Transilvania IFF.25 – Jury Members
Official Competition Jury
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 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.
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 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, Sunny, 7 Miles Out, and Gorky Resort.
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 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, his 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.
 Sandra den Hamer |  Roman Gutek |  Ivana Mladenović |
 Aidan Gillen |  Noaz Deshe |
What’s Up, Doc? Jury
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.
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 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.
 Anna Hints |  Alexander Nanau |  Josh Siegel |
Romanian Film Days – Feature Jury
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 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 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.
 René Wolf |  Anja Fröhner |  Marie Balducchi |
Romanian Film Days – Short Film Jury
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 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 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.
 Javier Martín-Domínguez |  Katharina Stumm |  Guillaume Calop |
FIPRESCI Jury
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.
Pamela Cohn is a researcher, curator, and consultant for documentary and experimental film projects. She is the author of Lucid Dreaming: Conversations with 29 Filmmakers, hosts the accompanying podcast, and collaborates with DokuFest in Kosovo, where she serves on the selection committee.
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.
 Steffen Moestrup |  Pamela Cohn |  Veronika Zakonjšek |
Ecumenical Jury
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.
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 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 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.
 Olimpia Melinte |  Heinz-Martin Krauss |  Gianna Urizio |
More details about TIFF.25 will be announced soon. Festival passes are available online at https://tiff.ro/abonamente.
