Jury of Official Competition Section

Peter Arens – Head of History and Science, ZDF German Television (President of the Jury)

He was born in 1961 in Gerolstein , Germany. He studied German Language and Literature, French Language and Literature and Political Science in Mainz (Germany) and Toulouse (France). He entered ZDF German Television as writer, editor and producer of several documentaries. Since 1997, he is responsible for high end documentaries series “Terra X” in ZDF primetime (science, history, nature). He has made international co-productions with partners like BBC, arte and ORF, while he has published numerous books on German and European history. Since 2007, he is Provost of degree program “TV Journalism” in Film Academy Baden-Wuerttemberg.

Phaedra Vokali- General Director of Hellenic Film Academy, Director / Producer

Phaedra Vokali studied Piano, Economics and Architecture Theory in Athens and Film in University College London on IKY state scholarship. She has worked in film distribution, criticism and festivals (Athens International Film Festival). In 2012 she took on Marni Films as a managing director, building up its slate until 2019, completing numerous films and videos as a producer. She is an EAVE Producers Workshop alumnus as well as Torino Film Lab alumnus (Script & Pitch, Framework). Her films (Suntan, Afterlov and more) have been awarded and screened in international film festivals like Rotterdam, SXSW, Locarno, Edinburgh, New York, LUX prizes and in many other places around the globe. She is a member of the Feminist Autonomous Centre for Research in Athens, where she has attended courses and produced monographs on the subjects of Intersectionality and Queer Oral Histories. She is an Artworks fellow and currently in post-production of her first short film as a writer/director, titled «Enomena». Since February 2021, she serves as the General Director of the Hellenic Film Academy.

Marco Gastine- Director and Producer

Βorn in Paris, he has been living and working in Greece since 1979. He studied Architecture in Paris and Film in Athens. In 2003, he founded the production company Minimal Films, which undertook the production of his documentary films and the ones of talented Greek filmmakers. Minimal Films has also undertaken international co-productions with ARTE, France Télévisions, CNC and more. He is teaching documentary in Greek and international workshops (MFI, StoryDoc, French Institute). He is also teaching at the Athens Film School “Stavrakou”. Founding member and former President of Greek Documentary Association “Hellas Doc”. Most recent of his filmography are: «The deaf dog» (in progress, 2023), «As far as the sea» (2019), «24h EUROPE» documentary, 30’ episode of a 24hours documentary for ARTE (2018), ), «NIKOS BELOYANNIS», episode of the series UNSUNG HEROES for ARTE (2016), «Demokratia, The way of the cross» (2012) and many more.

Danae Elon – Adjunct Lecturer at Queen’s University, Director / Writer

Danae Elon is an award winning documentary filmmaker, writer, producer and cinematographer. Her short «Life of a Dog», was selected by CBC Gem as part of the Covid Relief fund for artists from over 4.000 submissions. «Life of A Dog» was a finalist for best documentary at Gala Quebec Iris awards. Her films «Another Road Home» 2004, «Partly Private» 2007, «P.S Jerusalem» 2015 and «The Patriarch’s Room» 2017(Best Documentary film Beyond Borders 2021, Best Documentary Toronto Jewish Film Festival, Orpheus Award LA Greek Film Festival) have been showcased at TIFF, Berlinale, Tribeca, IDFA, Hot Docs, Melbourne IFF, Human Rights watch FF, FIPA, Leipzig and many other international film festivals. She has programmed for The Cinema South Film Festival and is currently selecting films for the on-line VOD platform TENK. Danae is an adjunct lecturer at Queen's University in the department of Film and Media.

Uri Cohen - Assistant Professor of Hebrew and Italian Literature at Tel Aviv University.

Uri Cohen is Assistant Professor of Hebrew and Italian Literature at Tel Aviv University and Head of the Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics. He has written and edited various books (monographs and collective volumes) and scientific articles with a main research interest around social and literary theory issues, while he is also interested in academic research around film studies. In 2004 he wrote the script and undertook the scientific research of the documentary "Traces of Ida Fink", which was screened at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

Jury of International Federation of Films Critics / FIPRESCI

Vasilis Kehagias

He is the President of the Panhellenic Association of Film Critics. He was born in 1962 in Thessaloniki, where he studied dentistry, which he still practices. He has been actively involved in film criticism since 1982, while he has been a member of the Greek Association of Film Critics since 1984. Since 2019, he has been its President. He was the Director of the Cinema Museum from 2005 to 2010, while in between, in addition to film criticism, he worked as a journalist in the newspaper MACEDONIA and in other newspapers and magazines, as well as a presenter of television shows on ERT 3 and a producer of radio shows on Kokkino.

Janet Baris

She was born in 1982. She graduated Istanbul University in 2004. Same year she was accepted to master program in Communication Science at the University of Marmara, Faculty of Communication. She graduated from the MA program in 2006 with “Cinematic Object and the Power of Observation” thesis. Her articles based on film/director analysis and critic reviews/commentaries have been published in many magazines. She took her PHD degree with “Contemporary Turkish Cinema and Melancholy” thesis in August 2013. She has been a member of SİYAD (Turkish Film Critics Association) since May 2008 and FIPRESCI since 2010. She is currently teaching at Altinbas University Faculty of Art as an Assistant Professor.

Pabloc Garccía Conde

Pablo García is a film programmer, film critic, history teacher and filmmaker based in Spain. He has been a film programmer at Dart Festival in Barcelona; a member of juries in international festivals from Russia, Armenia, Ecuador and Spain; and member of selection committees at International Festival of Films on Art (Canada), La Casa Cine Fest (Ecuador) and Golden Apricot IFF (Armenia). He is a member of Creative Armenia Network, the French Syndicate of Film Critics, the IAEC (which organizes the FEROZ awards in Spain) and the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI). He has codirected 2801, winner of the Salamanca Youth Awards (Spain) and selected in several film festivals. His second short film, The Photographer and His Shadow. A Portrait of Gagik Harutyunyan, has been granted by Creative Armenia and released at the 40th International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA).

μICRO’s Jury

Jean-Christoph Caron - Head of Documentaries of PHOENIX (μICRO’s jury president)

Jean-Christoph is the head of the PHOENIX Documentary Department, a German public TV channel. Several of his films were nominated for national and international film awards, such as The Great Crash of Lehman Brothers (German Award for Business Journalism 2010), Death Flight Pan AM 103 (Prix Europa 2014), The Oppenheimer Files (Hesse Film Award 2018), and the Secret Life of James Bond which received a special screening movie premiere at the Filmfestival of Cologne 2020. His latest creative work focuses on serialized documentary formats including The Body Language of the Powerful (phoenix 2017-2019) and What If…? a doc series on alternative history (phoenix 2017-2020). Jean-Christoph especially loves docs that provide lessons from history and science or deeper analyses of the world of politics. Currently he is working on a documentary on the Cretan resistance and on German war crimes in Crete.

Matthaios Frantzeskakis - Director of the Chania international Film Festival

He was born and raised in Chania. He studied Mathematics in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He has attended seminars and training courses in journalism, administration of cultural organisations and social economy, and in cinema. He’s been an educator since 1995. He has worked in publications, radio and television. Since 2002 he is the director of the Crete Cultural Organisation and the publishing house The City Compass, that published the cultural newspaper of the same name. He’s been involved in cinema and film-making since 2000, particularly with its educational dimension. He’s participated in the production of important documentary films, educational films, books, as well as in the coordination of many public events. He has co-written the script of the documentary film “Allos Dromos Den Ypirhe” (There Was No Other Way, 2009). In 2018 he researched and wrote the script for the documentary “Flowers Fade Early”, which he co-directed. He has also directed the short films “Astrikas 1945, The Last Battle”, “The Ancient Olive Tree”, “Marika, Why Be Afraid”. He has run the production of approximately 80 educational films and he has published 70 books. He is the director of the Chania Film Festival Coordinator of the 6 teachers of the programs of the Chania Film Festival.

GIORGOS A. PAPACONSTANTINOU - Architect, director of documentary films and multimedia projects. Emeritus professor, University of Thessaly

Born in Athens in 1953. Studies in architecture (Athens), in cinema and interactive multimedia (Paris). Master thesis in Fine Arts and Image Technology, University of Paris VIII. PhD Thesis in Arts and Sciences of Art, Paris I University-Panthéon Sorbonne. Since 1999, he teaches Representation Technologies at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece and he is a member of LECAD laboratory. Since 1985, he works as a director of documentary films on art, architecture and the city as well as of cultural interactive multimedia.

Claudia Schreiner - Head of Masterschool, Documentary Campus, Berlin and Munich.

Studied History in Cologne, Germany, and New York City. M.A. at Columbia University, Ph.D. at the University of Cologne. Worked as TV-journalist for German public broadcaster ZDF and ARD. Until 2017: Head of Program, Culture and Science at ARD/MDR, Leipzig. responsible for live broadcast of cultural events, TV magazines and for the development and production of documentaries (history, science, society, arts, wildlife) and creative feature length documentaries. Her department initiated and was partner in several award winning international co-productions – i.e.“Under the Sun” by Russian filmmaker Vitaly Mansky, “Night will fall” by Andrew Singer and “Rabbit á la Berlin” by Bartek Konopk. In 2017 she left MDR and took over the position as Head of Studies at Documentary Campus Masterschool – a European development program for filmmakers.

Evanthia Papadatou

Evanthia Papadatou was born in 1958 in Piraeus. He graduated from the Greek-French School of Piraeus "Ioanna d'Arc" and the Department of Political Sciences of the Panteion University in 1981. Then, she obtained two master's degrees at the University of Paris X Nanterre and in 1983 from the Department of Political Science in "Ideology and Political Systems". She has worked as a french language teacher, as an interpreter and animator in programs of the french radio television and since 1984 she has been serving in the General Secretariat for Greeks Abroad of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She is an ardent supporter of the International Documentary Festival "Beyond Borders" in Castellorizo from its first year and she contributed to the establishment of the Special Award of Odyssey, for the best film and for the support of Greek Diaspora directors.