We introduce this year’s jury members, with a great novelty – for the first time this year Zagreb Film Festival has a Young Jury, consisting of five students from Zagreb high schools, whose decision will judge on the best film in our PLUS program.
Feature Fiction Film Jury: Levan Koguashvili, Christoph Thoke and Jessica Woodworth
Levan Koguashvili is the last year’s Golden Pram winner for best feature fiction film (Blind Dates). His first feature film Street Days was an international success. It premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival in 2010 and was widely regarded as the beginning of a new wave of the modern Georgian cinema. His second feature film Blind Dates premiered at Toronto and Berlin International Film Festivals and won many awards around the world, including the Zagreb Film Festival.
Christoph Thoke is a German film producer. His films reached 700 festival selections and won 150 awards. He has been working with highly acclaimed directors such as three-time Cannes winner Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne and two-time Cannes winner Bruno Dumont, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Rachid Bouchareb.
Jessica Woodworth is an American-Belgian filmmaker. Her documentary The Virgin Diaries was nominated for the FIPRESCI Award at the Amsterdam Documentary FF 2002. In 2011, she was president of the jury at the Ghent IFF. With Peter Brosens, she directed and wrote films Khadak, Altiplano and The Fifth Season. The three films were screened at over 150 festivals and won numerous awards.
Short Film and Checkers Jury: Andrei Creţulescu, Sata Cissokho and Sonja Tarokić
Andrei Creţulescu is a Romanian director, last year’s winner of the Golden Pram for best short film at ZFF (Kowalski). He has just finished his fourth short film, Seven Months Later, and is currently preparing his first feature, Charlton Heston.
Sata Cissokho joined Memento Films International in 2014. She is also handling the arthouse label Artscope, most recently representing Chaitanya Tamhane's Court (Lion of the Future and Orizzonti Award at the Venice IFF 2014; India's Entry for the 88th Academy Awards) and Gabriel Mascaro's Neon Bull (Special Jury Prize at the Venice IFF 2015, Honourable Mention of the Jury at the TIFF 2015), part of this year’s Zagreb Film Festival main competition.
Director Sonja Tarokić is the author of several short films. On Shaky Ground was screened at Rotterdam IFF and awarded the best Croatian short at Zagreb Film Festival, while her other films (You Bitch!, I’m a Self Made Woman, Smart Girls, Red) were screened and awarded at numerous international festivals, such as Sarajevo FF, Vila do Conde, Angers Premiers Plans, NEXT Bucharest FF, Brief Encounters FF.
Check out more detailed biographies of our feature and short film jury members on our jury page.