Jury
Reinhold T. Schoeffel
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Reinhold T. Schoeffel (1960, diploma in media literacy) lives in Germany near Frankfurt/Main. Since 1980 Schoeffel has been working in various projects bringing quality films to a wider audience: as organizer of film programmes and festivals, as a journalist, distributor and as managing director of Bundesverband Jugend und Film e.V. (BJF, 1990 – 2026). For 25 years Schoeffel has been an active member of ECFA. In 2026 he joined the team of „SCHLiNGEL International Filmfestival for Children and Young Audience“ in Chemnitz.
Jo-Anne Blouin
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Jo-Anne Blouin has devoted her entire professional career to the arts, both working with children and advocating on their behalf. At the age of 16, in her home province of Québec, she began working in children’s theatre. From theatre, she turned to children’s cinema and founded the Montreal International Children’s Film Festival (FIFEM), which will hold its 30th edition in March 2027. Since the festival's creation, she has been responsible for FIFEM's programming and has served as a jury member at over fifty international festivals. From 1998 to 2008, she was executive director of the International Centre for Children’s and Youth Film (CIFEJ), where she founded the Kids For Kids festival. In 2003, she was elected as a member of the Mediterranean Observatory for Children’s Media. In 2017, she was appointed an honorary member of ECFA; in 2018, she received an honorary award from the Schlingel International Film Festival (Germany), and in 2025, she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Zlin International Film Festival (Czech Republic).
Lisbeth Juhl Sibbesen
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Lisbeth Juhl Sibbesen is editor of film education at the Danish Film Institute. She works to strengthen film and media education and to expand knowledge of film as an art form. She develops educational materials and creates courses on film education, film analysis and practice.
Gudrun Sommer
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Gudrun Sommer is the director of DOXS RUHR and owner of fair enough, a consultant agency for sustainability in film and culture. She initiated Germany's first documentary film festival for children and young people, doxs!, in 2002, a few years before the decentralized festival DOXS RUHR. She co-directed the 43rd & 44th Duisburg Film Week and worked as a curator for numerous festivals and institutions, including the Diagonale, steirischer herbst, the IFFF Dortmund/Cologne, the Goethe-Institut and the Goldener Spatz Children's Media Festival. Gudrun Sommer was a member of the Berlinale Jury Generation in 2023 and has since been on the board of ECFA. She publishes and teaches on the topics of children's film, documentary film and cultural education. Born in Austria, she lives and works in Bochum.
Sigrid Klausmann
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Sigrid Klausmann, born in the Black Forest, grew up with six siblings. Her childhood has been the cornerstone for her interest in art and children. At first, she worked as a sports teacher, and as a teacher in modern dance, she choreographed several full-length plays with young people. She has been working since 2003 as a director and founded Schneegans Productions, jointly with her husband, Walter Sittler. Since 2011, Sigrid Klausmann has been the leading director of the short film series 199 LITTLE S*HEROES, which won multiple awards around the world. Sigrid Klausmann completes her career as a filmmaker with GIRLS DON’T CRY, a film with which she hopes to empower a new generation of young girls.
Karolina Śmigiel
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Karolina Smigiel works in the Film Education Department at the Andrzej Film Centre. She is the director of LET'S DOC – the Documentary Film Festival for Young Audiences, as well as the creator and programme coordinator of the LET'S DOC LAB development programme. She is also responsible for the programme of the international project Audiovisual Connect Lab. She holds a degree in Cultural Studies, Cultural Management and Philosophy. She is a film producer and cultural project manager, and serves as a board member of UNI-SOLO Studio, where she produced the documentary films The Dragon Spring (dir. J. Wszędybył) and Letters from Wolf Street (dir. A. Talwar). She is a co-founder and member of the DZIKI BEZ Open Association, and a co-creator and coordinator of the Festival of Abstract Thought. As a curator, she created an original collection of Polish films for children for the National Film Archive – Audiovisual Institute.
Hanna Wereszczyńska
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Hanna Wereszczyńska is the programmer of the TAURON Young Horizons International Film Festival. She is co-responsible for the creative concept, film programme and special events at the festival. She also coordinates the Youth Jury project, which is dedicated to teenage film enthusiasts. She regularly collaborates with other Polish film festivals as a curator. Her main focus is on animation, coming of age stories and East-Asian cinema. In 2025, she was selected to the Cannes Makers workshop, organised by Marche du Film, for young professionals in the film festival, distribution, and sales industry.
Alexandra Safriuc
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Alexandra Safriuc is a young short film curator, interested in curation as a practice of care. Through her work with Culmea: Film and Environmental Education, she explores how film curation can foster dialogue, awareness, and a more caring relationship between people and the natural world.
Juliána Johanidesová
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Juliána Johanidesová is a bilingual film and theatre actress raised in The Netherlands, living in Slovakia. Her passion for film has roots already in her childhood and she is currently transforming it mainly in her work as the Head of Programming at the IFF for Children and Youth CINEDU, in the Slovak Republic. Juliana has been involved in the festival since it was first established in 2019, as one of the co-founders, and she is also in charge of live dubbings for the younger audiences. Next to her work at CINEDU, she is devoted to photography and uses this media, besides acting, as a form of expression. She speaks Slovak, Dutch, Czech and English.
Alfred Sesma Siuraneta
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From 2001 to 2015, Alfred Sesma Siuraneta developed different projects in the field of cultural management and communication. Among them were the International Animation Film Exhibition of Catalonia - Animac 2001-11, and the first Animation Production Forum in 2011. From 2011 to 2013, he was the director of Toon a Ville, organising professional conferences focused on children's content for TV, and founder and director of Toon a Ville S.L., a company specialised in developing augmented reality children's travel guides. He was also the content coordinator of the Semilleru Kids Audiovisual Development Lab of Festival de Gijón. Currently he is responsible for international sales and acquisitions at Pack Màgic, a distributor specialised in audiovisual content for children and families, Spanish Coordinator of the Film in Hospital project and programmer of different festivals screening children's and youth content.
Anis Lassoued
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Tunisian director, screenwriter and producer Anis Lassoued specialises in films for young audiences. He studied at the University of Tor Vergata (Rome) and at the Institut Maghrébin du Cinéma in Tunis. His films have been distributed in several countries. As founder of Lumières Films and the Journées Cinématographiques de Carthage pour les Enfants, he is committed to accessible, educational cinema. He is involved in sub-Saharan Africa, develops writing workshops, and is co-founder and artistic director of the film festival for children and young people in Yaoundé, the first edition of which will take place in December 2025. His filmography includes his award-winning debut feature film GADEHA and LES SOULIERS DE L’AÏD. As a member of the board of directors of the CIFEJ (2025-2027), he is currently working on his next feature film, LE CHEMIN DE JAMILA. Jo-Anne Blouin
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Jo-Anne Blouin has devoted her entire professional career to the arts, both working with children and advocating on their behalf. At the age of 16, in her home province of Québec, she began working in children’s theatre. From theatre, she turned to children’s cinema and founded the Montreal International Children’s Film Festival (FIFEM), which will hold its 30th edition in March 2027. Since the festival's creation, she has been responsible for FIFEM's programming and has served as a jury member at over fifty international festivals. From 1998 to 2008, she was executive director of the International Centre for Children’s and Youth Film (CIFEJ), where she founded the Kids For Kids festival. In 2003, she was elected as a member of the Mediterranean Observatory for Children’s Media. In 2017, she was appointed an honorary member of ECFA; in 2018, she received an honorary award from the Schlingel International Film Festival (Germany), and in 2025, she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Zlin International Film Festival (Czech Republic).
Jitendra Mishra
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Recipient of India’s highest industry honor – the National Film Award presented by the President of India, Jitendra Mishra is an internationally acclaimed filmmaker, producer, and cultural entrepreneur, widely recognized for his commitment to meaningful and socially impactful cinema. He is the Festival Director of SIFFCY (Smile International Film Festival for Children & Youth), India’s premier film festival for young audiences, hosted by Smile Foundation in partnership with the European Union, reaching over 500,000 children annually across India. Jitendra is the elected President of CIFEJ, one of the world’s oldest and largest global media networks, founded under the auspices of UNESCO in 1955, headquartered in Athens and hosted by EKKOMED – Creative Greece. He is also the Founder of CINEMA4GOOD, a film production company, and CINEODISHA, a non-profit initiative promoting Indian regional cinema internationally. With over 100 films associated across production, distribution, and promotion, his acclaimed works include The Last Color, I Am Kalam, Buried Seeds, and The Silent Epidemic among others.
Lucas Splingaire
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Lucas works as a project manager at the Braine-l’Alleud Cultural Centre, where he is responsible for the media literacy programme. Firmly convinced of the importance of guiding audiences in their engagement with images and narratives, he places great emphasis on cinema in his projects. Fascinated by unique works and new discoveries, he enjoys showcasing gems that are less well-known to the general public and devising outreach initiatives that extend the screening experience and encourage dialogue with the audience.
Bruno Hilgers
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Bruno joined the management team at the Rochefort Cultural Centre (CCR) in 2022, having spent 20 years coordinating the educational department at La Médiathèque. He is part of the organising team for several festivals, notably as a member of the film selection jury (Namur International Nature Festival, A travers champ Festival). He particularly enjoys programming animated short films for their creativity, inventiveness, poetry and humour, and for their ability to tackle a wide range of subjects – some of which are quite sensitive – with a broad audience.
Valérie Jacquart
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Valérie has been involved with the non-profit organisation Open Source Music & Movies since its foundation in 2013, bringing to it her passion for the intersection of music and cinema. At the same time, since 2018 she has been managing and curating the Plaza cinema in Hotton, a local cinema where she coordinates all aspects of day-to-day operations. Having stumbled into the world of cinema ‘by accident’, this curious and committed cultural advocate is fully dedicated to promoting cinematic diversity and broadening audiences’ horizons.
Sonia Mrsic-Garac
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Surrounded by a team of short-film enthusiasts, Sonia, coordinator of La Vidéothèque Nomade (asbl 68 Septante), ventures off the beaten track to unearth cinematic gems and find welcoming venues in which to screen and discuss them. Sonia is also a director of creative documentaries and a member of the Lundi Soir collective, which organises the annual ‘Les Yeux Ouverts’ festival.
Kévin Giraud
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Kévin Giraud is a freelance film journalist and editor-in-chief of Surimpressions magazine. He is an animation enthusiast, lives in Brussels and has been writing as a freelancer in French and English for five years, mainly about animation.
Yves Calbert
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Film journalist since 1999, Yves is now affiliated with the "Union de la Critique de Cinéma" ("UCC"). After his yars as a dancer in the troupe "Up With People" in the USA and Latin America, and a tour guide for different tour operators in Asia and Europe, he worked as the director-animator of a francophone cultural radio program and as an associate professor of French.
Zita Meeusen
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Zita is a student in Audiovisual Journalism at the VUB, and has a background in Linguistics and Literature. Her passion for writing has always been the common thread in her studies. Since moving to Brussels in 2025, film criticism has become her favorite writing-outlet. At the same time, she’s fascinated by the filmmaking process and the dynamics of a film set, so she’d be just as excited to work behind the camera as she is writing about what’s happening on screen.
Chantal Moens
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Chantal Moens studied Film and Photography at the Luca School of Arts. From the late 1970s onwards, she was a regular at the Film Museum, where she really caught the film bug. Since then, she has explored just about every aspect of the film industry: as an editor for the Belgian Film Yearbook, a film critic for various publications and blogs, and a press officer and marketing manager in film distribution. She has been active for many years as a PR officer and secretary at the UFK (Union of Film Critics) and has a particular fondness for children’s films, animated films and arthouse films. For the past few months, she has been writing regular film reviews for the Fast Forward website.
Marije Brouwer
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As a content buyer for youth programming at NPO (Dutch Public Broadcasting) Zapp and Zappelin, Marije Brouwer selects high-quality series that inform, inspire, and entertain children, with storytelling that resonates with young audiences. Her role involves curating a strong mix of animated and live-action series that support NPO’s educational and cultural mission. From preschool programming on Zappelin to content for older children on Zapp, Marije seeks out stories that reflect today’s world while fostering creativity, empathy, and curiosity.