With the festival kicking off in a few days, I’d like to introduce the good people who are helping us determine our three juried award winners. We’ll be giving away a total of $1,000 in prize money with the help of our audiences, as well as these fine industry leaders.
Narrative Jury
Liane Cunje
Liane Cunje is a programmer for the Overlook Film Festival, and has been an international programming associate for the Toronto International Film Festival since 2017. In 2019, she became the Discovery programming associate for the focused programme showcasing bold visions from international first- and second-feature directors. Coming from a Film Studies and a television development background in Montreal, Liane previously worked in cult film restoration and distribution in the UK with Arrow Video as operations executive. She currently sits on the board for The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, and is working with a few industry femme fatales on INIODYMUS, a genre film festival consultancy collective promoting new filmmakers.
Per Fikse
Per Fikse (b. 1965, Norway) is the director of Minimalen Short Film Festival in Trondheim, Norway. He began programming for the festival in 1994 and has been its director since 1999. The festival had its 31st edition this year, screening more than 200 films over six days.
Dan Moore
Dan Moore is the executive director of the Indy Film Fest which recently celebrated its 16th year, and was drawn to the fest by his love for film nearly a decade ago. He has served as executive director of the all-volunteer festival since 2016. By day, he’s a software engineer and lives with his two cats in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Animation Jury
Barnabas Wornoff
Barnabas Wornoff is a senior animator, animation professor and one of the co-founders of TAAFI (Toronto Animated Arts Festival International) where he helps with speaker programming and other fun shtuffs. Wornoff is a full-time professor at Seneca College, where he coordinates the 3rd year 2D stream and mentors his students while they make incredible cartoons.
Wornoff also animates for top tier animation studios in Toronto, and has worked on Corner Gas Animated, Nature Cat, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, Total Drama Island, Jimmy Two Shoes, Peg and Corn, and did storyboard cleanup on Danny Phantom. Currently he’s a freelance animator for Nelvana on Sesame Street’s second season of Esme and Roy.
Barnabas has his Masters in Creative Media and Education from Bournemouth University in England.
Shelagh Rowan-Legg
Shelagh Rowan-Legg is a filmmaker, author, programmer for FrightFest, and contributing editor for ScreenAnarchy.
Elaine Wong
Elaine Wong is a short film programmer for the BFI London Film Festival. She has previously worked on Sheffield Doc/Fest, London Short Film Festival, Underwire, Raindance and Chinese Visual Festival and is based in London.
Documentary Jury
Mickey Duzyj
Mickey Duzyj is an Emmy-nominated director known for his innovative use of animation in documentary film, and was chosen by Variety as one of 2019’s “Top 10 Documentary Filmmakers to Watch.” He is the creator and director of the critically-acclaimed Netflix documentary series LOSERS (2019), and previously won the Best Short award at Hot Docs for his ESPN 30for30 film The Shining Star of Losers Everywhere (2016.) More at mduzyj.com.
Sanne Jehoul
Sanne Jehoul is the co-director of Glasgow Short Film Festival, Scotland’s leading short film event, which champions new talent and disruptive, transgressive work alongside a programme of industry events. She is also a programmer at Document Human Rights Film Festival in Glasgow, and freelances as a writer, host, and curator. Sanne has worked in arts and media in her home country Belgium as well as in China and the Basque Country. She sits on the advisory board of Femspectives, a new feminist film festival in Glasgow.
Ethan Warren
Ethan Warren is a senior editor at the online film journal Bright Wall/Dark Room and the writer/director of the 2018 independent feature film West of Her. He lives on the south shore of Boston with his wife, Caitlin, and their children.