JURY 2021

We are proud to announce the Jury of the 19th Warsaw Jewish FF!

The 19th festival has the international films competition in 4 categories: Narrative Feature Films, Documentary Feature Films, Documentary Short Films and Narrative Short Films. To this year's competition was selected 30 films: 6 narrative features, 7 feature documentaries and 17 short films. The newest productions from all over the world: Poland, Israel, Germany, France, Denmark, Switzerland, Turkey, Hungary, Canada, USA.

The list of all films in the competition you can find here: films in the competition.

The Jury verdict will be announce at the Closing Ceremony on November 21st!

JURY OF THE NARRATIVE FEATURE FILMS:

HELISE LIEBERMAN - Executive Director of the Taube Center for the Renewal of Jewish Life Foundation in Poland. A former Hillel director, she was the founding principal of the Lauder-Morasha Day School in Warsaw and has served as a consultant to the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe, the Westbury Group, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Ms. Lieberman was awarded the Bene Merito medal by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2015.  She is active in developing and promoting Jewish heritage education programs and serves on the boards of the Lauder-Morasha Schools and Hillel Poland. Ms. Lieberman, with dual citizenship (U.S.A and Poland), has lived in Warsaw since 1994.

BERND BUDER - Programme Director of Jewish Festival Berlin- Brandenburg and Film Festival Cottbus. 1996 - 2005 program director of the art film theatre "Berliner Filmkunsthaus Babylon". Curatorial activities for various film festivals (Turkish Film Week Berlin, goEast Film Festival, dokumentArt Neubrandenburg, Prishtina FilmFestival). Since 1996 he has been associated with the "FilmFestival Cottbus" in various positions - research, press spokesman, curator - and from 2011 - 2014 head of the co-production market "connecting cottbus" and has been its programme director since 2015. The FilmFestival Cottbus team is designated to run also the Jewish Film Festival Berlin and Brandenburg from 2021. Buder also programmes the competition sections of the European film festival "Cinedays" in Skopje and is a programme consultant for the Berlinale-Forum section. He also works as a film journalist and lecturer and is a member of the European Film Academy. Studied political science at the Free University of Berlin.

WOLFGANG W. WERNER - Owner of a public relations agency, specialized in promoting international art house and independent film productions. Studied sociology, political science, philosophy and american studies at the Marburg and Frankfurt universities, and is holding a diploma in sociology. Initially he has been working in media research, event management, film programming, and as a film critic. Since 1985 he is managing his own public relations agency, specialized in promoting international art house and independent film productions, from 1995 together with Christiane Leithardt. On behalf of international and national producers, distributors and world sales companies they have been working for many outstanding films, filmmakers and actors, organizing release publicity, festival presentations and interview junkets in Berlin, Cannes, Venice and Locarno, for example for Willem Dafoe, Abel Ferrara, Rithy Panh, Lars von Trier, Rupert Everett, Ai Weiwei, Aki Kaurismäki, Todd Solondz, Katja Riemann, Miguel Gomes, Eran Kolirin, Michael Haneke, Isabelle Huppert, Julian Schnabel, Francois Ozon, Tilda Swinton, Margarethe von Trotta and many others. Wolfgang W. Werner has also been part of the festival teams in Locarno and in Rome.

JURY OF THE DOCUMENTARY NARRATIVE AND SHORT FILMS:

DOROTA SIARKOWSKA - Manager of the Adult Education Section at the POLIN Museum. She has been working in the Education Department of the POLIN Museum since 2014. Menager of the Adult Education Section - a team that implements programs addressed to the general public (such as "Lesmian’s Meadow"), teachers, educators and also produces educational films (such as "Muranow. The Northern District", "I will write", film series "Personal stories").

ANDRZEJ CICHOCKI - Film Director, DoP and Screenwriter. Multiple award-winner and nominee including Oscar® Academy qualifying festivals such as:  Saint Louis IFF, IDFA Amsterdam, Krakow Film Festival, Rhode Island IFF, Athens IFF also Camerimage IFF, Huesca IFF, Warsaw Jewish FF and a lot of others. His short films are among the most awarded Polish films ever. University Lecturer in the courses of Directing as well as Cinematography.  A graduate of Krzysztof Kieslowski Film School at the University of Silesia. 

TADEUSZ STRĄCZEK - Executive Director of the WATCH DOCS. Human Rights in Film International Film Festival, organized by the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. Associated with HFHR since 2013. A member of the Tadeusz Mazowiecki Prize committee, presented by the Mayor of Warsaw. A graduate of the American Studies Center, University of Warsaw. Expert in the field of socially-engaged documentary film.

JURY OF THE NARRATIVE SHORT FILMS:

AGATA RAKOWIECKA - Director of Jewish Community Center in Warsaw, which was opened in 2013 and since then has provided thousands of workshops and events connecting the Jews of Warsaw and building modern, pluralistic Jewish community. Agata studied speech therapy and Polish literature at the University of Warsaw. She is an alumni of the Senior Educators Program, run by the Melton Centre for Jewish Education at the Hebrew University. Agata has been involved in informal Jewish education for over 15 years as a madricha and educator in Poland and abroad.

MONIKA GÓRSKA - Chief Education Expert at Andrzej Wajda Centre for Film Culture. Co-ordinator for Springboard to the Movies, the film education program aimed at the younger audience. She is a graduate of Photography Studies at the Cinematography Faculty of the National Film School in Lodz and a graduate of Culture Animation Programme at the Faculty of Polish Studies of the Warsaw University). Photographer, co-organizer of numerous exhibitions and workshops. Long serving president of the Association of Photographers „poniekąd". Producent of photo and film sessions for Gruner und Jahr and Burda Media. Keen regular and organizer of family art workshops.

MARCELL KENESEI - Director of the JCC Budapest and Jewish Film Festival in Budapest. He finished high school at the Lauder Javne Jewish Community school in Budapest, and graduated as a political scientist at the ELTE University -  Faculty of Law. In 2007-2008 Marcell was a fellow at Paideia - The European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden. From 2008 Marcell took part in the establishment of the Israeli Cultural Institute in Budapest, he was responsible for resource development. From January the 1st, 2011 Marcell served also as the deputy director of the Institute until he joined the team of Centropa in June 2011. Marcell was the director of Centropa Hungary for eight years until 2020 when he became the director of the JCC Budapest - Bálint Ház, the Jewish community center in Hungary. Besides the JCC Budapest, Marcell currently serves as the president of the Board of the Haver Informal   Jewish Educational Foundation, and he is also member of the Board of the UCCU Informal Roma Educational  Foundation, of the Charity Taxi Foundation, and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Dutch Jewish Humanitarian Fund.  

THE FULL FESTIVAL PROGRAM AND FILMS: CHECK HERE!

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