Jury and Awards 65th Edition

Jury and awards

International Competition Jury

Born in Yugoslavia, Kumjana Novakova has worked in the field of film and the arts since 2006. Her formal education includes studies in international relations and social research in Sofia, Sarajevo, Bologna and Amsterdam.

In 2006 she co-founded the Pravo Ljudski Film Festival in Sarajevo, of which she is the main curator. From 2018 to 2021, she directed the Film Department of the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Skopje.

As an author, Kumjana Novakova uses the language of cinema to investigate relationships related to power, war, memories and (un)belonging. Her film Disturbed Earth (co-directed with G.C. Candi) has been shortlisted for the Academy Awards. His most recent work, Silence of Reason, has been screened at over 50 festivals and won more than twenty awards, including the Best Director Award at IDFA 2023, the Gran Prix at the Punto de Vista Film Festival, the Best International Film Award at Cinéma du Réel, and the Heart of Sarajevo Human Rights Award.

His works have been screened at MoMA, Museum of Moving Image, Cinéma du Réel, CPH DOX, Gijón, Punto de Vista, DokuFest.

Michela Pini

Michela Pini si è laureata in Storia del Cinema all'Università di Brescia. Nel 2007 ha fondato a Lugano la società Cinédokké e, nel 2019, è diventata co-proprietaria e produttrice della 8horses di Zurigo. È produttrice anche presso Imagofilm e Amka Films.

Michela Pini a prodotto Cronofobia di Francesco Rizzi (Premio Speciale della Giuria al Tallinn Black Nights 2018, Miglior Regia e Miglior Sceneggiatura al Max Ophüls Film Festival 2019) e Love Me Tender di Klaudia Reynicke (selezionato a Locarno, Toronto IFF e BFI London FF) due punte di diamante tra i talenti emergenti del cinema svizzero degli ultimi anni. Recentemente ha prodotto Semret di Caterina Mona e Electric Child di Simon Jaquemet (Piazza Grande Locarno 2022 e 2024).

Tra le coproduzioni più recenti ricordiamo Still Air (Ariaferma) di Leonardo Di Costanzo (11 nomination ai David di Donatello 2022, tra cui quella a Michela Pini come miglior produttore) e La Chimera di Alice Rohrwacher.

Martín Solá

Born in Argentina, Martín Solá he studied film direction at the CIEVYC (Buenos Aires) and attended the Master in Creative Documentary in Barcelona. He studied theology Orthodox in the School of Theology "St. Gregory Palamas", Barcelona.

He has directed five: films Caja cerrada (2008), Mensajero (2011), Hamdan (2013), La familia chechena (2015), Metok (2021).

His films have been recognized with awards at different festivals around the world: Visions du réel-Nyon (Best Film), Cinema Verite-Iran (Best Film), DocBarcelona (Best Film), Festival dei Popoli (Special Jury Mention), Documentamadrid (Special Jury Mention), Las Palmas International Film Festival-Spain (Special Jury Mention), CPH:DOX (Special Jury Mention), Tandil cine (Best Film) and others.

International Competition Awards

An International Jury, composed of leading figures in documentary cinema, will bestow the following Awards:

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

Special Mentions may also be granted.

Jury Discoveries Competition

Emma Caviezel

Emma Caviezel is a Berlin-based freelancer in the film industry and works with the sales agency MoreThan Films.

She has a background working in VOD, sales and festivals, where she has worked with industry initiatives, especially for up-and-coming directors and producers, and as a film programmer.

Emma Caviezel has worked with amongst others Deutsche Film und Fernsehakademie Berlin, Göteborg Film Festival and the streaming service Draken Film, Berlinale Co-Production Market and Visions du Réel.

Flavia Dima

Flavia Dima vive a Bucarest e si occupa di critica cinematografica e lavora come curatrice e traduttrice. Nel 1019 entra a far parte della redazione di “Films in Frame”, e scrive per riviste come “MUBI Notebook”, “Sabzian”, “Reverse Shot”, “Indiewire”, “Kinoscope”, “Scena9” e “FILM MENU”.
Dal 2020 Flavia Dima è curatrice associata del BIEFF - Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival - dove si occupa delle selezione di corti e lungometraggi per il concorso internazionale e delle retrospettive organizzate dal festival.

Ha maturato competenze come formatrice e docente collabora con diversi festival cinematografici internazionali, come il Jeonju IFF.

Infine, è alumna di programmi internazionali come Berlinale Talents, Locarno Critics Academy e Sarajevo Talents.

Charlotte Serrand

Charlotte Serrand was born in 1988 in Reims. After a CPGE (Higher School Preparatory Class), she earned a master degree in cinema (Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle). Since 2012 she has worked at the La Roche-sur-Yon International Film Festival (France) and since 2020 she's the director of the Festival.

Former program advisor at Directors Fortnight (2019-2022), she regularly collaborates with Visions du Réel since 2018 and since 2024 with NIFFF (Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival) as head of short films program and member of the selection committee. She also regularly collaborated with Albert Serra on such films as Story of My Death, Liberty, The Death of Louis XIV.

In 2014, Charlotte Serrand directed her first feature 1048 Moons (FIDMarseille, BAFICI, Laceno d'oro).

Discoveries Competition Award

An International Jury, composed of leading figures in documentary cinema, will bestow the Discoveries Prize: € 3,500.00 (equally divided between the director and the production)

Youth Jury Prize

The youth jury, composed of students from Italian universities, will award one of the selected works in the Discoveries International Competition the Prize to the Most Innovative film.

Italian Jury

Carolina Mancini

Carolina Mancini is a freelance journalist based in Florence. She is editor of the professional magazine ‘Cinema&Video International’, for which she covers film and audiovisual festivals and markets in Italy and abroad.

She works as a project manager, trainer and collaborator for Fondazione Sistema Toscana's “Lanterne Magiche project” to teach the Language of Images and Film Criticism at schools.

Carolina Mancini is passionate about narratives, whether written, video or audio. She wrote and directed the documentary A Casa nostra c'era la Libertà - Rosanna e Dante Tacci, produced by ANPI. She has also worked on immigration, conducting the programme Onde Migranti (Migrant Waves) for the Florentine radio station Novaradio, and made the short film ChiantiShare, financed and produced as part of the MigrArti project of the Italian Ministry of Culture.

Rodolfo Sacchettini

Rodolfo Sacchettini is a theatre critic and scholar of the relationship between media and literature. He has published four monographs on the history of radio drama and a essay on the history of theatre in the last twenty years.

He was co-director of the Santarcangelo Festival from 2012 to 2014 and President of the Pistoia Theatre Association from 2012 to 2018.

For over ten years, he taught audio-documentary at Naba in Milan. He teaches at the University of Florence, Middlebury College, the Conservatory of Bologna and carries out research for the University of Rome Tor Vergata.

He also collaborates with Rete Toscana Classica and Radio 3 RAI.

Paolo Woods

Paolo Woods is a documentary photographer, filmmaker and curator. He is the author of eight books and his work is widely exposed, collected and published. He works on long-term projects that focus on subjects that are crucial for understanding the world we live in but difficult to translate photographically.

His projects include A Crude World tackling the subject of the oil industry, Chinafrica were he documented the spectacular rise of the Chinese in Africa, Walk on my Eyes, an intimate portrait of the Iranian society, State on what happens to a society when the state collapses, The Heavens which is a unique photographic investigation into the workings of tax havens. In 2021 he published Happy Pills, with Arnaud Robert, on how the pharmaceutical companies sell us happiness. Happy Pills is also his first film released in 2022.

He is the artistic director of the festival Cortona On The Move and one of the founders of the magazine “Kometa”, published in France. He is co-founder of Riverboom, a collective and publishing house that explores the limits of the photographic language.

Italian Competition Award

The Jury, composed of leading figures in documentary cinema, will bestow the Best Italian Documentary Award: € 3.000,00 equally divided between director and production.

Other festival prizes

CG ENTERTAINMENT “POPOLI doc” distribution award to the Best Italian Film assigned
by CG Entertainment

CG Digital On Demand Distribution Award for the Best European Film in the “Habitat”
section assigned by the distribution company CG Entertainment.

Human Rights Award assigned by Amnesty International Italia to one of the films in the
Official Selection.

Theatrical Distribution Award ‘IMPERDIBILI’ assigned by Cinema La Compagnia managed by FST - Fondazione Sistema Toscana - to the Best Italian Film for cinemas.

Il Cinemino’ theatrical distribution award, awarded by Il Cinemino di Milano to the Best Italian film for commitment, social value and stylistic innovation.

Award for Best Editing to a film in the Italian Competition assigned by AMC - Associazione Montaggio Cinematografico e Televisivo.

SudTitles ‘Cinema for All’ Award
SudTitles Palermo has been working since 2011 to promote film culture, producing various services including subtitles, subtitles for the deaf and audio descriptions for the blind. The prize, awarded as part of the ‘Itineranze Doc’ workshop, offers the winning work the realisation of the audio description of the film and its upload on the SudTitles app.

On the occasion of the 65th edition of the Festival dei Popoli, a selection of the films in the programme will be available online on the MYmovies.it. platform. Each title will compete for the MYmovies Award, which will be given to the film with the highest average rating determined by the online audience. The winner will receive an SVOD acquisition offer from MYmovies ONE, in full compliance with the planned exploitation windows.