The most daring perspectives in the competition will be judged by:
Andrei Ujică (born 1951 in Timișoara, Romania) is a Romanian screenwriter and director. He studied literature in Timișoara, Bucharest, and Heidelberg. In 1990 he began making films. At the end of the Cold War, together with Harun Farocki, he shot Videograms of a Revolution, a film which has become a standard work when referring to relationships between political power and the media, and which was listed by the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma as one of the top 10 subversive films of all time. His next work, Out of the Present, told the story of the cosmonaut Sergei Krikalyov who spent 10 months on board Mir, while back on Earth, the Soviet Union collapsed. The film has been compared to classics such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solaris and is considered one of the non-fiction cult films of the 1990s. His masterpiece, The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceaușescu (2010) concludes his trilogy dedicated to the end of communism and it’s invited at the Cannes Film Festival. His 2005 project, Unknown Quantity, creates a fictional conversation between Paul Virilio and Svetlana Alexievich, author of Voices from Chernobyl: Chronicle of the Future, exploring the consequences of the nuclear catastrophe. In 2001, Ujică became a film professor at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design. He founded the ZKM Film Institute in 2002 and is its director. His last film, TWST / Things We Said Today was screened in the Orizzonti at the Venice Film Festival 2024.
Donatella Palermo has always alternated debut works with films by major masters throughout her career as a producer. Among the films she has produced are: Tano da morire, the first musical about the mafia, by Roberta Torre; Lettere dal Sahara by Vittorio De Seta; Le Ombre Rosse by Citto Maselli; Cesare deve morire, Maraviglioso Boccaccio, and Una questione privata by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani; Leonora addio by Paolo Taviani; and Liscio by Claudio Antonini. In 2014, she began collaborating with director Gianfranco Rosi, with whom she produced Fuocoammare, Notturno, In viaggio, and Sotto le nuvole, winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival. She has also produced Corleone by Mosco Levi Boucault; Faith by Valentina Pedicini; Last Words by Jonathan Nossiter; Il grande passo by Antonio Padovan; Le favolose and Mi fanno male i capelli by Roberta Torre; and L’Expérience Zola by Gianluca Matarrese. Her 2024 international co-productions include The Falling Sky by Erych Rocha and Gabriela Carneiro de Cunha, and Of Dogs and Men by Dani Rosenberg. Her films have been presented at major international festivals – Venice International Film Festival, Berlinale, Rome Film Fest, Locarno Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival, Tokyo International Film Festival, and many others – receiving several major awards. Fuocoammare won the Golden Bear at the 66th Berlinale and was shortlisted for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy Awards. Her most recent productions include: Luce by Silvia Luzi and Luca Bellino (77th Locarno Film Festival); Ho visto un re by Giorgia Farina (42nd Torino Film Festival); Gen_ by Gianluca Matarrese (2025 Sundance Film Festival); Sotto le nuvole by Gianfranco Rosi (82nd Venice International Film Festival); Il quieto vivere by Gianluca Matarrese (22nd Giornate degli Autori); Sergio e Mirta – un matrimonio in 8 mm by Fabrizio Laurenti (20th Rome Film Fest); and Vita mia by Edoardo Winspeare (43rd Torino Film Festival).
Jani Pösö, the CEO of It’s Alive Films, is a producer and screenwriter. He wrote and produced his first theatre play in 1996, first short film in 2006 and feature in 2011 and first book in 2018. He co-founded It’s Alive Films with Teemu Nikki 13 years ago. He has produced eight feature films and four TV-series, all of them internationally acclaimed. He is also behind It’s Alive Films’ multi-remade TV-format Mental. He is best known for The Blind Man Who did not want to see Titanic (Audience award in Venice Film festival 2021), Mister 8 (Best series Cannes Series 2021), and short film All Inclusive (Cannes competition 2019). His latest published feature film 100 Litres of Gold is currently Finland’s official candidate for Academy Awards and his latest TV-series Dorm No 13 is currently premiering in Italy. His company, It’s Alive Films, is known for distinguished style, and strong ethics. All It’s Alive Films’ productions are comedies or entertaining takes on something deadly serious.
Joe Bini is a film editor, writer and director best known for his long-time collaboration with Werner Herzog, on such notable documentaries as, “Little Dieter Needs to Fly,” “Grizzly Man,” “Cave of Forgotten Dreams,” and “Into the Abyss,” and narrative films such as “Rescue Dawn,” and “The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.” He has worked with Lynne Ramsay on “We Need To Talk About Kevin” and “You Were Never Really Here,” and Andrea Arnold on “American Honey” and “Bird.” He co-directed a live theater/film piece about the Kronos Quartet called “A Thousand Thoughts,” which has been staged internationally and has performed a second live film piece called “Little Ethiopia” with his partner, Maya Hawke.