The Jury of STIFF

STIFF has three juries – for fiction, documentary, and animated film. As always, each jury is made up of a film professional, a last year’s winner, and a student. In this structure, students can learn from professionals as active members of the jury, Croatian authors can network with their peers, and it enables overall cooperation and exchange of ideas.

High quality competition makes handing out the awards all the more difficult for our juries. Besides Best Fiction, Best Documentary and Best Animated film, juries are free to assign Special Mentions for outstanding films as well, while the audience votes for Best Film of their choice.

Meet the people who will choose the best of the best this year:

FICTION FILM JURY

Aleksandra Terpińska graduated in Directing from the Katowice Film School and in Psychology from the University of Wrocław. She has participated in various prestigious programs, including the Toronto TIFF Talent Lab, NEXT STEP Cannes Film Festival, Nipkow Programm, Ekran + Szkoła Wajdy, EAVE, and First Cut Lab.

Her short feature film “The Best Fireworks Ever” was showcased in the Critics’ Week section at the 70th Cannes Film Festival in 2017, where it received CANAL + and Rail d’Or awards. Her short feature films, including “Chicken,” “All Souls’ Day,” “America,” and “The Best Fireworks Ever,” have received over 50 awards at festivals worldwide, with screenings at prestigious events like Cannes, San Sebastian, Telluride, and Clermont-Ferrand.

Terpińska’s full feature debut, “Other People,” received the FIPRESCI prize at the Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn and secured five awards at the Gdynia Film Festival, including Best Debut. She was also honored with one of the most prestigious awards in Poland, the “Paszport Polityki,” in the Film category. “Other People” earned an additional four awards at various film festivals across the country.

Sara Grgurić was born in Rijeka and is a second-year student in the master’s program in film directing at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. She has directed several short films, the most notable being “In the Woods,” for which she is credited as the director, screenwriter, and producer. “In the Woods” has been screened at over 40 film festivals and has won a dozen awards, including the NEST AWARD for Best Short Film at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, the Jelena Rajković DHFR Award for Best Young Director, the Golden Pram for Best Croatian Short Fiction Film at the ZFF, Best Fiction Film at the STIFF, and others. She is currently developing new film projects and working as an assistant director.

Marta Licul is currently pursuing a master’s degree at the Academy of Applied Arts Rijeka. She engages with socio-psychological themes across various mediums, often narrating personal or others’ stories to evoke emotions and stimulate reflection in people.She uses her passion for social and non-social sciences as well as literature and writing to provoke thought.

ANIMATED FILM JURY

Renata Gąsiorowska is an animator and cartoonist hailing from Kraków, Poland. She is a graduate of the Animation Department at the Polish Film School in Łódź. Over the course of her career, she has created five short films, a number of animated music videos, and various short comics that have been published worldwide. Her school film, “Pussy” won a lot of awards. Her newest short film “Home in a shell” was produced for HBO Poland as a part of “At Home” anthology. Currently living and working as a freelancer in Wrocław.

Louison Chambon – after obtaining a Baccalauréat in Applied Arts (STI) in Paris, Louison Chambon earned a BTS in Visual Communication at the Jacques Prévert school. This enabled her to develop her graphic design skills. To further explore formal experimentation and movement, she chose to pursue her studies in Animated Cinema at ENSAV La Cambre. This also provided her the opportunity to participate in an Erasmus programme at the MOME in Budapest. Since then, she has lived and worked in Brussels, specializing in stop-motion workshops.

Melisa Favretto is currently a third-year student of Cultural Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Rijeka. Outside her academic commitments, she dedicates her time to researching the connections between society and horror films, which is simultaneously the subject of her final thesis.  Melisa has a particular interest in stop-motion animation and claymation. She is currently working on two scripts for a short film, one of which is specifically an animation.

DOCUMENTARY FILM JURY

Michał Hytroś was born in 1994 in Krakow, an alumnus of the Krzysztof Kieślowski Film School in Katowice, as well as The Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw. An author of short films and documentaries awarded at Polish and international film festivals. His documentary film debut entitled “Sisters” was awarded, among other prizes, with the Silver Dragon at the 58th Krakow Film Festival.

Klara Dujmović was born in 1991 in Rijeka, where she completed her undergraduate studies in Public Administration and her graduate studies in Applied Arts, specializing in sculpture. Her creative process is driven by impulses, and the medium often presents itself spontaneously. To date, she has had two solo exhibitions and has participated in more than twenty group exhibitions and projects in Croatia and abroad. As part of the Erasmus+ program, she spent time at the Czech University of Jan Evangelista Purkyně in Ústí nad Labem, focusing on “Natural Materials,” as well as at the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design (UMPRUM) in Prague, specializing in “Intermedial Confrontations.” Her works can be found in private collections and public spaces. She is also the author of several short experimental-documentary films and is a member of the Croatian Society of Film Professionals, specializing in the field of direction.

Nina Sorić was born in 2003 in Ljubljana, enrolled in the Cultural Studies program at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Rijeka, in 2021. Her particular interest lies in film editing, as it combines visual and auditory elements, stemming from her profound fascination with visual media, including film, comics, and performing arts. During her first year of Cultural Studies, she collaborated as the lead cinematographer and editor on a short documentary film titled “Project: MASKARA”. Furthermore, as part of the New School of Documentary Film education (2021/22), she created two short autobiographical documentary films, “That much more” and “Tracing Memories.” She recently completed her latest autobiographical short documentary film, “So Many Times.”