The international jury for the 6th Al Jazeera Balkans Documentary Film Festival (AJB DOC, 8-12 Sept) comprises director Vitaliy Manskiy, director Bernadett Tuza-Ritter, producer Vanja Jambrović, director Nermin Hamzagić, and producer Mohamed Elmongy. The five-member jury will decide on the best film from the AJB DOC Film Festival competition programme and grant the AJB DOC Main Award.
Four of the five jurors have presneted works at past AJB DOCs. Tuza-Ritter won the AJB DOC Main Award in 2018 for her documentary Why Slavery? A Woman Captured. Manskiy presented two feature-length documentaries, Putin’s Witnesses and Gorbachev. Heaven. Jambrović produced two previous selections, Srbenka and Museum of the Revolution, while Nermin Hamzagić premiered his documentary The Rope at the festival in 2019.
“We are honoured that authors and producers return to the AJB DOC Film Festival year after year in a variety of capacities. That’s a clear indication of the value of our investment in the festival and the attention we pay to the participants, producers, and everyone else involved”, said Festival Director Edhem Fočo.
Biographies of the Jury Members (provided by AJB DOC)
- Vitaliy Manskiy was born in 1963 in Lviv/Ukraine, USSR. He graduated from VGIK — the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography in 1989 and went on to become one of the most notable documentary filmmakers and producers today. As a director, he has shot over 35 films. His films were shown at over 500 international film festivals, including forums in Cannes, Berlin, San Sebastian, Rotterdam, Karlovy Vary, Amsterdam, Locarno, Toronto etc., and have won over 100 awards. Manskiy created almost 200 films as a producer.
- He is the founder and President of Artdocfest — the Russian Open Documentary Film Festival for Russian-language creative documentaries (activity stopped in 2022 due to Russian censorship, as well as Russia’s war against Ukraine). In 2020 he founded IDFF Artdocfest/Riga which takes place in Latvia, where Manskiy has been living since 2014.
- Bernadett Tuza-Ritter is an award-winning filmmaker specializing in creative documentaries and fiction. She studied directing and editing in Budapest, Hungary. Her first feature-length documentary Why Slavery? A Woman Captured premiered at the IDFA Main Competition and Sundance Film Festival 2018 and was nominated for the European Film Awards. The film won 38 awards and has been broadcast on 70+ TV channels around the world. Tuza-Ritter is a member of the Hungarian Society of Film and Video Editors, the Hungarian Film Academy and the European Film Academy, and co-founder of the Hungarian Documentary Association. Her film Why Slavery? A Woman Captured won the main award at the AJB DOC 2018.
- Vanja Jambrović graduated in philosophy and comparative literature at the Faculty for Social Sciences of the University of Zagreb in 2005 and in 2011 she graduated in film and theatre production at the Academy of Dramatic Art, also in Zagreb. Since 2009 she has been making films with Restart as a delegate producer. Jambrović’s track record includes more than 20 films of all shapes and sizes. Her films have travelled the globe, having been screened in competition selections at IDFA, Hot Docs, Toronto IFF, Visions du Reel, FID Marseille, Karlovy Vary IFF, Sarajevo FF and hundreds more. Jambrović is also a Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program Grantee, for the feature documentary project Museum of the Revolution directed by Srđan Keča (2021). Also, she produced Srbenka by Nebojša Slijepčević which was pre-selected for EFA Awards in the Best Documentary category in 2018 and won Doc Allianze Award for the best documentary in 2018. Jambrović is also tutoring for international workshops such as Documentary Campus Master School, Ex Oriente, CIRCLE Women Doc Accelerator and since 2020 she is teaching “Documentary production” at Academy of Drama Art in Zagreb.
- Nermin Hamzagić was born in 1986 in Sarajevo. He graduated from the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo where he works as an assistant professor. He directed several theater plays and performances, as well as short and documentary films. In 2019 he directed his first feature film Full Moon. The European Film Academy nominated Full Moon for the European Discovery Prize – Prix Fipresci 2020 award. Hamzagić also directed the following films: The Rope (2018, documentary), Interview (2017, short), Damaged Goods (2015, short), Soul Train (2015, documentary).
- Mohamed Elmongy joined Al Jazeera Documentary Channel in 2011 as a senior producer and commissioning editor. He commissioned and co-produced dozens of films in multiple regions of the world (MENA, Europe, and Africa), which were screened at notable film festivals such as Sundance, Cannes, Locarno, IDFA, and Hot Docs. Elmongy is an avid professional in the international film industry who has participated in several film events as an expert, speaker and commissioning producer.
