The Filmfest juries
Munich international! As usual, our juries include lots of dedicated people from Munich, and in 2022, they again include plenty of prominent international members of the film and festival industry as well. Thus, the Munich-based producer and co-founder of maze pictures, Philipp Kreuzer, German-Turkish actress Sibel Kekilli, and American director Riley Stearns, whose film THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE opened FILMFEST MÜNCHEN in 2019, will choose the recipient of the ARRI Award in the CineMasters competition. The jury for the CineVision Award, sponsored by MPLC Deutschland GmbH, is comprised of Dublin International Film Festival director Gráinne Humphreys, Swiss director Alexandre O. Philippe, and producer Roshanak Khodabakhsh.
A new competition, CineRebels, will honor experimental and venturesome films for the first time. Ten productions will vie for the 10,000-euro CineRebels Award sponsored by Audi. The winning film will be chosen by director and fine-art photographer Franziska Stünkel, director and actor RP Kahl, and author and director Jovana Reisinger.
The KINDERFILMFEST has always been part of FILMFEST MÜNCHEN. Now it has its own jury award: the CineKindl Award. The winning film will be selected by a three-member jury consisting of KiKA presenter and actress Pia Amofa-Antwi, Telescope Animation co-founder Reza Memari, and producer Jana Kreissl.
The German Cinema New Talent Award and the Bernd Burgemeister TV Production Award are presented to German films. The recipients of the German Cinema New Talent Award, sponsored by DZ Bank AG, Bavaria Film, and Bayerischer Rundfunk, will be selected by director Sönke Wortmann, actress Almila Bagriacik, and producer Ingo Fliess. The Bernd Burgemeister TV Production Award will for the first time be presented for both the best TV movie and the best series or miniseries.
In addition, the International Federation of Film Critics awards the FIPRESCI Prize at FILMFEST MÜNCHEN. This jury is comprised of film journalists Barbara Gasser, Engin Ertan, and Enoe Lopes Pontes.
THE Cinemasters jury
pHILIPP kREUZER
Riley Stearns
Sibel Kekilli
Philipp Kreuzer is a film producer and attorney who also attended film school. He has produced feature films, TV miniseries, and TV series, many of them international co-productions. He has also been chairman of the supervisory board of German Films since 2021. Before founding the maze pictures production company in 2015, he worked at Eurimages and the Bavaria Film Group. He has produced such films as THE HAPPY PRINCE, GUNS AKIMBO, and SIBERIA as well as TV series such as THE CRIMSON RIVERS.
A German actress with Turkish roots, Sibel Kekilli made a name for herself early on, mainly in German productions, such as the 2004 film GEGEN DIE WAND. From 2010 to 2017 she played a detective in TATORT: KIEL. Yet she’s also had international success. In 2006, she starred in the Turkish production EVE DÖNÜS (Homecoming). She was also part of the regular cast of the award-winning series GAME OF THRONES from its first season in 2011 until her departure in 2014.
Riley Stearns was born in Austin, Texas in 1986. His short film THE CUB was screened at Sundance in 2013. His feature debut, FAULTS, premiered at SXSW a year later. His second feature film was THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE, which opened FILMFEST MÜNCHEN in 2019. Riley Stearns has been nominated for a variety of awards at a number of independent film festivals.
the Cinevision jury
Gráinne Humphreys
Alexandre O. Philippe
Roshanak Khodabakhsh
Director Alexandre O. Philippe holds a Master of Fine Arts in dramatic writing from New York University and is creative director of Exhibit A Pictures. Many of his films revolve around dissecting and documenting the most influential works of well-known directors. His latest films include LEAP OF FAITH: WILLIAM FRIEDKIN ON THE EXORCIST (Venice 2019, Sundance 2020) and MEMORY: THE ORIGINS OF ALIEN, which was screened at FILMFEST MÜNCHEN in 2019. He’ll be screening his latest work, THE TAKING, at FILMFEST MÜNCHEN this year, as another of his films, LYNCH/OZ, celebrates its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.
The director of the Dublin International Film Festival, Gráinne Humphreys, has been involved in film programming for some 20 years. Her career began at the Junior Dublin Film Festival in 1994. In 1995, she joined the Irish Film Institute as Education Officer and began to expand her role by including special sessions and focuses on the work of Andy Warhol, Agnes Varda, and Harold Pinter. In later years, she was director of the Stranger Than Fiction Documentary Festival and the Dublin French Film Festival (2002–2007). She has also served on juries at various festivals, including those in Sydney, Seattle, Vilnius, Edinburgh, and Miami. She a member of the Strategy Committee of the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris.
Roshanak “Rosh” Khodabakhsh was born in Tehran, Iran, and grew up in Cologne. She started out as an assistant on various TV and film productions. In 2009 she completed her studies at the ifs international film schule köln in the field of “creative producing”. She then worked with director Ali Samadi-Ahadi as an associate producer on the Adolf-Grimme-Award-winning documentary THE GREEN WAVE. In 2013, she began working as a freelance filmmaker on international and national TV and film productions and joined DCM as a producer in October 2019.
the cINEREBELS jury
Franziska Stünkel
RP Kahl
Jovana Reisinger
Franziska Stünkel is a film director, screenwriter, and fine-art photographer. Her films have been screened at more than 100 film festivals in 19 countries, where they have received multiple awards. Her feature film THE LAST EXECUTION, which deals with the death penalty in East Germany, received both the German Cinema New Talent Award for best screenplay and the One Future Prize at its world premiere at FILMFEST MÜNCHEN 2021; the film’s commercial release followed in August 2021. Stünkel’s previous work includes the feature film VINETA (2006) as well as the 15-hour TV documentary DER TAG DER NORDDEUTSCHEN (2012). As a fine-art photographer, Stünkel has spent twelve years on an ongoing series of works titled “Coexist”, for which she has received the Audi Art Award and the Berlin Hyp Kunstpreis. Her photographs are exhibited in museums and galleries and are included in collections such as that of the Sprengel Museum Hannover.
Jovana Reisinger, born in Munich in 1989 and raised in Germany and Austria, is an author, filmmaker, and visual artist. She studied communication design at the Hochschule München as well as screenwriting and documentary film directing at the University of Television and Film Munich (HFF). For her debut novel, “Still halten” (Verbrecher Verlag, 2017), she received the Bayern 2-Wortspiele-Preis, and for her novel “Spitzenreiterinnen” (Verbrecher Verlag, 2021) she was nominated for the 2021 Bayerischer Buchpreis. Since 2020, she has written a column about menstruation called “Bleeding Love” for Vogue Online. Her films have been screened internationally at festivals and exhibitions and have won awards. She lives in Munich and works everywhere.
RP Kahl has been a frequent guest at FILMFEST MÜNCHEN with films he has produced, directed, or both. These include SILVESTER COUNTDOWN (directed by Oskar Roehler, Hypo-Förderpreis) in 1997, which he produced, followed by ANGEL EXPRESS, which he directed and produced, in 1998. In 2005, the premiere of his documentary MÄDCHEN AM SONNTAG followed, and in 2017 he brought his first English-language film, ECSTASY, to the festival. Kahl is a professor of film at various universities and is one of the three executive chairs of the board of the German Film Academy.
The GERMAN CINEMA NEW TALENT AWARD jury
Almila Bagriacik
Sönke Wortmann
Ingo Fliess
Almila Bagriacik was born in Ankara in 1990. In 1995 her family moved to Berlin, where she grew up bilingual. In 2008, a fellow actor saw her at SO36, a club in Kreuzberg, and gave her a flyer for a street casting. She landed a role in director Feo Aladag’s drama WHEN WE LEAVE, which premiered at the Berlinale in 2010. In HÖRDUR (2015), Bagriacik had her first leading role in a feature film. The German film critics’ association nominated her for best actress in 2015, and she received the Deutscher Schauspielerpreis for best young actress in 2017. Since 2017, she has appeared alongside Axel Milberg as commissioner Mila Sahin in the NDR production TATORT: Kiel.
Sönke Wortmann was born in Marl in 1959. He attended the University of Television and Film Munich (HFF) and the Royal College of Art in London. His graduation film, DREI D, was nominated for a Student Oscar. He cinema debut came in 1991 with the apartment-sharing comedy ALONE AMONG WOMEN. A year later, he received the German Film Award for LITTLE SHARKS (1992) and the award for best feature film at the World Film Festival in Montréal. DER BEWEGTE MANN (1994) is considered one of the most successful works of postwar German cinema. This comedy, which more than 6.6 million people saw in theaters, received numerous awards, including the German Film Award for best film, best director, and best leading actor. Wortmann’s first Hollywood film, THE HOLLYWOOD SIGN, based on a novel by Leon de Winter, followed in 2001. That same year, he began his career as a producer with LAMMBOCK. Other popular films directed by Wörtmann include THE MIRACLE OF BERN (2003), DEUTSCHLAND. EIN SOMMERMÄRCHEN (2006), POPE JOAN (2008), FRAU MÜLLER MUSS WEG! (2015) and HOW ABOUT ADOLF? (2018). His latest film, CONTRA, was shown in German cinemas in 2019. In addition to his work in film, Sönke Wortmann has also been directing for theater for 25 years. His many honors include the German Federal Film Award, the German Film Award, the Bavarian Film Award, and the Adolf-Grimme-Preis.
Ingo Fliess studied art history in Bamberg and Berlin from 1984 to 1991, earning an MA degree. Following stints as a journalist and nonfiction author, he was employed by Verlag der Autoren from 1994 to 2006 as a script agent and later as its managing director. Parallel to this, he began working in film production in 2003, becoming self-employed in 2007 when he founded if... Productions in Munich. Various award-winning documentaries were made during this time, some of them in collaboration with Gereon Wetzel and Jörg Adolph. HOW TO MAKE A BOOK WITH STEIDL (Wetzel & Adolph) earned the Golden Dove in Leipzig in 2010; EL BULLI: COOKING IN PROGRESS (Wetzel, 2011) was screened around the world and sold in more than 20 countries. Oliver Haffner’s A GIFT FROM THE GODS (2015) marked his first major success with feature films (Bavarian Film Award, Deutscher Schauspielpreis, Produzentenpreis München). Since then, Fliess has been producing both fiction and nonfiction standalone films. He is a former scholarship holder of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a member of the German and the European Film Academies and is on the board of the Produzentenverband e.V., the association of German film producers.
the cINEKINDL Jury
Pia Amofa-Antwi
Reza Memari
Jana Kreissl
Pia Amofa-Antwi was born in Munich in 1995 and also grew up here. After earning the Mittlere Reife school certificate, she pursued a career in nursing and as an emergency-room nurse before being trained in acting. Today she is an actress and voiceover artist. Since 2020, she has been imparting knowledge to children as a presenter of PIA UND DIE WILDEN TIERE, PIA UND DIE WILDE NATUR, and other television shows on Germany’s Kinderkanal, KiKA.
Reza Memari is a writer and director as well as co-managing director and co-founder of Telescope Animation. His award-winning animated feature film RICHARD THE STORK premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2017 and was a global commercial success. As a former product manager for games, he has an extensive background in entertainment marketing and game development. He is a member of the German and European Film Academies, an alumnus of the Academy for Children’s Media and Berlinale Talents. He lives in Berlin and Brooklyn.
Jana Kreissl was born in Munich in 1988. After numerous internships in the field of film and media, she completed her studies of theater, film, and media in Vienna. Her desire to be a filmmaker led her to the German Film and Television Academy Berlin, where she studied film production from 2014 to 2020. Her first feature film, DAS MELANCHOLISCHE MÄDCHEN (directed by Susanne Heinrich), received the award for best film at the Max Ophüls Preis Film Festival, was twice nominated for the First Steps Award, and made the short list for the German Film Award. Since 2020, with Tobias Gaede, she has brought together her passion for and expertise in filmmaking at Silva Film GmbH.
the Fipresci prize jury
Mag. phil. Barbara Gasser
Engin Ertan
Enoe Lopes Pontes
Barbara Gasser is on the board of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and a member of the jury at the Golden Globe Awards and various international film festivals. The internationally award-winning journalist is also a member of the Austrian Film Critics’ Guild and a regular guest lecturer at the FH Joanneum Graz.
Engin Ertan was born in Istanbul in 1979. He studied journalism at Istanbul University. Since 2000, he has been a film critic for “Sinema” magazine and his articles have appeared in a variety of newspapers and magazines. He was the deputy editor-in-chief of “Sinema” from 2009 to December 2013. Currently, he works for the film magazine “Altyazı” and for the arts magazine “Milliyet Sanat”. He has also been on the advisory board of the Istanbul Film Festival since 2016.
Enoe Lopes Pontes is a doctoral student in the Department of Contemporary Communication and Culture at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) in Brazil. She has already completed a PhD in media research at the University of Marburg and earned a degree in performing arts with a focus on theater at UFBA. Since 2015 she has belonged to GRIM and since 2018 to Analitica, two groups of researchers who examine the reception and criticism of media, with a focus on film. Since 2019 she has been part of a research initiative dedicated to the analysis of audiovisual productions (GRUPA-UNIP). She has been a curator and jury member at various festivals in South America, including the Panorama Internacional Coisa de Cinema. Since 2014, she has written reviews for the website Coisa de Cinéfilo.
