Festival Juries
Finále Plzeň 2023
International Jury for Feature Length Live Action and Animated Films
Klara Mucci
Antonio Lukich
Marta Bałaga
Manuel Claro
Maria Ulfsak
International Jury for Documentaries
Mina Dreki
Hallur Örn
Louise Højgaard Johansen
International Jury for TV and Internet Production
Gábor Osváth
Kinga Dębska
Amir Mureškić
International Jury for Short Student Films
Péter Becz
Ryan Keating Lambert
Soňa Morgenthalová
Selection committee for competition films
Eva Veruňková Košařová
Peter Badač
Pavel Smejkal
David Brabec
Pavlína Kalandrová
Lenka Tyrpáková
Daniel Vadocký
Student Jury for Feature Length Live Action and Animated Films
Mariana Orlová
Kilián Sieber
Vojtěch Šimek
Josef Váchal
Vojtěch Zahraj
Student Jury for Documentaries
Marek Dvořák
Vojtěch Polívka
Jan Tvrz
Student Jury for TV and Internet Production
Pavlína Bauerová
Barbora Pražáková
Adam Turyna
International Jury for Feature Length Live Action and Animated Films
Klara Mucci
Klara Mucci is an international actress from Croatia, who has a Masters degree from the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb. She played numerous roles in European film productions, from France, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Netherlands, Denmark, Italy and allthe way to Taiwan. The films were shown and awarded at international festivals such as Rotterdam, Busan and the Cannes film festival. Currently she is starring in a film "Little Kingdom" on Netflix and tv series "The Ibiza Affair" Sky Original. This year she has been shooting a new Netflix show in Germany, Austria, Italy and France, the show will be aired at the end of 2023.
Antonio Lukich
Antonio Lukich is a Ukrainian director who was born in 1992 in Uzhhorod, Ukraine. In 2015, he graduated from the Karpenko-Kary Kyiv National University with a Bachelor's degree in film direction. He is an award recipient of the Ukrainian Film Academy. Among other honors, he received the Merited Artist of Ukraine Award in March 2021, an official honorary mention granted to those who make significant contributions and achieve notable success in film and art for the country of Ukraine. With his first feature film “My Thoughts Are Silent”, 2019, he participated in and received multiple awards at international film festivals such as Karlovy Vary IFF, Raindance IFF, Santa Monica IFF, Odesa IFF. His second feature film “Luxembourg, Luxembourg” was premiered in Venice IFF, Orizzonti section, in September, 2022, and after in Toronto IFF in Contemporary World Cinema. It was also presented at several more festivals like Tallinn, Les Arcs, Goteborg, Chicago, Santa Barbara, Thessaloniki, Arras, Sao Paolo, Philadelphia etc.
Marta Bałaga
Marta Bałaga is a film journalist and moderator, she writes for Variety, Cineuropa and regularly contributes to Finnish monthly magazine Episodi. She has collaborated with various festivals, including Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy and its industry sidebar Finnish Film Affair, New Horizons International Film Festival and Polish Days, or Red Sea International Film Festival. Member of the International Federation of Film Critics FIPRESCI and the European Film Academy. She has served on many juries, including Venice International Film Critics’ Week at Venice Film Festival.
Manuel Claro
Head of Business and Co-productions of SPi since 2022, Manuel Claro has made his career in the audiovisual area, taking on several positions in different public entities. He has been Film Commissioner (Portugal Film Commission, 2019-2022), Executive Coordinator of the Creative Europe Desk Portugal (2014-2019), Executive Coordinator of the MEDIA Desk Portugal Association (2009-2013), and also Advisor in the area of Cinema at the Lisbon City's Culture Council. He has a degree in Political Science and International Relations from the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, and a postgraduate degree in Cultural Practices for Municipalities from the same school.
Maria Ulfsak
Maria Ulfsak has a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism from the University of Tartu (EE) and a Master's Degree in Film Studies from the University of Warwick (UK). In 2004-2023 she worked as a film critic in one of Estonia's biggest weekly national newspapers, Eesti Ekspress. She has also contributed as a programmer for Black Nights Film Festival and Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event. From Spring 2023, Maria is the Feature Film Commissioner at the Estonian Film Institute.
International Jury for Documentaries
Mina Dreki
Mina Dreki is a producer at Marni Films based in Athens, focusing on projects that can empower new voices with sustainable and unique storytelling. Her shorts have participated at many international festivals (Cannes, Clermont-Ferrand, BFI, etc.), and were released by The New Yorker & HBO Europe. She is a member of the Greek Film Academy, alumna of American Film Showcase, Midpoint, Balkan Documentary Center, EWA & ACE Producers mentorship programmes, TFL’s Green Film Lab, and participated at Producers Lab at Sarajevo’s Cinelink, DocLisboa’s Nebulae programme, IDFA Academy, Rotterdam’s Film Lab and Producers’ Network at Cannes 2023.
Hallur Örn
Hallur works as an independent film producer and director for his company Noumena Films, an Iceland based production company mainly focused on documentary productions. He is a co-founder of IceDocs (Iceland Documentary Film Festival) and works as a programmer for the festival. He also works as a college teacher in filmmaking. Hallur studied philosophy at the University of Iceland, filmmaking at the Icelandic Film School and did a MA in arts education in the Icelandic University of the Arts.
Louise Højgaard Johansen
Louise Højgaard Johansen is a Danish festival programmer and film industry consultant. She started her festival career at CPH PIX and has programmed and curated events for more than 15 years – in Copenhagen, Reykjavik and Athens, and today she has settled in Prague. She has also produced documentaries in her own company, incl. 'Grandma Lo-fi' (2011) and 'Last and First Men' (2020). After becoming a mother, she continues working for Athens Intl. Children's Film Festival, and hosts film talks for FAMU, Cinergy Prague and Karlovy Vary IFF. Sane Cinema on mental health in the film industry is her latest initiative. Louise holds a master’s degree in Film Studies from The University of Copenhagen, and is a member of the Danish and European Film Academies.
International Jury for TV and Internet Production
Gábor Osváth
Gábor Osváth is a Hungarian film producer of eight feature films, several documentaries and dozens of short films, including two which premiered at Berlinale and three that competed at Cannes; his most recent animation ’27’ won the Palme d’Or in 2023. His comedy ’Christmas Flame’ is the highest grossing Hungarian feature film of the past four years. He was the Hungarian producer of the Czech-Slovak-Hungarian stop-motion animation feature film directed by Filip Pošivač titled ’Tony, Shelly and the Magic Light’, which is due to be released in all three countries later this year.
Kinga Dębska
Kinga Dębska, Polish director, writer and teacher, graduate of feature directing at FAMU. Her feature films are „The Rebound:, „These Daughters of Mine”, „Plan B”, „Playing Hard”, „Back Then” and soon to be released „Feast of Fire”. Laureate of multiple prizes. Her films join public and critics appeal. She has her star in Star Avenue in Łódź.
Amir Mureškić
Amir is a content programming, production and acquisitions leader dedicated to growing subscriber bases and audiences through developing culturally relevant content strategies rooted in data. Own production field is his favorite area – the list of projects he used to run as a programming director and creative/executive producer includes scripted productions (TV Serials and feature movies), unscripted reality shows (Paradise Hotel, Survivor, Farmer Wants a Wife, The Farm, Slovenia’s Next Top Model) and studio-based shows (Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Dragon’s Den, Moment of Truth) and also big spot broadcasting projects (UEFA EURO 2008, FIFA WC 2002, European Champions League (2005-2008 and 2011 – 2014).
International Jury for Short Student Films
Péter Becz
Péter Becz is a director, editor and producer working with documentaries and narrative projects. He is located in Budapest and Copenhagen. Since 2022 he is an elected board member of MADOKE, the Hungarian Documentary Association. His Danish-Hungarian co-production short, I Miss You, Marius (2021) received the Audience Award for the Best International Documentary at the 2022 Friss Hús Budapest International Short Film Festival and the Honorable Award by the Student Jury at Prague Science Film Festival. In 2021 he made a short hybrid film The Last Dinner with Béla Tarr as his mentor as part of his 2021 Freeszfe workshop. Péter received an MA in documentary filmmaking at the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest and has completed an MA in Film and Media at the University of Copenhagen. Currently working as a co-director on a VR project about prefabricated concrete panel buildings and finishing his latest film about a Danish-Hungarian refugee chef of 1956. Péter is the head of program of the documentary development workshop Verzió DocLab in Budapest, and he was the program manager of the Hungarian Regional workshop of dok.incubator in 2023 in Budapest. Péter also has been a mentor at FAMU. He is a member of Freeszfe society.
Ryan Keating Lambert
Ryan ‘Movie Barf’ Keating is a screen studies and journalism graduate from Australia who’s been working as a film journalist in Prague, Czech Republic for the last 6 years. He regularly curates and presents screenings for Film Europe in Prague’s Edison Filmhub. More recently, Ryan founded the Al Qamar Film Festival in Prague where he is also the festival director. In his free time he is a budding screenwriter and filmmaker, and he hopes to ONE DAY actually finish his first horror short!
Soňa Morgenthalová
Soňa Morgenthalová works as a Programme Coordinator at the MIDPOINT Institute. She studied theory and history of film and audio-visual culture at the Masaryk University in Brno and worked as a news editor and manager in cultural institutions (TIC Brno, Museum of Roma Culture). During her studies, she completed an internship at the service production company Stillking Films during the filming of Snowpiercer (dir. Bong Joon Ho) and worked for several years in a casting agency, where she worked on films such as Ophelia (dir. Claire McCarthy), The Death & Life of John F. Donovan (dir. Xavier Dolan), Underworld: Blood Wars (dir. Anne Foerster), and series including Britannia (Sky Atlantic, Amazon Prime Video), Crossing Lines (NBC), Knightfall (History) and many others. Since 2017, she has been in charge of training programmes for film professionals at the MIDPOIT Institute focused on the development of feature and short films, and the education of programmers and producers.