The Jury of Żubroffka 2017

The Main Jury

GUNHILD ENGER (Norwegia/Norway)
Gunhild Enger works and lives in Oslo, Norway. She graduated from Edinburg College of Art in the UK and The School of Film Directing in Gothenburg, Sweden. Her graduation film, “Bargain”, was nominated for BAFTA. Since then, Gunhild’s films toured world festivals. She has been nominated for the Amanda award twice (Norwegian Oscars) for Best Short film; her film “Premature” won Best Film in several festivals. In 2017, she had a retrospective in Glasgow Short Film Festival, screening eleven of her short films. Gunhild’s latest film “The Committee” premiered in Locarno Film Festival in 2016. She is now working on her first feature film.

IZABELA PLUCIŃSKA (Poland, Germany)
She studied at Lodz Art School and Film School and took up studies at Konrad Wolf Film School in Potsdam – Babelsberg, Germany. She get scholarship from DAAD and Nipkow Programm in Berlin. In 2004 she finished studying as well as her graduate film project “Jam Session”. It was accepted for the short film competition at the Berlin Film festival 2005, where it won her a silver bear. In 2006 she founded her own film production company Clay Traces. She’s made “Breakfast” for Polish television. She’s directed and produced “7 More Minutes” and “Marathon”, which was her first collaboration with Spela Cadez. In 2009 she finish her largest project 25 min, an adaptation of the popular German picture book “Esterhazy”. Her clay film “Josette und ihr Papa” is an adaptation by E. Ionesco. Right now she is working in Berlin with a small team of animators on her new short project to date “Evening”.

QIU YANG (China)
Was born and raised in Changzhou, China. He studied film directing at the Victorian College of the Arts, Australia. His last short film “A Gentle Night” was selected for the 70th Festival de Cannes Short Film Competition in 2017 and won Palme D’Or. And in 2015, his short “Under the Sun” was selected for the 68th Festival de Cannes Cinéfondation competition and is now selected for more than 80 international film festivals, including the AFI Fest, New Directors/New Films, Clermont-Ferrand, Palm Springs and nominated for the 52nd Taipei Golden Horse Award. He has been chosen to participate the Taipei Golden Horse Film Academy, mentored by the legendary film master Hou Hsiao Hsien, as well as the Swatch Art Peace Hotel residency in Shanghai. He is currently developing his first feature project “Under the Sun” (same title as the short), which was selected for the CineMart 2016 and Cinéfondation Residence 2017.

MARIAN CRISAN (Romania)
Director, screenwriter, film producer. He directed the short films “Family Portrait” (2006), “Amateur” (2007) and “Megatron” (2008). The latter, “Megatron”, won the Palme D’Or for Best Short Film at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, 61th edition. In 2010, his first feature film “Morgen” won the Special Jury Prize at the 63rd Edition of the Locarno Film Festival, Best Director and FIPRESCI award at the 51st Thessaloniki Film Festival and was the Romanian entry for the 84th Academy Awards®. In 2012, his second feature film “Rocker” was premiered at the 60th edition of San Sebastian IFF. In 2015, “Orizont” was screened in competition at Tallin Black Nights IFF. In 2016, he directed the TV miniseries “Valea Muta” / “The Valley of Silence” for HBO Europe.

GRZEGORZ BRZOZOWSKI (Poland)
Graduated from documentary course at Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing, with teachers: Marcel Łozinski, Jacek Bławut, Vita Żelakeviciute. Studied sociology, psychology and reportage at University of Warsaw, Utrecht Universiteit and Yale University. Now working on a Ph.D. at the Institute of Sociology at University of Warsaw, conducting a research on modern festival communities in Poland. Apart from this works as an editor and chief of the film review section in “Kultura Liberalna” online weekly magazine. His newest film “A Stranger on My Couch” won the award for the best documentary at the Krakow Film Festival in 2017.

The Jury of ON THE EDGE – Experiment and Video art Competition

MARIJA RAZGUTĖ – lithuanian film producer. She has produced short films and feature films, too. Now she is working on the second and third feature films. The feature film The Saint by A. Blaževičius premiered at Warsaw IFF and Busan IFF 2016, was selected to more than 20 festivals, awarded by Lithuanian Film Academy in 6 categories. Marija Razgutė has also co-founded Lithuanian Short Film Agency Lithuanian Shorts, organizing Vilnius International Short Film Festival, Baltic Pitching Forum.

PETER BUDINSKÝ graduated in Animation film department of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. He studied Erazmus Program at Animation department of RITS in Brussels, Belgium. After graduating, he started to work as a freelancer on different animated projects and in 2013, he founded his own production company and animation studio PLUTOON in Bratislava, Slovakia. He’s currently working on the feature animated film Heart of a Tower.

DAN KARO – for over 10 years now, Dan Karo has been programming films for the Festival du nouveau cinéma in Montreal. He is also a director, shorts include DIN (2012), the documentary The Bear (2013) on the filming of the feature Vic+Flo Saw a Bear by Denis Côté and more recently Chérie (quand je pense a toi) (2016). He also edited Côté’s short film May We Soundly Sleep.

Jury of AMATEURS Competition

The jury president Kaja Klimek – pop culture journalist, graduate of journalism and cultural studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and its PhD student, where she prepares a dissertation on remix in popular culture. She loves films, sometimes writes about them and constantly has discussions about them – also with the kids in the NHEF and the Polish Film Institute film education programs. She co-hosts Weekend Film Magazine on Polish Television (awarded by the Polish Film Institute as the best film-related television program). Film subtitle dialogist and book translator. Recently, she has launched YouTube Hashtag Workshop – a vlog dedicated to pop culture and films. She likes comic books, plastic jewellery and… Nicolas Cage.

Young Jury members: Gabriela Sienkiewicz (I LO im. Adama Mickiewicza w Białymstoku), Monika Piskurewicz (Uniwersytet w Białymstoku), Filip Sokołowski (II Liceum Ogólnokształcące w Białymstoku), Urszula Domysławska (Uniwersytet Medyczny w Białymstoku), Jakub Chomko (SLO w Białymstoku)