Festival

President of the Jury
Francesca Archibugi

(Italy)

Graduated in film directing from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in 1983. She made her feature film debut in 1988 with Mignon Has Left, which won five David di Donatello Awards and two Silver Ribbons. Her subsequent films consolidated her career and distinctive style, continuing her exploration of the family, emotional and psychological dynamics of young people. She has also directed television series (The Story, 2024) and collaborated on the screenplays of other filmmakers, including Paolo Virzì, Costanza Quatriglio and Maria Sole Tognazzi. At the Giornate degli Autori section of the latest Venice Film Festival, she presented the documentary Carla Lonzi, dentro e fuori dal mondo.

Alessandro Amato

(Italy)

He is a film critic and cultural organiser. He began his career as a programming assistant at Fondazione Cineteca Italiana and now collaborates with organisations including Agis Piemonte and Aiace Torino. He is a member of the Italian National Film Critics Union (SNCCI) and FIPRESCI, for which he has served on juries at Locarno, Thessaloniki and Warsaw. A contributor to specialist film magazines and a lecturer in film criticism, he has been artistic director of the Torino Underground Cinefest since 2024. His publications include La diva che non piace. Una, nessuna, centomila Kristen Stewart, Essere Marlon Brando. L’attore, il divo, il mito e È rinata una stella! Come Lindsay Lohan ha conquistato il mondo due volte.

Ira Fronten

(Venezuela)

She is an actress and producer working in film, television and theatre. She began her career in Argentina and Colombia before moving to Italy in 2006. Between 2019 and 2021, she appeared in Giulio Base’s Bar Giuseppe, Checco Zalone’s Tolo Tolo and Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci. Her television credits include the Rai series Un passo dal cielo and productions such as HBO’s In Utero and Prime Video’s Everybody Loves Diamonds. In 2025, she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Premios Soto, awarded by the Venezuelan Academy of Cinematographic Sciences and Arts, for El Salto de Los Ángeles. She is the founder of the Italian Black Movie Awards.

Vanja Kaludjercic

(Croatia)

She has been the director of the International Film Festival Rotterdam since 2020, following more than twenty years of experience in international festivals, production, distribution and acquisitions. At Rotterdam, she also oversees initiatives supporting auteur cinema through the Hubert Bals Fund and CineMart. She previously served as Director of Acquisitions at MUBI and held positions at festivals including Les Arcs, Sarajevo and the Netherlands Film Festival. She regularly serves on international juries, including those at Cannes, the Berlinale, IDFA, Annecy, Busan and London. In 2026, she was appointed Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.

Kirill Serebrennikov

(Russia)

He is an acclaimed director of theatre, opera, cinema and ballet. He founded the Seventh Studio theatre company in Moscow in 2011 and served as artistic director of the Gogol Center in Moscow from 2012 to 2021. After leaving Russia in 2022, he collaborated with prestigious European cultural institutions and founded Kirill & Friends, a multidisciplinary company of which he is the director. Summer (2018), Petrov’s Flu (2021), Tchaikovsky’s Wife (2022) and Limonov (2024) were selected for competition at Cannes, while The Disappearance of Josef Mengele (2025) screened in Un Certain Regard. In 2018, he was appointed Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and, in 2025, Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur.

President of the Jury
Stefania Casini

(Italy)

She is an actress, director, writer and producer with extensive experience in the audiovisual industry. Following an international acting career in which she worked with directors such as Pietro Germi, Bernardo Bertolucci, Marco Ferreri, Dario Argento, Paul Morrissey and Peter Greenaway, she turned to directing, writing and producing feature films, documentaries and immersive works. Her film directing credits include Lontano da dove (1983), presented in competition at the Venice Film Festival, and Un paradiso di bugie (1997). She has also directed numerous documentaries for television, both independently and for Rai Educational.

Julien Camy

(France)

He is a journalist, filmmaker and curator. From 2007 to 2022, he edited the film book series published by Institut Lumière/Actes Sud. A contributor to «L’Humanité», «La Strada» and «Jeune Cinéma», he has written about cinema and sport (Sport & Cinéma, named Best Film Book in 2016; Le Football à l’écran, 2021). In 2025, he curated the exhibition Action! at the Musée National du Sport. He has also directed the documentaries Le Roi mélancolique (2020) e and Bande de ringards! (2023). Active in festival organisation and programming, he collaborates with the Cannes Film Festival, Canneseries and the Festival Cinéma d’Alès – Itinérances, of which he is president.

Alessandro Stellino

(Italy)

He has been artistic director of the Festival dei Popoli in Florence since 2020. He has collaborated with the Filmmaker Festival in Milan and founded IsReal – Festival of Non-Fiction Cinema in Nuoro. As a critic, he has written for «Filmidee», which he also co-founded, «Segnocinema», «Nocturno», «Ciak» and Paolo Mereghetti’s Dictionary of Films. He has curated retrospectives dedicated to major figures in contemporary cinema, including Lech Kowalski, Ross McElwee, Roberto Minervini, Pietro Marcello, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, Tatiana Huezo, Pedro Costa and the Dardenne brothers. He teaches at CISA in Locarno and at the Civica Scuola di Cinema – Luchino Visconti in Milan.

President of the Jury
Chiara Francini

(Italy)

A versatile artist, she has appeared in over 50 productions and worked with Spike Lee, Pietro Marcello, Leonardo Pieraccioni and Alessandro Genovesi. Co-founder of Nemesis, she produced Coppia aperta quasi spalancata (2024), which premiered in Venice. Her television credits include Tutti pazzi per amore (2010) and Non dirlo al mio capo (2016); she also worked with Pippo Baudo on Domenica In and, in 2023, with Amadeus on the Sanremo Festival. For L’elefante by Peter Gomez, she produces video editorials on current affairs. The author of several novels, she was a finalist for the 2026 Premio Donna Scrittrice with Le querce non fanno limoni. Her first essay, La ferita e la ferocia, will be published on November 17. She is a columnist for La Stampa.

 

Chiara Caselli

(Italy)

She is an actress, director and photographer. She has acted, among others, for Michelangelo Antonioni, Liliana Cavani, Marco Tullio Giordana, Gus Van Sant, the Taviani brothers, Dario Argento, Mia Hansen-Løve and Pupi Avati. She made her directorial debut in 2000 with the short film Forever, presented at the Venice Film Festival and awarded a Silver Ribbon. She received the same award for Molly Bloom (2016). Since 2008, she has also exhibited her photography: in 2011 she took part in the Venice Biennale, in 2014 she held her first solo exhibition in Tokyo, and in 2018 she participated in the Moscow Biennale of Photography. In 2023, she presented the exhibition Interiors.

Pier Luigi Manieri

(Italy)

He is an essayist, critic and curator of film events. He has written and directed documentaries and institutional films and works as a film marketing consultant. He is a member and general coordinator of the Ministry of Culture’s Cinema Commission for Selective Contributions. He teaches Audiovisual Management and Film Marketing at institutions including Treccani Accademia, Unicusano and Roma Tre University. He has published books on John Carpenter and Star Wars, and written plays devoted to escapist cinema and the Italian telefoni bianchi film genre.

Fiaba Di Martino

(Italy)

She is a professional journalist and member of the Italian National Film Critics Union (SNCCI). She graduated from the Luchino Visconti Civic School of Cinema and Television in Milan and has been writing film criticism for the print weekly «Film Tv» and its website since 2016. She has also worked for «MYmovies» and «Best Movie», and contributes to «Tv Sorrisi & Canzoni», «Gli Spietati» and «Bianco e Nero». Since 2023, she has been co-artistic director of the Arthouse Award series at Cinema Farnese in Rome, and since 2025 she has been co-author of Mercoledì d’autore – Emozioni da guardare, a film series at Cinema Arcadia in Melzo.

Andoni Tolosa Iturbe

(Spain)

He is Deputy Vice-Chancellor and lecturer at the University of the Basque Country. He holds a PhD in Social Communication, degrees in Journalism and Art History, and has undertaken further studies in film theory and analysis. He has served as president of the Cinema Section of Eusko Ikaskuntza – the Basque Studies Society, and as coordinator of the FIPRESCI Grand Prix. He has extensive professional experience in the media and film festival sectors, including San Sebastián and Poland’s New Horizons. He is the scientific director of the Adi research group, which focuses on audiovisual industries, narratives and gender issues.

Mohamed Nabil Abdelhakim

(Egypt)

He is a film critic and member of the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate and the Egyptian Film Critics Association. In addition to his work in print journalism, he has served as a consultant on several television series and collaborated with various film festivals. He is responsible for Arab film programming at the Cairo International Film Festival, where he also heads the Horizons of Arab Cinema competition. He has also played a significant role in the development of the Alexandria Short Film Festival, where he currently serves as artistic consultant.