39TH MWFF JURY

DANY LAFERRIÈRE, President

Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in 1953, Dany Laferrière left his native country following the killing of his colleague and friend, journalist Gasner Raymond. His first novel, Comment faire l’amour avec un nègre sans se fatiguer was published in 1985 and became an overnight success, propelling him into the front ranks of the new generation of Quebec writers. The novel was later adapted into a sccreenplay by Laferrière and Richard Sadler, earning critical plaudits and several honours.He continued his novelistic output (Éroshima, L’Odeur du café, Le Cri des oiseaux fous…) even as he became a widely read and viewed journalist. He also penned several screenplays, made his directorial debut in 2004 with Comment conquérir l’amérique, and won the 2006 Governor-General’s Award for his youth album Je suis fou de Vava.Among the many honours his books have garnered are the Prix Médicis and Grand Prix du livre de Montréal in 2009, and the Grand Prix littéraire international Metropolis Bleu and the Prix des libraires in 2010. In 2013 he was named to the Académie française and in 2014 Officier de l'Ordre national du Québec.

TEA FALCO

Italian actress and photographer Tea Falco was born in Catania, Sicily in 1986. In 2011 she won one of the most prestigious Italian awards for contemporary art, the Basilio Cascella Award, and soon had her work exhibited,  in Italy and abroad. but also in Greece and Los Angeles. She discovered her passion for acting in 2003, and trained at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, then at various professional workshops. In 2004 she made her stage debut and her cinema debut the following year in Un angelo per amicoby Adriano Chiaramida; from then on she has continued both her theatrical and cinematographic careers. Her first starring role, bringing her to international attention, was in Bernardo Bertolucci’s Me and You, shown in Cannes in 2012. In the same year she also appeared in the fourth episode of Young Montalbano, a popular Italian TV series. Today she lives and works in Rome as an actress and photographer.

VENTURA PONS

One of Spain’s most prominent filmmakers, Catalan director Ventura Pons has made over two dozen features which are regularly shown on screens around the world. He has been  the subject of more than 30 international tributes and retrospectives: at London’s ICA , New York’s Lincoln Center and in the world's foremost cinematheques. Pons has received “lifetime achievement awards” in Chicago, Galway, Piestany, Lima, Torino and Montpellier and in Spain he has received the Catalan National Film Award, the Spain Fine Arts Gold Medal, the Catalan Sant Jordi Cross, the Gaudi Honour Award among many others. In 2012 the University of Colorado at Denver held an academic conference on his cinema about which Vervuert has published a book: Ventura Pons: An exceptional gaze from the Catalan cinema. He has published his memoirs Mine (and the others) (2011), and a world tour diary, 54 days and a bit more(2012). His most recent film, Virus of Fear, is showing in this year’s MWFF.

PETER RAINER

Peter Rainer is the film critic for the Christian Science Monitor, president of the National Society of Film Critics, and a regular reviewer for "Film Week" on National Public Radio. In 1998 he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism. His most recent book is "Rainer on Film: Thirty Years of Film Writing in a Turbulent and Transformative Era." He has twice won the National Entertainment Journalism Award for Best Online Entertainment Critic. Prior to the Christian Science Monitor, Rainer served as film critic for New York magazine, the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. He has also written and co-produced two documentaries for the A&E Network, on Sidney Poitier and the Hustons. In 1995 he was a member of the main jury for the Venice Film Festival.

GERARDO SALCEDO

Gerardo Salcedo studied communication sciences at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM). In 1983, he worked as a film professor at UNAM and joined the Dirección de Cinematografia staff. Between 1992 and 2006, he was a programmer and deputy director at Cineteca Nacional. In 2007, he co-founded the film distribution company MVFilms, as well as working as a programmer for the Acapulco and Chihuahua film festivals and sitting on the pre-selection jury for the Expresión en Corto festival in Guanajuato. In 2010, he became deputy director of the Guadalajara Film Festival.

LUIS URQUIZA

Mexican filmmaker Luis Urquiza graduated from UAM (Autonomous Metropolitan University) in communications and complemented his studies with cinema and journalism classes. Since 1987 he has worked as a producer and a director, first for television and then for the large screen.  In 2001 he co-founded Astillero Films with Lourdes García. In 2006, he produced and directed a short film, Mother’s Love, followed, in 2014, by Perfect Obedience, his first fiction feature, winner of the Grand Prize of the Americas and Glauber Rocha prize for best Latin American films at the 38th Montreal World Film Festival last year. Urquiza has also produced, among others: Who is Mr. Lopez? (2006) by Luis Mandoki, Teo’s Journey (2008), by Walter Doehner, Hidalgo, the Untold Story (2009) and Morelos (2012) by Antonio Serrano.