Jury members

Competition Jury

Sandra den Hamer

Bio

Sandra den Hamer, CEO of the Netherlands Film Fund between 2023 and 2026 and one of the most influential figures in the Dutch film industry, serves on the Transilvania IFF.25 Official Competition Jury. With over 30 years of experience in cultural management and film programming, she led Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam from 2010 to 2023 and previously held senior positions at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), where she oversaw initiatives such as the Hubert Bals Fund and CineMart.

Roman Gutek

Bio

Roman Gutek is a Polish film distributor, producer, festival founder, and leading advocate for arthouse cinema, widely recognized for shaping Poland’s contemporary film culture. He founded major events such as the Warsaw Film Festival, the New Horizons International Film Festival, and the American Film Festival in Wrocław. His most recent initiative, the Timeless Film Festival Warsaw, focuses on bringing classic cinema back to the big screen.

Ivana Mladenović

Bio

Born in Serbia and later based in Romania, Ivana Mladenović studied film directing at UNATC Bucharest. Following her documentary Turn Off the Lights, awarded in Sarajevo and at the Gopo Awards, she directed Soldiers. Story from Ferentari and Ivana the Terrible, which received the Special Jury Prize at Locarno. Her most recent film, Sorella di Clausura, premiered in the Locarno Official Competition and earned her the Best Director award at Sarajevo.

Aidan Gillen

Bio

Aidan Gillen is an Irish film, television, and theatre actor known for his versatility and for his roles in internationally acclaimed productions. He will soon appear in leading roles in the TV series Saviour and Tall Tales & Murder. He currently stars in Mayor of Kingstown and Kin. Previously, he appeared in major productions such as Queer as Folk, The Wire, Love/Hate, Game of Thrones, and Project Blue Book, as well as the TV films Safe and Freefall. On the big screen, he has appeared in films including Bohemian Rhapsody, Calvary, Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, Maze Runner: The Death Cure, Those Who Wish Me Dead, Sing Street, Blitz, Mojo, Rose Plays Julie, Mister John, Treacle Jr, and Cold War 1994. His recent and upcoming projects include Panic Carefully (alongside Julia Roberts), Sunny (with Angelina Jolie), 7 Miles Out, and Gorky Resort.

Noaz Deshe

Bio

Noaz Deshe is a Romanian filmmaker, cinematographer, and composer based between Mexico City and Athens. His debut feature, White Shadow, won the Lion of the Future Award at the Venice Film Festival and was selected in competition at Sundance. His most recent feature, Xoftex, premiered at Karlovy Vary in 2024, where it went on to win Best Director awards at both TIFF Cluj and the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. As a cinematographer, he worked on the award-winning Iranian comedy Radio Dreams, and he composed the score for Babak Jalali’s Frontier Blues, which screened at Locarno. Beyond filmmaking, Deshe’s practice spans visual art, music, documentary journalism, and humanitarian work, including involvement in NGO rescue missions in the Mediterranean and support work in refugee camps in Greece.

What's Up Doc Jury

Anna Hints

Bio

Estonian filmmaker Anna Hints gained international recognition with Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, which won the Directing Award at Sundance and the European Film Award for Best European Documentary. The film represented Estonia at the Oscars and was distributed worldwide. Her most recent short film, Sauna Day, premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week.

Alexander Nanau

Bio

Oscar and BAFTA-nominated Alexander Nanau is one of Europe’s most acclaimed contemporary documentary filmmakers. His films, including World According to Ion B., Toto and His Sisters, and Collective, have been selected and awarded at major festivals such as Venice, Sundance, and San Sebastián. Collective became the first Romanian film nominated for both Best Documentary Feature and Best International Feature at the Academy Awards.

Josh Siegel

Bio

Josh Siegel is a curator in the Film Department at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), where he has organized over 150 exhibitions and retrospectives dedicated to cinema and the moving image. He is the founder of the festival To Save and Project: The MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation and has served on juries at festivals including Venice, Locarno, and BAFICI.

Romanian Days Feature Jury

René Wolf

Bio

After more than 35 years at Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam, where he served as Head of Acquisitions and Senior Programmer, René Wolf now works as an independent consultant in film programming and distribution. He initiated the Previously Unreleased program, dedicated to rediscovering significant films that never received international distribution, including several Romanian titles.

Anja Fröhner

Bio

Anja Fröhner is Head of Programming at the Zurich Film Festival. She has been part of the team since 2014, contributing both to film selection and to moderating talks and conversations with filmmakers.

Marie Balducchi

Bio

Marie Balducchi produces films for cinema and television within the independent collective AGAT Films / Ex Nihilo in Paris. She is involved in several European funding and development programs and has served on juries at festivals in Tangier, Sofia, Valencia, and Malmö.

Romanian Days Short Jury

Javier Martín-Domínguez

Bio

The short film competition jury includes Javier Martín-Domínguez, a Spanish filmmaker, journalist, and curator whose career spans cinema, television, and cultural journalism. He led the Seville Film Festival between 2008 and 2011 and has served on juries at festivals such as Moscow, Sarajevo, and Documenta Madrid. He has also directed documentaries and fiction films and worked for over a decade as a correspondent in the United States and Japan for RTVE and La Vanguardia.

Katharina Stumm

Bio

Katharina Stumm joined the East-West co-production market connecting cottbus as Programme Manager in 2018. Prior to this, she worked for many years as a development executive at a Berlin-based film production company. She regularly collaborates with the Berlinale Co-Production Market as well as other international film festivals and industry markets. She holds an MA in Film Studies from King’s College London.

Guillaume Calop

Bio

Guillaume Calop began his career at the Annecy Animation Festival, later moving to Los Angeles to work as webmaster for Animation World Network and subsequently as artistic director of CANAL+’s online division (1998–2004). In 2004, he founded a DVD publishing company and the DVD store Chalet Pointu. In 2009, he co-founded Les Arcs Film Festival, dedicated to European cinema, where he currently serves as General Director. He is also the co-founder of Le Village, which develops professional platforms for film festivals and film projects, as well as Le Lab Femmes de Cinéma, a think tank focused on improving the representation of women in the film industry.

FIPRESCI Jury

Steffen Moestrup

Bio

Steffen Moestrup is a film critic for Le Monde diplomatique Scandinavia and a lecturer at the Danish School of Media and Journalism, where he teaches and researches documentary film, digital storytelling, and cultural criticism. He is co-editor of the online publication 16:9 and host of the TV program film:syn.

Veronika Zakonjšek

Bio

Veronika Zakonjšek writes for the Slovenian publications Dnevnik and Ekran. Since 2023, she has headed the Slovenian branch of FIPRESCI. She also coordinates the industry program of the Slovenian Film Festival and is a member of the selection committee of the Slovenian International Animation Film Festival.

Marian Țuțui

Bio

Marian Țuțui is a film critic and historian who has dedicated himself to the study of Balkan cinema and Romanian film. Since 2017, he has been a full professor of film studies at Hyperion University in Bucharest, since 2014 a researcher at the 'George Oprescu' Institute of Art History of the Romanian Academy. Since 2018, he has been the head of its department 'Performing Arts. Theatre and Cinema.' Between 1996-2013, he was curator (editor-in-chief) of the Romanian Film Archive. He is the author of four books on cinema written in Romanian and English: The Manakia Brothers or the Image of the Balkans (2005), A Short History of Romanian Cinema (2005, 2018 in Chinese), Orient Express. Romanian and Balkan Cinema (2008), as well as Studies of Romanian and Balkan Film (2021). He has regularly published film articles in Romania (Film, ProCinema, Films in Frame) and abroad.

Ecumenical Jury

Olimpia Melinte

Bio

Olimpia Melinte is a theatre and film actress, a graduate of the “George Enescu” National University of Arts in Iași, where she studied acting and completed a master’s degree in Acting. She has performed in numerous productions at the Iași National Theatre while also building an international film career. Her film debut in The Floaters (dir. Mircea Daneliuc) brought her two Gopo Award nominations, followed by roles in Seven Works of Mercy, Killing Time, and Caníbal, screened and awarded at major festivals including Locarno, Toronto, and San Sebastián. In 2022, she completed her PhD at UNATC Bucharest, focusing on female representation in television series, and is a member of SIGNIS Romania and Honorary Co-President of the FILMIKON Festival.

Heinz-Martin Krauss

Bio

Trained in theology and Romance philology at universities in Göttingen, Barcelona, Munich, and San José (Costa Rica), Heinz-Martin Krauss has worked as a pastor in Caracas and La Paz, later serving the Neue Vahr Lutheran community in Bremen before becoming a school pastor and teacher at Nebelthau-Gymnasium, a role he concluded upon retirement in 2025. He has long been involved in the dialogue between church and cinema as a member of the “Church and Cinema” team of the Church of Bremen and a member of INTERFILM since 1987, serving on juries at numerous international festivals including Venice, Riga, Kyiv, Yerevan, Miskolc, and Warsaw.

Gianna Urizio

Bio

Gianna Urizio is a sociologist and social psychologist, trained in Florence and Rome. She built her career in television as a producer and writer for the program Protestantesimo on Rai Due, creating numerous international documentaries on faith, culture, and social diversity. Between 1993 and 1998 she served as editor-in-chief of the program and became increasingly involved in international ecumenical dialogue through collaborations with the World Council of Churches, WACC, and INTERFILM. She co-founded a Protestant film association in Italy and, as a member of the INTERFILM board, contributed to the creation of the Venice INTERFILM Jury.

Stanislav Zeman

Bio

Stanislav Zeman served as Head of Communications for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Prague. He holds an interdisciplinary academic background in documentary film directing from FAMU in Prague, where he also earned a PhD on narrative in fiction film. He studied psychology and art therapy at the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, where he taught for two decades, and completed an MBA at ESMA School of Management in Prague, focusing on film production. He has also directed numerous documentaries for Czech Television.

SIGNIS Jury

Agostina Belén Torre Nari

Bio

Agostina Belén Torre Nari (26 years old) is an Argentine-Spanish filmmaker, video editor, and audiovisual professional based in Lyon, France. She studied Cinematography at Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires and continued her education at Université Lumière Lyon 2, specializing in production and audiovisual editing. Agostina has worked on international productions such as The Letter and Casi Muerta, and has served as an ecumenical jury member and film critic at international festivals, including Cannes and Schlingel. Passionate about storytelling, editing, and cultural exchange, she combines creative vision with strong technical and production skills in international audiovisual projects.

Iustina Farcaș

Bio

Iustina Farcaș (24 years old) is an MA student in Film Production at the National University of Theatre and Film in Bucharest. Her interest in cinema began through volunteering at several film festivals, an experience that inspired her to pursue a career in the film industry. Since then, she has gained practical experience as a production assistant on a feature film produced by the Romanian company POINT FILM, where she is currently completing an internship, as well as on television productions and numerous student film projects. Through both her academic training and hands-on experience on set, she continues to deepen her understanding of film production and storytelling. She looks forward to discovering new perspectives on cinema and engaging in meaningful discussions about the ethical and human values reflected in film.

Leonardo Noam Ribet Griot

Bio

Leonardo Noam Ribet Griot (23 years old) is a student of Management Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Turin, where he cultivates his interest in coding, artificial intelligence, and technology. In his free time, he enjoys playing chess and currently leads his university’s chess club. A passionate film enthusiast, Leonardo has been involved with the Protestant association “Roberto Sbaffi,” the Italian representative of INTERFILM, since 2024 and became a board member in 2025. He served on the Ecumenical Jury at the 2024 edition of TMFF in Rome and on the Protestant Jury at the Venice Film Festival in 2025. Interested in film criticism, he aims to further develop his tools for cinematic analysis and deepen the dialogue between cinema, culture, and human values.

Nike Naemi Helmerich

Bio

Nike Naemi Helmerich (25 years old) is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies in Geneva. With a background in refugee support and experience living and studying in several countries, she is particularly interested in issues of sustainable peace and reconciliation. Alongside her academic work, she has been involved for many years in social and church-based theatre projects. She is fascinated by the power of film and theatre to tell stories, foster empathy, and make complex human experiences accessible. Through storytelling, she believes people can better understand different perspectives and build connections across social, cultural, and political divides.

Foli Christian Innocent Amah-Tchoutchoui

Bio

Foli Christian Innocent Amah-Tchoutchoui (25 years old) is a Togolese TV presenter, journalist, and filmmaker. Trained in multimedia communication at the Institut Supérieur Don Bosco in Lomé, he has experience in television production, presenting, reporting, filming, sound recording, and editing. He has worked with TVT, Radio Maria Togo, and SMA TOGO TV, producing coverage of liturgical and cultural events, as well as interviews and audiovisual content. He has participated in several film festivals in Togo and Benin and is actively involved in volunteering, youth support initiatives, public speaking, and cultural projects.

Adrien Fondecave

Bio

Adrien Fondecave (37 years old) is a member of SIGNIS France. He holds a Master’s degree in Cultural Organization Management from Paris Dauphine University – PSL. An independent film critic and programmer, he is the co-founder of the Paris-based association Le Dernier Mot de Trop. As editor-in-chief, he covers film news through interviews, articles, and reviews published online and in a biannual print magazine. He also programs and presents films in Parisian cinemas through a monthly film club and special screenings. His areas of expertise include European, Soviet, Asian, and heritage art-house cinema, as well as the connections between cinema and other art forms.

Local Competition Jury

Ana Gheorghe

Bio

Ana Gheorghe is a film producer and screenwriter based in Bucharest. She graduated from the National University of Theatre and Film "I.L. Caragiale" (UNATC), where she studied Film Studies and Screenwriting. Since 2016, she has been working as a producer at Saga Film, developing short and feature films, documentaries, and experimental projects. The films she has worked on have screened at major international festivals, including the Berlin International Film Festival, Cannes Critics’ Week, Locarno, IDFA, Sarajevo, Thessaloniki, and TIFF. Her recent projects include Don’t Let Me Die by Andrei Epure, which premiered at Locarno, as well as the documentaries Mother Ship by Ana Vîjdea and Distant Lands, Anca Tăbleț’s feature documentary debut, currently in post-production. She is also collaborating on new short films by emerging directors such as Emil Vasilache, Mihai Ghiță, and Victoria Ecaterina Moraru.

Tudor Jurgiu

Bio

Tudor Jurgiu is a film director and screenwriter, and a graduate of the National University of Theatre and Film in Bucharest (UNATC), where he also completed his Master's studies and pursued a PhD. His short films have been selected and awarded at numerous international festivals. Oli’s Wedding received, among others, the awards for Best Short Film at the Anonimul International Independent Film Festival and Next International Film Festival, while In the Fishbowl won Third Prize in the Cinefondation section at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013. His feature debut, The Japanese Dog (2013), premiered at the San Sebastián International Film Festival and went on to receive several international awards. His latest feature, On Our Own, premiered in the Forum section of the 2026 Berlin International Film Festival, where it received the CICAE Award.

Maria Popistașu

Bio

Maria Popistașu is an actress, screenwriter, and director, and a graduate of the National University of Theatre and Film in Bucharest (UNATC). Throughout her career, she has collaborated with both Romanian and international filmmakers and is widely recognized for her performances in films such as Love Sick, Sex Traffic, and Gunpowder, Treason & Plot. Alongside her acting career, she has developed screenwriting and directing projects. Her first feature film as co-director, Y, made together with Alex Baciu, represented Romania in the Official Competition of the Warsaw International Film Festival and will be screened at Transilvania IFF.25.