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Mansour Jahani  - The 35th Tehran International Short Film Festival announced the jury members of international competition section.

Krzysztof Gierat from Poland, Virgil Widrich from Austria, Thom Palmen from Sweden, Sari Volanen from Finland, Mick Hannigan from Ireland, Per Fikse from Norway and Mehrdad Oskouei from Iran are jury member of this section.

The biographies of juries are as follows:

Krzysztof Gierat:

Gierat is a Polish film expert, a graduate of Jagiellonian University, studied at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. His former and current positions include: Former Deputy Mayor of the City of Krakow, Director of the Polish State Television Film Agency, General Secretary of the Polish Filmmakers Association, Member of the Polish and European Film Academies. Since 2000, he has been Director of Krakow Film Festival as well as founder and president of Krakow Film Foundation, which is the producer of Krakow Film Festival and promoter of Polish documentaries and shorts abroad. He is also a lecturer at Krakow Academy and a member of numerous film festivals’

juries.

Virgil Widrich:

Widrich, producer of multimedia and film art, born in 1967 in the city of Saltzburg, Austria. He is one of the founders and managers of Checkpointmedia GmbH, a professor of art and science at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, and is the owner and CEO of Virgil Widrich

Film- und Multimediaproductions G.m.b.H. His first feature film is "Brighter than the Moon," and his short film store, 37 international awards and nominees for the Oscars. The "Rapid" movie from Widrich was released in 2003 and has received 36 awards. His latest film is "1000 Hours Night", and in 2018 he directed his first music video, Nena & Dave Stewart: Be my Rebel. Widrich lives in Vienna.

Thom Palmen:

Palmen is one of the founders of the Umeå International Film Festival in Sweden. (1986-2007) He has been invited as a jury member to numerous film Festivals, notably in Berlin, Sofia, Regensburg, Cottbus, Aix-en-Provence, Indie-Lisboa, Poznan, Bratislava, Hamburg, Setubal, Cork, Kinochock (Anapa), Tampere, Puchon (Korea), FESPACO (Burkina Faso).

He is currently working as a curator for a number of festivals and parallel to that as a producer at the same time developing projects within the field of the cinema.

Since April 2017 he has been Executive Director of Hancheng Jinzhen International Short film Festival.

His first film as producer, In the Theme (director Olga Popova, Russia), was selected and awarded at Berlin Film Festival (Berlinale) Shorts in 2008.

He also works as pitching coach for animators at VAF (Visegrad Animation Forum in Trebon, Czech Republic) and as tutor for a large number of short film projects of any genre.

He moved to Riga, Latvia in 2013.

Background:

•  Studies in Art History, History of Ideas and Sociology.

•  Founded the Umeå International Film Festival in 1986. Since 1996 Artistic Director.

•  General Secretary of the European Coordination of Film Festivals

(ECFF) 1999-2002.

•  President of the European Coordination of Film Festivals (ECFF) 2002-2004. And for a second period 2006 – 2007 •  Member of the pre-selection committee for the Swedish National Film Prize for Shorts & Documentaries (Golden Bug) 2003-2007 •  Voting member of the European Film Academy.

•  Since 2007 started working as producer. Since then worked on around

100 short films and three features.

Sari Volanen:

Volanen is one of  a commissioning editor for short and documentary films at Yle (Finnish Broadcasting company).  She has been started her career in television over 30 years ago. Currently she is  works at YLE’s Co-production department producing films mainly with Finnish independent film makers and producers.

She is in charge of the short and doc film strand called New Cinema on YLE Teema channel.

Along with studies of film in Finland, she has participated EAVE –training in 1999, Eurodoc 2006 and Sources2 – Documentary Mentor training 2008. She has a master’s degree in art.

Mick Hannigan:

Since founding Triskel Film Club in Cork in 1986, Mick Hannigan has worked in film exhibition.  He was appointed Director of the Cork Film Festival in 1987, a position he held for many years. He served as Cinemas Officer of the Irish Film Centre and later founded the Kino Arthouse Cinema, which he ran for 13 years. He has a special interest in short films and has served on many festival juries. In 2005 he organized an international Short Film Symposium which considered “short film” as a distinct art form. He has served on the boards of The Federation of Irish Film Societies, The Irish Film Institute and the Irish Film Board. He is currently on the board of the International Short Film Conference and is Chair of the Munster Literature Centre.

He currently serves as Co-Director of the IndieCork Film Festival, which, with others, he founded in 2013. IndieCork is now the largest festival for short films in Ireland.

Per Fikse:

Fikse (b. 1965, Norway) is the Director of Minimalen Short Film Festival in Trondheim, Norway, from 1999 to date, a festival he has programmed for since 1994. The festival had its 30th Anniversary Edition this year, screening 250 films over six days. Per Fikse holds a Master of Management degree from NTNU, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He has made a few shorts and contributed with articles on film published in Norwegian and international media. He also works as a Software Development Manager in the private sector.

Mehrdad Oskouei:

Iranian filmmaker, photographer, film producer and researcher. Most of his films have been shown at respected festivals both at home and abroad with many receiving critical acclaim. His films being shown at over 500 national and international film festivals in over 50 countries and having won over 120 awards makes him one of the most outstanding Iranian documentary makers. In 2010, Oskouei received the Prince Claus Award from the Netherlands for his achievements.

Oskouei has attended various international film festival studies programs including The Berlinale Talent Campus, The German Academy of Fine Arts, The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam Academy (IDFAcademy) as well as film workshop in France, England, Poland, Switzerland, the UAE and Germany under such esteemed filmmakers as:Albert Maysles, Richard Leacock,Abbas Kiarostami, Frederick Wiseman, Ross McElwee, Nick broomfield, Kim Longinotto, Wim Wenders, Anthony Minghella, Amir Naderi, and Walter Murch.

Oskouei has been awarded many prizes. Here is a partial list; The icon from IDFA Netherlands,The Reva and David Logan Grand Jury Award & Full Frame Inspiration Award, Icon for Berlin film festival, Icon for best film at Hot Docs festival/ Canada, Golden Dragon award best film, krakow festival, Best Documentary at Munich/Germany, Best film Documentary Festival Montreal/ Canada, Special Award Montevideo Bulgaria,Best Documentary Voladero, Mexico. The Visual Heritage Center of Iran was founded in 2011 by Oskouei along with the cooperation of researchers in various fields. The heritage’s activities are centered on historical photographs and post cards of Iran. Starless dreams is ranked above many films of prominent directors. American news and culture paper The Village Voice ranked the documentary 7th Among Village Voice Top 25 Films. Meanwhile, the movie gained 85 scores out of 100 on the metacritic movie website.