously programmed the Belfast Film Festival, and the 75th Berlin Film Festival in 2025 was her first edition as a member of the Berlinale Selection Committee.

Dominic Lees is an experienced director of factual, documentary and drama content for television, and an award-winning feature film director. He is Associate Professor in Filmmaking at the University of Reading, UK, where he leads research exploring the potential of Generative AI in film, as well as its ethical and legal problems. He also works as specialist advisor on film and HETV to the UK Parliament. Dominic speaks internationally on the subject of AI in filmmaking, and leads workshops supporting directors in the responsible use of AI. His recent published work has investigated the use of deepfakes and GenAI in documentary film production.

Tekla Machavariani is a Georgian producer and founder of NUSHI FILM. A member of DOCA and the Georgian Film Institute, she was selected as an Emerging Producer in 2020. Her credits include the Golden Leopard–winning feature Holy Electricity, Drawing Lots (Rotterdam), Comets (TIFF), and Before Father Gets Back (Sheffield). Through educational programs, her company also supports emerging Georgian filmmakers.

Jana Ševčíková is a renowned Czech documentary film director, screenwriter, and producer. She graduated from FAMU in Prague in 1983. Her documentary Old Believers (2001), portraying a Russian Orthodox community in Romania, received a Special Commendation from the Ecumenical Jury at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival and the FICC Don Quijote Award at the Kraków Film Festival. At the Ji.hlava IDFF, she presented her feature-length films The Rite of Spring (2002) and Gyumri (2008). In 2021, the festival honored her with the Award for Contribution to World Cinema. Ševčíková typically spends several years developing each of her films, striving to get as close as possible to the lives of her protagonists. Her works resemble poetry or meditation, filmed over many years, observing transformation and allowing viewers to perceive the continuity of human life. She demonstrates that film can serve as both an image of time and a form of contemplation.

Having completed her degree in Economics at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in 1989, Juliette Duret developed a strong interest in cinema through frequent visits to the Brussels Film Archive. She has been professionally active in the film world for more than 30 years. Since 2013, she has headed the Film Department at the Centre for Fine Arts, where she has also worked as a film programmer since 2006. She has been a member of the selection committee for the International Competition of the Brussels International Film Festival since 2020 and has been a member of the European Film Academy (EFA) since 2008. Her main areas of interest lie in contemporary cinema, including documentary, fiction, and immersive cinema. She has curated film programs dedicated to filmmakers and artists such as Radu Jude, Joanna Hogg, Andrei Ujică, Véréna Paravel, and Fanny Ardant. She has served on juries at numerous film festivals and industry platforms, including IDFA, San Sebastián Film Festival (Tabakalera), Tromsø International Film Festival (International Competition), Berlinale Forum, and the Hubert Bals Fund (Post-Production EU – HBF). She speaks French (mother tongue), Spanish, Dutch, and English.

Mira Fornay - an award-winning filmmaker (writer, director and editor) who has made 4 feature films and 14 short films. Her last feature film MIMI {She - Hero} premiered at the Berlinale 2023 and won GRAND PRIX of the Kplus Generation Berlinale. Her second feature film My Dog Killer won the Tiger Hivos Award in the main competition at IFF Rotterdam in 2013. It was nominated for the EFA Awards and was the Slovak National Nomination for the Foreign Language Oscars. It won the Slovak National Film Awards for Best Screenplay, Best Director and Best Film. Her debut film Foxes premiered at the International Critic's Week, Venice Film Festival 2009 and went on to top festivals around the world, as well as her 3rd feature film Cook F**k Kill, which premiered at Rebel with a Cause at Tallin BlackNights IFF and IFF Rotterdam in 2020. The film won the CineRebel Award at Filmfest Munich and was nominated for the Czech National Film Awards for Best Film and Best Director. Her new feature film Twist the Rabbit was selected among 34 films in development for the Berlinale Coproduction Market in 2024 in the section "Berlinale Directors". Twist the Rabbit as well as her TV miniseries Carpathian Beast (presented at Series Mania in Paris) are in pre-production and development.

Rachael Rakes is a writer, curator, editor, and lecturer working on plotting for non-random chaos across media and places. She is currently at work on a book about material ghosts with artist Bo Wang, an experimental monograph with artist Femke Herregraven, and several projects. With Laura Huertas Millán, and Onyeka Igwe, she organizes the curatorial and research initiative on alternative ethnographies, Counter-Encounters. She is a committee member of the New York Film Festival and Porto/Post/Doc, and was Artistic Director of the 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennial, Seoul.

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish is a Palestinian-Canadian doctor, peace activist, and author of the book I Shall Not Hate (2011). He captured the world's attention with his courageous stance after losing three daughters during the 2009 Gaza War, yet publicly rejecting hatred and revenge. As a doctor, he has worked extensively in both Israeli and Palestinian hospitals and advocates for equal access to healthcare regardless of origin. He is the founder of the Daughters for Life Foundation, which supports the education of girls and women in the Middle East. Dr. Abuelaish has lectured at prestigious universities, including Harvard, spoken at the UN and the European Parliament, and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2016. His voice brings an important perspective of humanity, forgiveness, and the right to a dignified life in times of polarisation and violence.

Ondřej Lánský focuses on elite theory, the relationship between oligarchy and democracy, and democratic resilience. He works at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences, is a member of the National Institute for Research on the Socio-economic Impact of Diseases and Systemic Risks (SYRI), and teaches at the Faculty of Education, Charles University, where he specializes in civic education.

Szilvia Ruszev is a film editor, media artist and practice-based researcher working across media. She is currently Lecturer in Film Production at University College London. She has led an AHRC and BRAID funded research ‘Shared Post-Human Imagination’ investigating responsible use of generative AI in media production.

Ludmila Dobrovolná Wladyniak is a cultural sociologist who has been affiliated with the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University since 2018, where she heads the interdisciplinary degree program Liberal Arts and Humanities. Her long-term research interests include the transformation of cultural capital, social inequality, and peripheral regions of Central Europe, most recently explored within the international research project Weave: Social and Political Consequences of Spatial Inequalities in Central and Eastern Europe (2023–2025). In her research, she employs visual methods of data collection and analysis, and in her teaching practice, she regularly uses documentary film as a medium for studying sociology and social issues. She is also the co-author of the book Rules of Taste (Host, 2024).

Tomáš Hlaváček (1988) is a filmmaker specializing in socially critical, author-driven documentary. He studied Philosophy and Media Studies at Masaryk University and later Documentary Filmmaking at FAMU. He is the creator of a time-lapse documentary diptych analysing manifestations of the housing crisis in the Czech Republic: The Impossibility (2024), awarded the main prize of Czech Joy section at the Ji.hlava IDFF, and Housing Against Everyone (2021), which received a special jury recognition in the Czech section of the One World festival. His other works include Stadium (2019), an ethnographic insight into football subculture, We Are the Epicenter of the Earthquake (2020), and If You Have a Job, You Have Everything (2016). As a documentary filmmaker, he focuses on critically portraying contemporary political and social issues, engaging empathetically with ethnic minorities and social subcultures.

Ilona Smejkalová studied Theory and History of Literature, Theatre and Film at the Faculty of Arts, Palacký University Olomouc. As a theatre dramaturg, she has worked with Horácké Theatre Jihlava and Kladno City Theatre; she later served as head dramaturg of the drama company at National Theatre Brno (NdB Drama), based at the Mahen Theatre. She has also collaborated long-term with the Studio Ypsilon Theatre, Divadlo v Dlouhé (Theatre in Dlouhá Street), and the theatre ensemble of people experiencing homelessness Ježek a Čížek. Since the 2015/2016 season, she has been part of the dramaturgy team of National Theatre Drama in Prague. She has taught, and as a screenwriter contributed to programmes for Czech Television—including Vytunelovaný muzikál, Divadlo žije!, Divadlo Na zábradlí – Od Vyskočila k Mikuláškovi, and Nejkrásnější pohádky—to series for TV Prima, and to audio series for Audiotéka; her series Agent won Audiokniha roku (Audiobook of the Year) 2021. As an external editor, she contributes in-depth interviews with figures from culture, science and sport to the Thursday magazines of the Deník daily.

Director and producer Aleš Suk graduated from the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU), where he later served as a lecturer in the Department of Editing. He also taught at the Academy of Applied Arts in Rijeka, Croatia, where he currently lives and works. He is the founder and CEO of the production companies UKUS and KLEŠ. Among other projects, he produced the film Winter/Miracle, which won the Between the Seas section at the Ji.hlava IDFF in 2013, and directed the films The End of Light and (P.S.), which were also screened at the festival in previous years.

Simona Weisslechner is a Slovak cinematographer with more than fifteen years of experience on Czech-Slovak as well as international projects. Her feature debut She – Hero (dir. Mira Fornay) won the Grand Prix of the International Jury in the Generation Kplus section at Berlinale 2023. Her next film, Caravan (dir. Zuzana Kirchnerová), premiered in 2025 in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival. She is an alumna of Berlinale Talents 2025 and a member of the Slovak Association of Cinematographers.

Patrick Huber has been the director and founder of VIDEOEX — International Experimental Film & Video Festival Zurich since 1998. He has also served as the director of Kunstraum Walcheturm in Zurich since 2000. He received the Swiss Art Award (for Curating) in 2000 and the Swiss Music Prize (for Curating) in 2023.

Christine Koch graduated in 1994 from the University of the Arts Zurich (formerly the Kunstgewerbeschule) as a designer of household utensils. She is the mother of two daughters. Christine currently lives on the island of Procida, where she runs her handmade bag label, Kikie Koch.

Jil Charlotte Koch is a student of Visual Communication at HKB Bern.

Barbora Baronová is a literary documentarist, independent publisher, and book curator. In 2012, she founded the publishing house wo-men. Since 2016, she has been lecturing on publishing practice and moderating discussions both in the Czech Republic and abroad. Alongside her publishing work, she has spent the past twenty years contributing to a wide range of international art projects around the world. As a member of the International Alliance of Independent Publishers, she advocates for greater bibliodiversity and the sustainability of the book ecosystem. Barbora is the recipient of prestigious publishing awards and also leads hands-on book workshops and consultations for authors and creators.

Marie Blažková has been working at the Jihlava Municipal Library since 2006. Her professional focus has been on the acquisition and cataloguing of the library’s collection. In 2023, she was appointed Director of the library. She actively supports initiatives that foster reading, with particular emphasis on collaboration among organizations dedicated to public education.

Kateřina Čopjaková has worked for the weekly Respekt, the online portal Romea.cz, and Hospodářské noviny. Until 2023, she was editor and contributor at the HateFree Culture project. She focuses primarily on literature and comics, and regularly contributes to Respekt, the culture section of Aktuálně.cz, and the website of Host magazine. During the pandemic, she founded the Facebook group Nezletilí kritici, in which children and adolescents publish book reviews. In 2024, the group won the Golden Ribbon Award (Zlatá stuha) in the category Theory and Criticism of Children’s and Youth Literature.

Petr Fischer is a Czech journalist, screenwriter, and television host. He previously served as editor-in-chief of the Czech Radio station Vltava, headed the culture section of Hospodářské noviny daily, and for several years led the culture department at Czech Television. At Czech Television, he also hosted his own program Confrontations with Petr Fischer. He is the co-author of the screenplays for the documentary films The Paper Assassination (2007) and Catenaccio a la Drnovice or Journey to the Beginning of the Time of Economic Transformation (2010).

Andrea Hanáčková teaches radio and sound studies at Palacký University in Olomouc, focusing on non-fiction production and podcasting. As a documentary audio maker, she explores minorities and cultural journalism. For ten years, she has run a children’s club dedicated to audio creation and theatre. She develops the concept of audiowalks and researches the role of sound in relation to memory and specific places.

Tue Steen Müller has worked with documentary films for over 20 years at the Danish Film Board as press officer, festival representative, and film consultant. He is co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU, and the European Documentary Network (EDN). His contributions have been recognized with major honors, including the Danish Roos Prize, the EDN Award,The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania and Latvia’s Order of the Three Stars. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition, that he co-founded. From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops in Europe and beyond.

Rada Šešić is a festival programmer, lecturer, and film director. Born in the former Yugoslavia, she is now based in the Netherlands. She serves as Head of the Documentary Competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival, Programmer of the Documentary Competition at the Trieste Film Festival, and is on the selection committee of the DOHA Film Fund. She is also Co-head of the Docu Rough Cut Boutique and leads Last Stop Trieste. From 2001 to 2023, she collaborated with IDFA Amsterdam as a film selector. She has lectured at the Master of Film program in Amsterdam and worked as a mentor and consultant for numerous European and Asian documentary workshops. Between 2008 and 2023, she was one of the founders and the Artistic Director of the Eastern Neighbours Film Festival in The Hague. From 2000 to 2020, she also advised the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) on South Asian cinema. As a filmmaker, Šešić has directed documentaries and dance films in Sarajevo and the Netherlands, including Lam Arabi, Room Without a View, Soske, In Whitest Solitude, and On the Way to School. Her films have been screened at around 60 festivals across Europe, Asia, and the United States, including at MoMA in New York. She has served on more than 50 juries, among them IDFA and Hot Docs. A member of NETPAC and the European Film Academy (EFA), she has also lived and taught in India, lecturing at Srishti in 2008 and 2010.

Chris White is responsible for producing PBS’s award-winning documentary series POV and POV Shorts, as well as America ReFramed on WORLD Channel. He has presented over 300 films for national broadcast, and since becoming Executive Producer in 2015, American Documentary films have won 15 Emmys, 14 Peabody Awards, and garnered 11 Oscar nominations, including the films Minding the Gap, The Mole Agent, A House Made of Splinters, and Porcelain War. At the 44th News & Documentary Emmys, Chris was inducted into the NATAS Silver Circle, honoring professionals who have made an enduring contribution (over 25 years) to the television industry.

Tereza Fousek Krobová is a game studies scholar affiliated with the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University and FAMU. In her research, she focuses primarily on exploring gaming audiences and their player strategies, particularly in the context of gender. She also examines the specific characteristics of the Czech game industry and gaming culture, with special attention to the role of women within it. She lectures at several Czech universities, mainly on topics related to games and gender studies. In addition, she works with Czech Television as the lead dramaturge of DVA3, a children’s program dedicated to pop culture and creative computer games.

Luca Marchetti is currently a post-doctoral researcher within the ERC project PEA – The Philosophy of Experiential Artifacts (PI: Enrico Terrone) at the University of Genoa. He obtained his PhD from the University of Milan in 2022 with a thesis on the depiction of movement in static images. His research lies at the intersection of philosophy of mind and aesthetics, focusing on visual representations, the phenomenology and cognitive sciences of pictorial experience and virtual reality, and the appreciation of non-human animals’ minds. He has published in international journals such as Australasian Journal of Philosophy, The British Journal of Aesthetics, Philosophia, and Estetika.

A curator at Tate Modern, Valentine Umansky oversees the museum's time-based media programme, co-chairs the museum's photography acquisitions committee and its European acquisition circle. She previously held positions at the International Center of Photography and Museum of Modern Art in New York, at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, and co-curated the 2018 LagosPhoto Festival in Nigeria. At Tate, recent exhibitions and projects include the Ana Mendieta retrospective (opening July 2026), as well as displays of works by Belkis Ayón, Nikita Gale, Tourmaline, Cinthia Marcelle, Buhlebezwe Siwani, Dineo Seshee Bopape and Rosa Barba. Since 2022, Umansky sits on the selection committee of the Villa Medici Film Festival, and recently co-curated the Gjon Mili Biennial in Prishtina, Kosovo and the Frieze Film x EMAP video biennial in Seoul, Korea (both 2024-25).

Jonáš Boroš graduated in Media & Culture from the University of Amsterdam (UvA). He is currently studying film theory and philosophy at Masaryk University in Brno. He is involved in organizing film and music events with the civic association OZ InMusic and the newly established community center Roachhouse Studio in Bratislava. He has worked in the programming team of the One World festival, served on the pre-selection jury of FAMUfest, and in 2021 was a jury member for the Giornate degli Autori section at the Venice Film Festival. He is also active in documentary filmmaking. His film My Body had its television premiere in April 2025 on RTVS Dvojka.

Linda Dobrovolná comes from Jihlava. After graduating from the High School of Art and Design Jihlava–Helenín in the Arts Management programme, where she managed the MB24 gallery and handled its PR for four years, she is now studying Audiovisual Arts at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts (JAMU). Her work focuses mainly on theatre photography and videography. In her free time, she develops her own photographic projects, organizes film clubs and cultural events, and works as a curator at Galeryje9.

Vojtěch Gregor is a first-year student of Marketing Communications and Public Relations at Charles University. He most enjoys capturing foreign cultures. He has been working professionally in photography and video production for several years, closely collaborating with Canon, and his images have repeatedly been honoured in the competitions Czech Press Photo and Czech Nature Photo. His work has been exhibited at the National Museum, at the Prague Castle, and featured in the magazine Lidé a země.

Martin Říčan is a Czech director, dramaturg, and producer of site-specific multimedia projects such as Panta Rhei (2024) and spaces trembling (2025). He studies at the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University. Since 2023, he has been presenting the Film News segment on Czech Television’s Good Morning morning show, and in the same year he was selected for the Karlovy Vary IFF Launchpad programme. He works in programming, production, and marketing departments at festivals such as Anifilm, KoresponDance, and Bazaar.

Eliška Šedová graduated from the High Industrial School of Communication Technology (SPŠST Panská), specializing in film and television production. She is currently studying Film and Audiovisual Culture Theory and History at Masaryk University. She works in film production and photography, with a strong interest in producing. Recently, she has collaborated on projects including the feature film Something for Something and the documentary series Forbidden Zones.

Bohdan Bilyi enjoys reading and writing books and is also passionate about learning foreign languages. He likes discovering new things and meeting interesting people.

Darja Bouzková studies at the High School of Graphic Arts and is interested in film and photography. She enjoys films that don’t reveal everything at once but make her think long after watching them. She sees Ji.hlava IDFF as an opportunity for inspiration and for developing her own creative work.

Ondřej Krčál studies Film and Photographic Arts at a graphic school in Jihlava. He is passionate about cinema and would like to pursue directing and screenwriting in the future.

Richard Suchý is a high school student specializing in pharmacy. He is interested in public affairs, including the Ji.hlava IDFF. A true extrovert, he enjoys meeting new people and has a deep love for culture.