For the past 6 years, Ditte Lundsgaard Nielsen has been the festival director of ANIMOK, an animation and game festival for children and youth, located at The Animation Workshop, VIA UC in Denmark. She has more than 15 years of experience working with children, animation, and storytelling as part of the team behind the internationally recognized development centre Animated Learning Lab at The Animation Workshop, VIA UC. She is passionate about giving children and youth strong film and game experiences that broaden their understanding of the world and help them become creative creators.
Damien Hauser was born in Zurich in 2001. He began crafting short films at the age of seven. Between 2018 and 2020, he honed his skills as a director and cameraman at the commercial production firm Filme von Draussen. In 2020, Damien completed his studies at the SAE Institute Zurich's film school. Presently, he thrives as an independent director and screenwriter and has since created three feature films.
Doris Tislar is an Estonian actress. She is currently working in the Estonian National Theatre for Young Audiences. She has also played in national and international films and TV series. Her latest international project was an 8-part series “Estonia” (Beta film), a co-production between Sweden, Finland, Estonia, and Belgium. Directed by Måns Månsson and Juuso Syrjä, it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival TIFF in 2023. The next feature film for Doris premieres in 2024. It is “Black Hole” (Amrion), directed by Moonika Siimets.
Doris was also chosen for the Black Night Stars programme in 2021.
Markéta Pášmová started working at the Zlín Film Festival in 1999, in 2013 as artistic director. She is focused on European cinema for young audiences and is active in educational programs for children and youth. She is a member of the board of directors of the Filmtalent Zlín Foundation, which supports young talented filmmakers from Czechia and Slovakia. Markéta Pášmová is also the head of Zlín Industry Days – a program for film professionals.
Gert Hermans is working for JEF, a company for distribution, education, and exhibition of young audience cinema, organising projects reaching out to the national youth film industry. As content & communication manager for ECFA (European Children’s Film Association), Gert Hermans is a publicist for Europe’s biggest networking platform for children's film professionals and chief editor of the ECFA Journal. As an industry networker, he represents the Attraction sales company and is involved in several European festivals.
Josep Arbiol was born in Estivella (Valencia) in 1962. He is a former schoolteacher who is now the founder and director of the Festival MICE. International Educational Film Festival Valencia, and also the President of MICE International with offices in Madrid, Cuba, Argentina, Galapagos, Mexico, and the Sahara.
Arbiol is the director of the Pantalla Alborache Festival which is a children's and youth film festival in rural areas. Josep is also a cultural manager and an independent audiovisual producer. He has a long career in audiovisual media and his mentoring in educational films with children has been awarded at numerous festivals. In fact, most of the artistic activities that he has carried out are educational.
Antero Noor is an Estonian producer who graduated from the Baltic Film, Media, and Arts School's film production program. Among several short films he has produced, the most notable is "My Beloved Corpses" (dir. German Golub), which remains the only film from Estonia to have won a Student Academy Award from the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Participation in #youngfilmmaker jury work is extremely important to him - as a young filmmaker himself, Antero understands the significance of encouraging and supporting colleagues who are embarking on the same path!
Piia is a marketing manager at Swedbank and has been in #noorfilmitegija jury for several years. She believes that movies are a great way to draw attention to various aspects of society that one does not tend to think about in everyday life.
The documentary filmmaker and director Kullar Viimne was born on March 22, 1980 in Võru. He graduated from the Estonian Sports Gymnasium in 1998, studied social work at the Tallinn Pedagogical Seminar from 1999 to 2002, and from 2004 to 2011 at the Baltic Film and Media School (BA). He furthered his education at the FAMU International Film School in Prague from 2006 to 2007. He has been awarded the young filmmaker scholarship twice (in 2002 and 2004) and the Estonian Cultural Endowment's "Ela ja sära" scholarship in 2011. Since 2004, he has been making auteur films in collaboration with the production company Rühm Pluss Null. He is the author of documentaries such as "Põrgu katlakütja," "Hobujõud," "Jagatud valgus," "Kuidas ma Aafrikat päästsin," "Hing," "Kuhu lähed?" and others. In addition, he has worked as the cinematographer for dozens of documentary films.
15-year-old Arabella Altrof studies in the 9th grade at Rakvere Vabaduse School. Her hobbies are watching movies, practising a musical instrument, painting, riding a bike, listening to different music, photography, reading books, going to museums, cinema, and theatre. She highly appreciates arthouse movies with her favourite movie genres being dramas, tragicomedies, and youth films. Her favourite movies are “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, “Forrest Gump” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. Arabella also goes to Rakvere Urban Youth Acting Group and Athena Art School. In the future, she aspires to be active in music, theatre, and cinema. Her dream is to travel to every country in the world and to experience different cultures.
Maria Eliisa Jakobson is 18 years old and studies at Loo High School, in the humanitarian module. She found her passion for movies in 2022 when she discovered many new directors, actors, and other filmmakers. Maria Eliisa has watched whole filmographies of Wes Anderson, Taika Waititi and Sofia Coppola. She also likes to discover world cinema films and her favourite directors are Éric Rohmer and Wong Kar-wai. In the 9th grade she made a film with her theatre group and in 2021 she took third place in Fr. R. Kreutzwald’s fairy tale illustration competition. The pictures were later used in an animation. After graduating she plans to study to be a film artist at the Baltic Film and Media School.
Daniela is 15 years old and a big lover of films. She hopes to take filmmaking more seriously in the future and study it as a profession. Daniela likes to analyse films and has written a review of the PÖFF film “Like Me” for the school paper. Every year she looks forward to watching PÖFF films and is very happy to be part of the youth jury this year.
Isabel Kruut is a 13-year-old girl from Tallinn who is in the 7th grade. Currently, she lives in Saaremaa. Her hobbies are horse riding and making art. She has been horse riding now for four years and she loves horses very much. Isabel started to make art more actively this year. She has three pets at home – two cats and a dog.
Kristjan Uru Reinman is a 13-year-old boy who is interested in filmmaking and football. This summer he had a role in the youth film “Frank” which was exciting and made him want to explore filmmaking from the other side of the camera.
Lota Metusala is an 11-year-old girl who has been interested in the world of movies since she was a very little girl. She watches several movies per week and has even tried to make and edit movies with her friends. She has been trying to learn to act by herself. There have been many occasions when she has had to give her opinion on a movie, video etc. When she grows up, she definitely wants to be part of the film industry.
Ralf Samuel is a 7-year-old first grade student at Gustav Adolf Grammar School. More than anything, he likes to play and watch football, but what is happening behind the small and big screens is also exciting. From Just Film, Samuel primarily expects sports films, but also fun and entertaining films. Samuel is very happy to be on the jury because a few years ago his big brother Mattias was on the same jury.
Adele Ashilevi is 9 years old, and she alternately lives in Tallinn and Haapsalu. She likes to play with dolls and watch anime movies and series. Her favourite music style is K-pop, and she also likes to sing.
Kristjan Varts is a 9-year-old boy who studies in the 3rd grade at Rocca al Mare High School. He loves to play football, travel, read a lot of comics, and watch films and cartoons. He has participated in an international film as an extra and finds the industry very exciting.