International jury
MATTI BAUER
Born in 1955 in Dießen am Ammersee, he studied cultural anthropology at the Ludwig Maximilians Universität in Munich. From 1978 to 1988 he developed a project focused on the indigenous populations of the Amazon. Since 1993 he has worked in television, producing documentaries about the Bavarian people. In 2004 his film Bossa Nova won an award at the Music Doc Fest in Rome. His feature-length documentary on the Domspatzen, the Regensburg boys' choir, earned him the Bayerischer Fernsehpreis in 2009. Still(2013), a documentary about a young farmer in the Bavarian Highlands, was awarded at the Fünf Seen Film Festival. He is currently working on Araguaia Diaries, a documentary about his experiences as an anthropologist in Brazil.
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LUCÍA CONTRERAS HOWARD
Born in Mexico, she studied audiovisual communication and art direction in Spain before dedicating herself to digital storytelling and video production. She is an expert in communication, marketing strategy, and content creation. With over ten years of experience, she currently leads video production at 3Dnatives. During her studies she worked on short film production, developing multimedia campaigns for globally recognized brands.
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INÉS GARCIA
She is a French producer with a solid background in the media industry. She has worked with major television groups such as Warner Discovery in Mexico and CANAL+ in France, developing a diverse portfolio that includes branded content, commercials, documentaries, and reportage. Her work in advertising has received multiple awards. Her experience in audiovisual production allows her to adopt a refined and sensitive perspective.
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MAKSYM MELNYK
A Ukrainian director, he was born in Uzhhorod in 1982. After working as a journalist, he began studying directing at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. He specialized in documentary directing at the Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf in Potsdam. In 2017, he was the director of photography for the film The Color of Intelligence. In 2022, he presented his first feature film, Drei Frauen, winner of the Audience Award at the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film, and also awarded prizes at the Achtung Berlin Film Festival and the Film Festival della Lessinia in 2023. In 2023, he directed the film EAST! – Mein Jahr in Zeitz. Since 2018, he has collaborated with the Internationales Literaturfestival Odessa.
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ALBERTO RIZZI
From Verona, he earned a degree in directing from the Luchino Visconti School in Milan. He writes and directs theater productions, earning recognition both as a playwright and as a director. In 2016 he directed the short film, Sleeping Wonder, and was a finalist for the Solinas Prize with the screenplay for the web series Red Code. In 2021, he won the Best Director Award at the Festival del Cinema Italiano for his debut feature film, Si Muore Solo da Vivi (2020). In 2024 his second feature film, Squali, loosely inspired by The Brothers Karamazov, was released. The film, selected for Alice nella Città 2024, won Best Film at the Marte Film Festival 2025 and was officially recognized by the Ministry as a Film d’Essai.
