36th International Short Film Festival Berlin 2020
11 November - 13 December 2020

Jury members 2020

International Competition

Isabella Parkinson

Isabella Parkinson (GER/BRA) is a German-Brazilian film and theatre actress who resides in Berlin and Rio de Janeiro. She has appeared in over 40 television and cinema film productions and is a member of the German Film Academy and the European Film Academy. - Foto: (c) Teresa Marenzi

Adolfo J. Kolmerer

Adolfo J. KOLMERER (VEN) is an award winning film and commercial director based in Berlin. While learning German he was invited to visit a movie set and found his true calling: making films. He learned the ropes of filmmaking quickly and never looked back. He has been doing his dream job ever since - shooting feature films, TV series and commercials including Sløborn (2020), Abikalypse (2019) and Schneeflöckchen (2017).  - Foto: (c) Lars Nitschke

Weronika Bilska

Weronika Bilska (POL) graduated from the Krzysztof Kieślowski Faculty of Radio and Television in Katowice. She has shot several documentaries and narrative films that were well received at festivals, is a winner of the Golden Tadpole Award (2009) at the Camerimage Festival and has been honoured for the cinematography of the documentary “Close Ties”, which was included in the Oscar shortlist for 2016. Her cinematography includes Kamper (directed by Łukasz Grzegorzek) and Waves (directed by Grzegorz Zariczny).  - Foto: (c) Tomasz Szołtys

Confrontation Competition

Birger Schmidt

Birger Schmidt (GER) is one of three artistic directors and initiator of the international football film festival “11mm”, which takes place annually in Berlin and is the first festival of its kind. He is an education researcher and a recipient of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany “for his extraordinary commitment to political education and propagating the values of the German constitution”.

Nazeeha Saeed

Nazeeha Saeed (BHR) is a Bahraini journalist with twenty years of experience in reporting. She works for international print, radio and TV media and has specialized in the coverage of human rights and political stories. She has won many awards in journalism, most notably of all the Johann Philipp Palm Award for Freedom of Speech and the Press in 2014. Saeed advocates for freedom of press and expression and offers safety training for journalists.

Niels Boel

Niels Boel (DK) is a filmmaker, film producer, journalist and author of books about US and international politics. He has directed a dozen films, written many articles about human rights and international politics and produced radio programs for the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. UNESCO recently presented his work regarding indigenous peoples, in particular see https://en.unesco.org/courier/2019-1/videos-voices-indigenous-peoples. He is a consultant with human rights programmes of a number of organizations and works as an electoral observer in a wide range of countries for the EU and OSCE.

Dokumentary Film Competition

Annekatrin Hendel

Annekatrin Hendel (GER) founded  IT WORKS! Medien GmbH in 2004, where she successfully produced nearly 30 fiction-feature and documentary films. Since 2011, the Grimme Award winner has also directed award winning films (SCHÖNHEIT & VERGÄNGLICHKEIT, FAMILIE BRASCH, FÜNF STERNE, FASSBINDER, ANDERSON, VATERLANDSVERRÄTER, FLAKE) that have all been featured at renowned film festivals (Berlinale, IDFA ). She is a member of the board of directors of the German Film Academy and the documentary film jury of BKM.  - Foto: (c) Martin Farkas

Piotr Rosolowski

Piotr Rosolowski (POL) is a Berlin based director, cinematographer & co - author of Documentary Films which won many awards and screened at numerous prestigious film festivals. I.a. Rabbit a la Berlin (Oscar nomination), Domino Effect (Golden Dove Award at the International Film Festival DOK Leipzig and the Golden Horn at the Krakow Film Festival) and The Prince and the Dybbuk (Best Documentary at the 74th Venice Film Festival).

Marco Wilms

Marco Wilms is director and producer of HELDENFILM. He was Model in the GDR, studied stage- and production design, and directing at HFF Potsdam Babelsberg. He made cinema release documentaries like TAILOR MADE DREAMS, COMRADE COUTURE, ART WAR and METAL POLITICS TAIWAN with broadcasters in Europe (ARTE, ZDF, MDR, ORF, SF, AVRO, YLE, France 5...) and North America. His film ART WAR won awards at DOK Leipzig, PRIX Telerama in Biarritz, PRIX Gilda Vieira de Mello Geneva, Amnesty Award Warsaw and PRIX du Jury FIFA Montreal, FILAF D'ARGENT Perpignan.

German Competition

Renate Heilmeier

Renate Heilmeier (GER) works as an expert in the field of film at the Goethe Institute. As a journalist, she has written on cultural and cinema topics for radio and organised cinema film series. - Foto: (c) Loredana La Rocca

Marleen Lohse

Marleen Lohse (GER) performs on renowned theatre stages as well as in cinema, including roles in The Fifth Estate (2013), Die Schule der magischen Tiere (2019), Cleo (2019). Her TV acting appearances include Bella Germania (2017) and Nord bei Nordwest (since 2014, ARD). She plays the lead in the multi-award-winning short film Rhino Full Throttle and co-wrote the screenplay (with Erik Schmitt) for the cinema feature Cleo, in which she also plays the title character. She is currently a member of the main cast for the mini-series “Katakomben”.  - Foto: (c) Max Sonnenschein

Maria Steinmetz

Maria Steinmetz (GER) studied animation at the Konrad Wolf Film and Television Academy (HFF) in Potsdam and was subsequently a master student of Prof. Frank Geßner. Since 2014, she has worked as a freelance film animator and director based in Berlin. Her films Changeling (2011), Macramé (2014), The Mosquito Pieks (2017) and Memorie di Alba (2019) enjoyed successful screenings at numerous international festivals. - Foto: (c) Jan Steinmetz