Jury | WATCH DOCS

Joakim Demmer grew up in southern Sweden. After studying photography, he worked as a cameraman in Scandinavia. From 1995 till 2001 he studied directing at the German Academy of Film & Television in Berlin. Since graduation he has been working as an independent filmmaker based in Berlin and Malmö. Over the years Joakim has realized numerous documentaries in various countries, mainly tackling political and social issues. Several of his works have been awarded at festivals and found international distribution. Joakim’s documentary DEAD DONKEYS FEAR NO HYENAS has been screened in over 40 countries.

His most recent film THE DAUGHTER OF… won the German Grimme-Prize and the German Human Rights Film price in 2020, and a new film project THE BARRIER, that he is developing in co-operation with Masha Novikova, Chiara Minchio and Russian human rights defenders – FUTURE DOCS 2019/2020 Award.

Tomasz Kolankiewicz is an expert in film, film history and film programming who has worked as the artistic director of the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia since 2020. For many years, he collaborated with the National Film Archive - Audiovisual Institute, Nowy Teatr in Warsaw and numerous film festivals. Tomasz was a member of the TVP Kultura film programming team in 2008-2017. He is a producer, director and host of journalistic film programs as well as the author of several hundred television and several dozen cinematic film reviews.

Photo: Maurycy Stankiewicz

Andrea Kuhn is the director of the Nuremberg International Human Rights Film Festival. She has started her career as an academic and researcher in the Film Studies field. From 2000 to 2010 she was the director of the silent film festival StummFilmMusikTage Erlangen. Andrea served as the chair of the Human Rights Film Network on 2008 and 2009. She is an associate member of ANHAR: The Network for Arab Human Rights Films and served for 5 years on the board of Dox Box e.V., a non-traditional support organization focusing on filmmakers in the Arab World.

She is the chair of the Association of Bavarian Film Festivals, a member of the European Film Academy and a founding member of the section "Festivalarbeit" at ver.di (Germany's United Services Trade Union). Andrea served on the International Jury of Berlinale’s TEDDY Awards in 2019 and is a proud winner of a 2010 Gay Games Gold Medal in football and a 2010 World Champion of the International Gay and Lesbian Football Association.

Mila Schlingemann completed Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam. She was a co-founder of the Unheard Film Festival, focused on the narrative power of sound in film. Next to working for student cinema Kriterion, Mila was the project developer and producer for Rocket Cinema, a long-standing film festival, which combines live music and film at various sites in Amsterdam. After a few years of working as a programmer in Flemish arts centre De Brakke Grond in Amsterdam, she started working at Eye Filmmuseum, as Head of Programming.

Eye is the national museum for film and the art of moving image in the Netherlands. As Head of Programming, Mila is responsible for the entire film program, varying from retrospectives, theme programming, special events, and recurring series, like the VR series, Xtended. Mila is also on the advisory board of the cultural organisation Transnatural, that exhibits artworks where man, nature and technology merge. The platform works with a mixture of creators, thinkers, businesses, R&D labs, studios and research institutes.

Caroline von Kuhn is the Director of Catalyst, an independent film financing program, at the Sundance Institute. Prior to this, von Kuhn was Director of Artist Development at the SFFILM (San Francisco Film Society) where she launched SFFILM Invest. She was a co-Founder of the Points North Institute, which produces the Camden International Film Festival (CIFF) after coming from Tribeca Film Festival, running the Industry department after four years of Publicity. She has worked extensively in Film Publicity in New York at Tribeca, Apparition (distribution company) and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Caroline produced Industry Panels for Doha Tribeca Film Festival (Qatar) and programmed the launch of the crowd-sourced funding and distribution platform Seed&Spark. Her producing work includes Paul Felten & Joe DeNardo's Slow Machine, Ian Olds' Burn Country (formerly titled The Fixer, 2016 Tribeca Film Festival winner) and her directorial debut Like the Water. In theatre she most recently produced and co-directed I, Peer, a modern take on Ibsen's Peer Gynt and disability in the arts (Oslo Norway's National Theatre, London's Old Vic / New Voices and New York's Private Theatre). Caroline was a 2016 IFP Cannes Producers Network Fellow and sits on the Board of Directors at Points North Institute, BAVC and Catapult Film Fund. She received her BA in Financial Economics from University of Virginia and an MFA from University of Manchester (UK).