Juries in Bergen 2010
Nordic Short Film Jury
Jan Naszewski
Born in Warsaw, Jan Naszewski studied languages and EU studies in Edinburgh, where he started the New Europe Film Festival, which focuses on films from the 12 new EU member states. For years he has worked in different roles at various film festivals, programmed Eastern and Central European films for UK festivals and venues and acquired short films for one of the big short film distributors in London.
Currently, he is Head of Industry and International Relations for ERA New Horizons IFF in Wroclaw, Poland (www.enh.pl). He also programmes short films for Krakow Film Festival and runs his own boutique short film distribution New Europe Film Sales representing best short films from Eastern/Central Europe and Scandinavia. www.neweuropefilmsales.com.
Liz Harkman
Liz Harkman is currently Managing Director for Encounters International Film Festival the umbrella festival for Animated Encounters and Brief Encounters, the UK's leading short film and animation festivals based in Bristol. The festival has just completed is 15th edition and prioritises the showcasing, supporting and progression of new talent in film and animation.
Her role involves managing the business and charity, raising finance through grants and sponsorship, developing relationships with other industry organisations and international partners, whilst managing the Festival Coordinator and Print Management and Programme Coordinator, a temporary team of up 5 staff and 35 volunteers and overseeing the delivery and logistics of the festival. Liz also selects all guest programmes and programmes the Children's Jury Award and the Online Award.
The 16th edition of the festival will take place between 16-21 November 2010 and submissions will open April 2010.
Liz previously worked on Animated Exeter, Edinburgh Film Festival, Flickerfest, Sydney Film Festival, the UK Film Council and the British Film Institute.
Sara Eliassen
Sara Eliassen (b.1977) recently graduated from The San Francisco Art Institute, MFA filmmaking, and is currently doing The Independent Study Program at Whitney Museum of American Art. She works within the cross section of narrative film work and visual arts, and together with Lilja Ingolfsdottir she was the director of the anti-commercial film project Not Worth It, consisting of six fake commercials attacking a Norwegian consumptive mentality through national commercial channels. Sara Eliassen’s short film Still Birds premiered at The Venice Film Festival in 2009 and was later shown at Nordic Panorama 2009 and Sundance Film Festival 2010, amongst other festivals.
Nordic Documentary Jury
Mads Brügger
Mads Brügger (1972) is a Danish journalist, TV-host and author. He has written several books, the latest being "Borderlands" (2008), which is about Denmark’s biggest case of organized sexual abuse of children. On national television he has hosted the critically acclaimed late night TV-programme "The 11th hour". He has also produced several award winning documentaries for national radio.
Today Mads Brügger works at The Danish Broadcasting Corporation, where he has been busy making a TV-series about the mysterious death of an EU civil servant, “The Quatraro Mystery”, as well as hosting the daily news and debate programme “Deadline”.
Winner of the grand jury award for best foreign documentary at Sundance 2010 for his film "The Red Chapel" - which also won at Nordic Panorama in Reykjavik in 2009.
Tabitha Jackson
Tabitha Jackson is the Channel 4 Commissioning Editor for Arts. Her brief also encompasses arts on More 4 and cross platform projects. Until recently, Tabitha was the Editor of More 4 and ran the award-winning international documentary strand True Stories.
Sergio Fant
Sergio Fant, born in 1971, is an Italian film programmer, working mainly in the fields of documentary, shorts, experimental cinema and artists' film and video. He (almost) never has enough of watching, showing and sharing films. After graduating in Film Studies and working as a film archivist at the Bologna Film Archive (Cineteca di Bologna), he went on conceiving, curating and selecting programs for several Italian festivals, such as Il Cinema Ritrovato film festival and the Biografilm Festival in Bologna, the Rome International Film Festival, and other festivals in Pesaro and Trento. He envisaged and organizes special film programs as part of events dealing with different art forms and issues, such as Internazionale a Ferrara - a happening focusing on the media, current affairs and human rights, Festivaletteratura in Mantova - the most successful literature event in Italy - and the BilBolBul Festival in Bologna - devoted to comics and illustration. He holds a weekly column on documentary films for the Italian news-magazine Internazionale, and recently co-founded the innovative film distribution platform CineAgenzia, which made its debut with handling the Italian screenings of the Academy Award nominated feature documentary Burma VJ. As of January 2010 he has been appointed programming advisor for the Orizzonti sidebar of the Venice Film Festival.
New Nordic Voices Jury
Hanna Sohlberg
Hanna Sohlberg is a commissioning editor in the field short- and documentary film at Film i Skåne. Her focus and passion is talent development. Since she started at Film i Skåne in 2004 she has been a project manager of numerous films, she initiated and developed the talent department at Film i Skåne, and she has produced the region's largest short film festival several times.
Since her studies in media and literature at the University of Lund, Hanna has been involved in several short film projects, both as a team member as well as director and producer.
Pål Øie
Director/ screenwriter Pål Øie is working from Bergen, and had a huge success with his debut feature Dark Woods in 2003. His filmography consists of several award-winning shorts, all of them revealing a considerable visual talent. His films have been awarded with seven Amanda-nominations through the years, and have been screened at a number of International festivals. His horror-films take great advantage of this; scary, psychological stories, breathtakingly beautiful in their visual style and bound to give you a chill down the spine. Pål Øie has extensive experience in film making, both as scriptwriter and director. Dark Woods was recently elected the scariest Norwegian movie ever, and positioned Øie as Norway's leading horror director - a filmmaker with a strong sense of the dark side of human nature, and a solid conveyor of disturbed emotions and ambiances. His latest feature Hidden has been sold to 14 countries worldwide, and After Dark Film (USA) acquired it the forth film in this years "8 Films to Die For".
Greta Olafsdottir
Greta Olafsdottir is an acclaimed documentary director and producer, and together with her partner Susan Muska she owns Bless Bless Productions, an independent documentary film production company with offices in NYC and Reykjavik. Greta also works as documentary and short consultant for The Icelandic Film Centre. Greta and Susan has made a large number of award winning documentaries, screened at several international festivals. Among them are "Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement", a love story of two remarkable women whose commitment to each other is an inspiration to us all. "Women, The Forgotten Face of War", a feature documentary about what happens to ordinary women whose lives have been ravaged by war in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia. And "The Brandon Teena Story", an award-winning documentary about a triple homicide in rural Nebraska, an examination of personal beliefs, prejudices, and hate crime. Nominated for an Emmy Award for Excellence in Investigative Journalism, and received several international awards.