Jury

Anne Farrer has been the director of the Autrans International Mountain Film Festival (FIFMA), now in its 40th year, for 10 years. FIFMA was the first French festival dedicated to mountain culture. Before, she worked on feature films as camera assistant and location manager with such directors as Rithy Panh, Jacques Rivette, Abdelatif Kechiche and Arnaud Desplechin. She has also directed a number of documentaries that have screened at various festivals. Currently, representing FIFMA, she is involved in several professional networks and projects dedicated to film culture. She is vice-president of the Festivals connexion network of the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes Region in France, she is a member of the International Alliance of Mountain Film Festivals (IAFMF), and she is active in territorial networks that carry out cultural interventions both for the general public and in schools.

Francesca Melandri was born in Rome in 1964. After a long career as a film and TV screenwriter, in 2010 she published the novel ‘Eva dorme’, an acclaimed long-seller in many countries. With ‘Più alto del mare’ (2012) she won around ten literary awards in Italy and Europe. ‘Sangue giusto’ (2017) was shortlisted for the Strega Prize, while in Germany Der Spiegel elected it international novel of the year. Her books have been translated in over 20 countries. She directed the documentaries NEL PAESE DELLE CASE DI LANA (1993 - Banff Mountain Film Festival) and VERA (2010 – IDFA, Full Frame). She writes for the Guardian, Die Zeit, Liberation, and other international newspapers. In spring 2020, her "Letter from the future" was translated into 35 languages (including Armenian, Georgian, Hindi, Urdu and Afrikaans), becoming a viral expression of global feelings about the pandemic. She divides her time between Rome and Berlin and she has two children.

Ⓒ Photo: F. Gattoni

Jim Herrington is a photographer whose portraits of celebrities including Benny Goodman, Willie Nelson, The Rolling Stones, Cormac McCarthy, Morgan Freeman and Dolly Parton have appeared on the pages of Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Esquire, GQ, Outside and Men’s Journal as well as on scores of album covers for more than three decades. He has photographed international ad campaigns for clients such as Thule, Trek Bikes, Gibson Guitars and Wild Turkey Bourbon. For nearly two decades, he worked on a portrait series of early-to-mid 20th Century mountain climbing legends. The result is the recently published 'The Climbers', a collection of sixty black-and-white photographs that document these rugged individualists, including the likes of Royal Robbins, Reinhold Messner, Yvon Chouinard and Riccardo Cassin. In these images, Herrington has captured their humanity, obsession, intellect, and frailty. The book, published in October 2017, won the Grand Prize at the 2017 Banff Book Awards, as well as the Mountaineering History Award.

Urszula Antoniak is a Polish/Dutch scriptwriter and film director. Her debut film NOTHING PERSONAL won six awards at the 2009 Locarno FF, including Best First Feature and Best Actress for Lotte Verbeek. Her second film, CODE BLUE, was selected for the 2011 Cannes Directors' Fortnight. In 2015 she made the experimental film NUDE AREA. Her fourth film, BEYOND WORDS premiered at the 2017 Toronto FF and San Sebastian FF. Urszula is also the scriptwriter of LIFE ACCORDING TO NINO, a Dutch family film directed by Simone Dusseldorp, and author of the story of PLANET SINGLE, a Polish romantic comedy directed by Mitja Okorn that became a box office hit in Poland in 2015. Urszula writes and directs both arthouse films, like her last one SPLENDID ISOLATION, which was shot during lockdown, and genre films like MAGIC MOUNTAINS (2020), filmed in Slovakia's Tatra Mountains, and selected for the 71. Trento Film Festival.

A graduate in modern literature, since 2001 Paolo Moretti has worked for various festivals and film institutes in Europe, including the Centre Pompidou, Les États généraux du film documentaire in Lussas, Filmoteca Española, Cinemateca Portuguesa, Leeds Film Festival (United Kingdom) and Cinéma du Réel. From 2008 to 2011 he was Assistant Director and Programme Advisor for Venice Film Festival, focusing particularly on the Horizons section. He was associate producer of the American independent feature film L FOR LEISURE by Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn. In 2014 and 2015 he was a member of the selection committee for Trento Film Festival. Between 2018 and 2022 he was Delegate General and Artistic Director of Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes Film Festival. He currently heads the Film Department of ECAL, the University of Art and Design in Lausanne, the experimental cinema Les Cinémas du Grütli in Geneva and oversees the film programme of the Fondazione Prada in Milan.

Ⓒ Photo: ECAL Santiago Martinez