Winner
Sabina Vajrača – Sevap / Mitzvah (narrative)
Read the press release↗
Finalists
Lisa Namdar Kaufman – Fredi, Harry, and Yair: A Brotherhood Displaced (documentary)
Asia Khmelova – The Night Before (narrative)
Michael Masarof – The Woman From Hamburg (narrative)
Eris Qian – Last Ship East (narrative)
Sabina Vajrača – Sevap / Mitzvah (narrative)
Jury
Florentina Almonte joined Shorts TV International in 2018. In her role as a Content Acquisitions Executive, she manages all aspects of the acquisition process for the North America, EMEA, and LATAM territories.
Florentina is a television executive with 20+ years of experience in the business including, international and domestic acquisitions, contract negotiations, strategic partnerships, scheduling, on-air promotions, and network affiliate distribution.
Before joining Shorts TV International, Florentina was Programming Director at HITN-TV, a US-Latino cable network where she served in a variety of managing capacities at the company. During her tenure at HITN-TV besides of developing and executing the full scope of the channel programming, she led programming strategy efforts significant for transforming the channel into a national wide distributed US Hispanic network and for its ongoing growth.
Florentina also worked at A+E international Networks, where she served as a Manager liaison between A+E’s global Ad Sales teams and the US team, additionally she developed and implemented successful affiliates marketing initiatives for History en Español.
Florentina has served as a juror at the NY Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS)/Emmys Awards, the Bushwick Film Festival, and Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival. She is also a member of the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC), and National Association of Television Programming Executives (NATPE).
CableFAX named her as one of “The Most Influential Latinas in Cable” for 2016
Wouter Jansen is the owner of the sales and festival distribution company Square Eyes. He worked as the head of programming at the Go Short – International Film Festival during the first 10 editions. In 2013 he started Some Shorts, which changed to Square Eyes in 2019, which specializes in having outstanding non-mainstream films find the audience and recognition they deserve. With Square Eyes, Wouter represents bold, author-driven features and shorts, and collaborates closely with the filmmakers to devise bespoke festival distribution and sales strategies. This has resulted in a small catalogue of films premiering at prestigious festivals and winning multiple awards over the last few years like main prizes at Cannes, TIFF, Berlin, Locarno and Clermont-Ferrand.
Wouter has been giving lectures at schools like Le Fresnoy, HEAD Geneva and Netherlands Film Academy as well as moderating and leading workshops at festivals like IDFA, Locarno, True/False, Winterthur, VIS Vienna Shorts and others. He is a Berlinale Talents alumni.
Philippa Kowarsky graduated with an M.A. in Communication Policy Studies, at City University of London. From 1993 she has been working in the Film & TV industry in various fields such as production, development and sales. In 1997 Philippa established Cinephil, a sales and co-productions company home to independent international productions, strategizing, marketing, distributing and selling documentaries worldwide. Cinephil also acts as a co-producer and executive producer, raising finance for films and following through projects to their completion. In 2014 THE ACT OF KILLING represented by Cinephil was nominated for the Academy Awards©. In 2013 Philippa was nominated for the Academy Awards© as THE GATEKEEPERS producer.
Pelin Uzay has an M.F.A. in film from Columbia University and a J.D. from Rutgers Law School. She has worked as a producer and film consultant for over a decade. Her films have screened at festivals around the world including the Sundance Film Festival, Venice Film Festival and Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival. Pelin was previously the Senior Film Program Officer for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany where she oversaw the funding of award-winning films such as Son of Saul, 1945 and Who Will Write Our History. She currently resides in Texas where she is a licensed attorney.