Awards

Roshanak Behesht Nedjad has been producing since 1999. Awards she has received for her films include the Lola (most recently for MISSION ULJA FUNK in 2023) and the Prix Iris Europe (for FOOTBALL UNDER COVER). She also works as an expert and consultant for various national and international institutions, such as APostLab, the Berlinale, TAICCA, and others. She is a member of the German as well as the European Film Academy.

Lukas Röder was born in 1993 in Starnberg near Munich. He studied feature film directing at the HFF Munich. Four of his short films have been screened at the Hof Film Festival, and his film GEHIRNTATTOO received the Friedrich Baur Gold Prize in 2021. His feature film debut, SHAME, was presented at the 2025 Max Ophüls Film Festival and received the Ecumenical Jury Prize. Röder's first volume of poetry was published by Omnino Verlag in fall 2025.

Joyce Sanhá, born in Rotterdam in 1996, grew up in Hamburg, is an actress. She studied acting studies at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.Engagements took her, among others, to the Münchner Kammerspiele, the Salzburg Festival, as well as to film and TV. most recently in Fatih Akin’s RHEINGOLD , TATORT Bremen and in a lead role in Ali Tamim's NOAH. She also won the solo prize at the Bundeswettbewerb für Schauspiel 2024 and is the recipient of the Deutschlandstiftung acting scholarship.

Katharina Rinderle is a renowned producer of European films and series, creator/writer, music and green shooting expert, and founder of Latemar Film. She was engaged on the boards of the Producers Alliance and German Films and is a worldwide jury member, including the Oscar® selection committee. She holds an MA in Film Production with distinction, as well as international masterclasses with Francesco Casetti/Yale and Hollywood director Frank Oz.

Bartholomew is a Maltese-Australian, non-binary film curator. They began writing & producing short films then worked for SBS TV on the short film program Eatcarpet. In 2006 they founded the XPOSED Queer Film Festival Berlin and in 2009 started working for Berlinale Panorama. In 2015 they established the Queer Short Film Fund, an initiative from XPOSED.

Alexandra Sell works as a director and photographer. She studied photography at the Berlin University of the Arts, earned a Master of Fine Arts from Goldsmiths College in London, and then studied directing at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. Her films include her documentary feature film debut, DURCHFAHRTSLAND, the feature film DIE ANFÄNGERIN, and the documentary ICE AGED, which premiered at the Hof International Film Festival in 2024.

Katharina Dockhorn studied history and film. After her first professional stations at the GDR - East German Television, MDR and later ntv, she has been working as a freelance journalist and film critic for TV Stations, daily newspapersince 1993. Her work appears in television broadcasts, daily newspapers, trade journals and magazines. Dockhorn is a member of the German Association of Media Journalists as well as FIPRESCI, the International Federation of Film Critics. As a FIPRESCI jury member she has served at numerous festivals, including the Berlinale and international film festivals in Cairo, Toronto, Tallinn, Berlin, and Kyiv.

Beat Glur lives and works in Bern, Switzerland. He writes for daily newspapers and magazines. For 16 years, he headed the culture section of the Swiss News Agency. He was member of the Suissimage Cultural Commission, the Nationl Film Commission and the selection committees of the Locarno, Berlin, and Rotterdam Film Festivals. For ten years he was president of the Swiss Film Critics‘ Association and now serves as its managing director.

Thomas Taborsky is a film critic, translator, and editor. Since 2005 he has been working for the Austrian weekly newspaper Die Furche. He has also been a long-time contributor to the Crossing Europe Film Festival in Linz and works as an editor including the festival magazine of the SLASH Film Festival in Vienna. As a freelancer he collaborates with numerous institutions in the field of art and architecture. He is a board member of the Austrian Film Critics’ Guild – the Association of Austrian Film Journalists. He lives and works in Vienna.

Hella Rihl is the director of the FiSH Filmfestival Rostock, a young talent festival for filmmakers up to 26 years of age from Germany and Northern Europe. She studied at the Braunschweig University of Art and the Film University Babelsberg. After working as a festival coordinator at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin, she joined the Berlinale, where she served as program coordinator for Berlinale Talents from 2015 to 2021.

Studied Theater & Audiovisual Media, North American Literature and Economics. Works for German Films, in charge of short film, including a presentation of upcoming German directors in Cannes, support of filmmakers with the international distribution of their films, selection of films for screenings and compilations, and close cooperation with international film festivals. Co-initiated the Queer Film Festival Munich in 2015, programmed short films for HoF from 2016-2021.

Can Tanyol is a director from Hamburg. In his cross-genre films, he explores social cohesion and the structures of European immigrant societies. His latest film, "Crazy Blood," produced with Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, won the Jury Short Film Award at the Hof Film Festival in 2023. He is currently developing his first feature film and a series.

Angela Reedwisch worked as a foreign language correspondent for the German Federal Foreign Office at the German Embassy in Tunis (1984–1987) before moving to the film industry. At ARRI, a company in Munich, she started as an assistant to the management and postproduction, then as producer at ARRI TV. In 1994, she took over as head of ARRI Digital Film. Following an internal restructuring she was Key Account Manager for overseeing all image and sound postproduction services at ARRI Film & TV since 2001. After the sale of ARRI Film & TV in 2021, she worked in the same position at PHAROS – The Post Group. She has been retired since August 2025.

Jakob Zapf studied theory of Theater, Film and Media as well as Philosophy and History of the Arts in Frankfurt and Paris. He is working as a producer at Neopol Film and as author and director. His first feature film A Handful of Water starring Jürgen Prochnow, premiered at the Hof International Film Festival in 2020 and was released in cinemas in 2021.

Letizia Zapf studied Media and Communication Management. After graduation she worked as a PR manager in Berlin, handling clients in the fashion and lifestyle sectors. In 2014 she transitioned into the film industry, initially working as a production coordinator. From 2017 she worked as a producer at Bon Voyage Films, where she accompanied cinema and television projects from development to distribution. Her credits include the feature films AXIOM by Jöns Jönsson and SCHOCK by Denis Moschitto and Daniel Rakete Siegel. Since 2023 she has been part of the team at Rommel Film in Berlin where she is developing feature films and documentaries.