Main Jury
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He was born on October 13, 1950 in Izmir. Turkish actor, director, art director and writer. In 1971, he entered Ankara State Conservatory Theatre Department with a level exam. He graduated from Ankara State Conservatory Graduate Programme in 1977. He worked in the State Theatres first as an actor, then as a director, and later he served as the deputy general director and the general director. The plays he directed have been invited to festivals in Russia, Canada, South Korea, Iran and Northern Cyprus. He is still a director at the State Theatres and is the founder and first president of the State Theatres, Opera and Ballet Employees Foundation (TOBAV) and Theatre Actors Professional Union (TOMEB).
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Alexia Tsouni is a graduate in Civil Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens and currently works as a researcher at the National Observatory of Athens. She is a member of the Women in Film and Television Greece (WIFT GR) and the Greek Documentary Association. The documentaries she has directed include: "Innocent" (Greece, 2024), "Self-Defense" (Greece, 2024), "Shalom - Salaam - Peace" (Palestine - Israel - Netherlands, 2024), "Make Art Not War" (Ukraine - Russia - Lithuania - Finland - USA, 2023), "Hantush - A Fairytale" (Palestine - Spain, 2022), "Back to Life" (Greece - Bangladesh, 2021), "CoronaViolence" (Greece, 2020), "Maurice Montet: Conscientious Objector and Total Pacifist" (France, 2020), and "Peace vs Piece" (Palestine, 2019). Alexia Tsouni is also a human rights and peace activist, working as a volunteer with civil society organizations in Greece and internationally. She has served as Vice President of Amnesty International Greece and President of the Conscientious Objection European Bureau. She is a co-founder and board member of the women's rights organization The Purple. Additionally, she is one of the founders and the president of FemArtAct, a social cooperative that supports feminist, artistic, and activist actions.
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Born in Cyprus in 1951, he discovered cinema during his studies in Athens. He produced documentaries and features in Cyprus, a small country with extremely difficult conditions for filmmakers. In his films there is the motif of people, who come into conflict with intolerance and fanaticism. He worked with Turkish Cypriot actors and directors despite there having been at the time no connection between the two parts of the divided island. His films, being critical of nationalism, were harshly attacked on both sides of the island and some of them were banned for a period of time. He worked as a photographer, writer and as manager of an art cinema. He organised film events in Nicosia, where Greek, Turkish and Cypriot filmmakers came together and presented their films
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He is an academician and director, born on March 14, 1981 in Alanya. He graduated from Eastern Mediterranean University Radio, TV and Cinema Department. He made many short films and won awards. He is the producer and director of the documentary ‘Famagusta’. He worked as an assistant to Ülkü Erakalın, the veteran director of Yeşilçam Cinema, and he entered the cinema industry as an assistant director in the movie ‘A Love to Scream’. Later, he started to work with Producer-Director Derviş Zaim, who has many national and international awards. He is still continuing his doctorate program and giving lectures on cinema, short films, documentaries and photography at different universities. He continues short film and documentary projects. He has served as a jury member at national and international film festivals and has taken part in festival committees.
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Zeynep Özbatur Atakan graduated from Marmara University, Department of Cinema and Television. She worked in the advertising sector between 1986 and 1999, specializing in production. In 2010, she was named "Eurimages Producer of the Year" by the European Film Academy and founded Yapımlab to train young filmmakers. In 2014, Winter Sleep, which she produced, won the Palme d’Or at the 67th Cannes Film Festival. She also launched and directed the Antalya Film Forum until 2018. A member of the Oscar Academy, the European Film Academy, and the Asia Pacific Screen Academy, Atakan continues her work as a producer and trainer with Zeyno Film and Yapımlab.