Juries and awards of the 66th Festival dei Popoli

Jury and awards

International Feature Film Jury

Cecilia is an Argentinian programmer and curator who Co-Heads programming at Doclisboa and is
a Programmer at Large for Film at Lincoln Center. She was the artistic director of the Mar del Plata
International Film Festival, Argentina, for its fourth edition (2018–2021), and a member of the festival’s
programming team since 2010. She has served as co-programmer for Neighboring Scenes: New Latin
American Cinema at Film at Lincoln Center (USA). She was curator of Documenta Madrid and has
curated special programs for UNIONDOCS – Center for Documentary Art (USA), MACBA – Museum
of Contemporary Art of Buenos Aires (Argentina), Museo Reina Sofía and La Casa Encendida (Spain),
Viennale Film Festival (Austria), Cinemateca de Bogotá (Colombia), Harvard Film Archive (USA), among
others. She was a member of the Advisory Board for the Film Study Center at Harvard University in
2021 and an Associated Fellow in 2022–2023. She was also a Visiting Scholar at the Rockefeller Center
for Latin American Studies at Harvard University (2022–2023).

Elena López Riera

Elena López Riera is a Spanish filmmaker, visual artist, and academic based in Switzerland since 2008.
She holds a PhD in Audiovisual Communication and teaches cinema and comparative literature at
the University of Geneva and HEAD – Genève. A co-founder of the artist collective lacasinegra, she
focuses on experimental audiovisual work. Her short films — Pueblo (2015), Las vísceras (2016), and
Los que desean (2018) — have been featured at major Film festivals such as Cannes and Locarno,
with Los que desean winning several international awards. Her feature debut, El agua (2022), pre-
miered at Cannes and earned a nomination for the Spanish Academy Awards. Her most recent film,
Las novias del sur, premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week and won the Queer Palm, César, and Quartz
awards, along with another Spanish Academy nomination. Riera has participated in prestigious
artistic residencies and development programs (including Berlinale Talents and the Cinéfondation
Residency) and has exhibited her video installations internationally, including at MoMA PS1 and the
Madrid Architecture Biennale.

Mala Reinhardt

Mala Reinhardt studied directing at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf. She previously stud-
ied ethnology in Cologne, New Delhi and Kampala. Her cinematic works include the documenta-
ries The Second Attack (2018, DOK Leipzig, Berlinale, among others) and FAMILIAR PLACES (2024,
e.g. Locarno Film Festival Semaine de la Critique). Mala is a Berlinale Talents Alumni, German Films
Face2Face Ambassador 2025 and a member of the European Film Academy.

International Feature Film Awards

An International Jury of experts in the field of documentary will award the following prizes:

First Prize: € 7,000.00 (divided equally between the director and the production);
Second Prize: € 4,000.00 (divided equally between the director and the production);
“Gian Paolo Paoli” Plaque for Best Anthropological Film.

Special Mentions may also be granted.

Discoveries International Jury

Marcella Jelic

Marcella Jelic, with a background in journalism and film criticism, established Split Screen for festi-
val distribution and film sales in 2022. She is also collaborating with all rights distributor Restart in
Croatia, where she is in charge of theatrical distribution. Previously she worked for Taskovski Films
where she held the position of Sales and Acquisitions Executive. She was also Festivals and Promotion
Coordinator at Croatian Audiovisual Centre and Programming Director of film TV channel Klasik TV
and documentary TV channel DOX TV.

Flavia Mazzarino

Flavia Mazzarino (born in 1999 in Catania) graduated in Visual Arts from the IUAV University of Ven-
ice and HfG Karlsruhe with a thesis on Harun Farocki’s observational cinema. She is currently a PhD
student at the University of Lugano, under the supervision of Kevin B. Lee. Flavia Mazzarino is in-
volved in curatorial projects dedicated to experimental and avant-garde cinema, having curated
programs with filmmakers such as Robert Beavers, Morgan Fisher, and Helga Fanderl. Since 2021,
she has been collaborating with Palestinian filmmaker Kamal Aljafari, producing his last four films,
including A Fidai Film, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Visions du Réel, and With Hasan in Ga-
za, which premiered at this year’s Locarno Film Festival and is in competition at the 66th edition of
the Festival dei Popoli.

Eleanor Mortimer

Eleanor Mortimer is a UK-based documentary director and lecturer at UCL. Mortimer has made sev-
eral short films including: Territory, about monkeys in Gibraltar (Sundance Film Festival, Hot Docs,
Festival dei Popoli), Seafarers (New York Times Op Docs), Bird (Channel 4 Random Acts), Bubble
(Best Short Documentary at the 61st edition of the Festival dei Popoli), and Luma (Dokufest Koso-
vo). Her first feature How Deep Is Your Love (supported by BFI Doc Society & Sandbox Films, pre-
miered at True/False 2025) is a ship-based odyssey following scientists as they explore the most hid-
den part of our planet – the deep sea.

Discoveries International Awards

An International Jury of experts in the field of documentary film will award the following prizes: Discoveries Prize: € 3,500.00 (divided equally between the director and the production).

Special Mentions may also be granted.

Youth Jury Awards

The Youth Jury will award the prize to the most innovative film.

Italian Competition Jury

Leonardo Barrile

Leonardo Barrile (born 1979) is an Italian film and television producer and CEO of Samarcanda Film,
which he founded in 2014. He is a graduate in Arts, Cinema, and Television from the University of
Palermo, with further studies in the Cinema and Television Business Industry at the University of
Padova. He began his career at Albatross Entertainment, producing numerous successful prime-
time series for RAI and RTI. Through Samarcanda Film, he has produced and co-produced a wide
range of acclaimed documentaries and series, including Kapp to Cape, Sea Angels, Big North, Se
fate i bravi (selected at the Venice Film Festival), Daniel Pennac: Ho visto Maradona, Hollywood Ci-
necittà, Hambre, Buon Compleanno Massimo, C’era una volta il Derby Club, Fiore Mio (premiered
at the Locarno Film Festival and featured as the opening film at the 65th edition of the Festival dei
Popoli), and La scuola romana delle risate. His productions have been broadcast internationally
on networks such as Netflix, Rai, and RTI, and featured at major festivals including Venice, Locarno,
Ji.hlava, and Festival dei Popoli. In 2022, he was selected for the Emerging Producers program by
the Ji.hlava International Documentary Festival and is a member of the European Film Academy.

Anastasia Plazzotta

After working in the film industry for Rai and then Fandango, Anastasia Plazzotta worked for Feltri-
nelli, where she edited the home video series Real Cinema and Le Nuvole. She is also the co-found-
er and administrator of the distribution company Wanted Cinema, which is a pioneer in documen-
tary distribution in Italy. In the last year alone, it has distributed Dreams by Dag Johan Haugerud
(winner of the Golden Bear at the 2025 Belinale) and No Other Land by Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham,
Rachel Szor, and Hamdan Ballal, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary in 2025. She also runs
the Wanted Clan cinema in Milan.

Haider Rashid

Haider Rashid (1985) is a screenwriter, director, and producer, of Italian and Iraqi descent. He direct-
ed the feature films Tangled Up In Blue (2010) and Sta per piovere (2013), the documentaries Si-
lence: All Roads Lead To Music (2011) and Street Opera (2015), the short film The Deep (2013) and
the VR documentary No Borders (2016, presented at the 57th edition of the Festival dei Popoli). His
films have won awards at the Venice International Film Festival, the Dubai International Film Fes-
tival, the Globi d’Oro, and the Nastri d’Argento. His latest feature film, Europa, was selected for the
2021 Cannes Film Festival in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs section, where it won the Independent
Critics’ Award, “Beatrice Sartori Award”. Among other awards, the film won Best Director and Best
Actor at the Red Sea International Film Festival. Europa was selected as Iraq’s official candidate in
the Best International Film category for the 94th Academy Awards.

Italian Competition Awards

A Jury of experts will award the following prize: Best Italian Documentary: € 3.000,00 equally divided between director and production.

Special Mentions may also be granted.

Other festival awards

CG ENTERTAINMENT “POPOLI doc” distribution award for Best Italian Film offered by
CG Entertainment distribution company.

CG Entertainment Distribution Award for Best European Film of the "Habitat" section, offered by the distribu-
tion company CG Entertainment

Human Rights Award – Amnesty International Italy, awarded by Amnesty Internation-
al Italy to one of the films in the official selection.

Theatrical distribution Award: “IMPERDIBILI” offered by Cinema La Compagnia and
FST – Fondazione Sistema Toscana to the best Italian film.

Theatrical distribution Award “Il Cinemino” offered by Il Cinemino Cultural project in Milan to the best Italian film.

AMC Best Editing Award offered by AMC – Italian film and television editing association to the best Italian film.

Mymovies.it Award – awarded to the film from the selection of films at the 66th Festival
dei Popoli available on the MYmovies.it platform, as part of the MYmovies ONE service,
which receives the highest number of votes from online viewers.

Jury and awards

International Feature Film Jury

International Feature Film Awards

Discoveries International Jury

Discoveries International Awards

Youth Jury Awards

Italian Competition Jury

Italian Competition Awards

Other festival awards

Institute

The Festival

Follow us