Jury

Hilke Rönnfeldt, born by the Baltic Sea coast in Northern Germany, graduated as a screenwriter at Swedish Alma Education and as a film director at independent film school collective Super16 in Copenhagen. She is a Berlinale Talents, Torino Script Lab, LIM – Less Is more, Oxbelly Episodic Lab and European Short Pitch alumna. Her previous film A STUDY OF EMPATHY won the Golden Leopard at Locarno Film Festival 2023 and was a candidate for the European Film Awards 2024.  She is part of the European Film Promotion Future Frames Program for Emerging Film Directors 2024. Her projects revolve around life in rural communities, worlds of work, intimacy, and the sea. She has a strong faith in the poetic capabilities of the image.

Producer Dagnė Vildžiūnaitė has over 20 years of experience in film and television. In 2007, she founded the studio Just a Moment, producing a wide range of audiovisual projects, including feature films, media projects, or documentary series. Dagnė is an active member of several prestigious industry organizations, including the European Producers Club, European Film Academy, ACE, EAVE, and the Association of Film Culture. She regularly enhances her expertise through international professional training. Her recent productions include Dance Plus City, a series of short dance and architectural films co-produced with partners from Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, and France, featuring 9 directors from 5 countries; Twittering Soul, the first Lithuanian 3D film by Deimantas Narkevičius, showcased at Rotterdam, Marseille, and Tallinn Film Festivals; and Burial, a documentary by artist Emilia Škarnulytė, which has been featured in over 30 festivals and art spaces worldwide.

John Canciani has been a film collector since he was a teenager. In 2009, he became a member of the selection team and board member at the Swiss Youth Film Festival in Zurich. The same year, he joined the Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur and was, amongst others, Head of Youth Programme, Programmer of the International Competition, and assistant to the Artistic Director. In 2012, he was appointed as Artistic Director. John is also a film curator at Kino Cameo Winterthur. He holds a Master’s in Advanced Studies in Curating. He is a member of the Swiss and European Film Academies, and a board member at Pro Short and the Short Film Conference. Since 2019, he has been a board member of Visions SudEst, where he also selects projects for the production and post-production of feature films and documentaries. He advises festivals, film schools, and filmmakers, festival strategies, scripts, and editing.