Meet the Jury of Balkan Feature Films Program

Matthijs Wouter Knol, Director of the European Film Academy;

Wilhelm Faber, from Programme-organization of Berlin International Film Festival since more than 25 years;

Chris Belloni, a documentary filmmaker, producer and director of the International Queer & Migrant Film Festival.

Balkan Feature Films Competition, known also as 'Honey and Blood Cinema', features selection of 7 films from 5 countries curated by our Artistic Director, Fatos Berisha.

One International Premiere, two Regional Premieres and all of them Kosovan Premieres are the films of main competition of the 13th edition of PriFest.

Films will compete for the Red Goddess Award and other prizes at this category.

Since 2021, Dutch-born Matthijs Wouter Knol has been appointed as the Director of the European Film Academy, the institution uniting European filmmakers and organizing the annual European Film Awards. He is a Board member of the International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk, jointly founded by the Academy with IFFR and IDFA in 2020.

Starting in 2001, Matthijs worked as associate producer on numerous documentary films and co-produced the digitally re-mastered oeuvre of Dutch filmmaker Johan van der Keuken (awarded the Prix Cahiers du Cinéma, 2006), exhibitions of film installations and film-related photography projects, conferences and publications. After a short stint at IDFA, Matthijs worked for the Berlinale, as head of programming at Berlinale Talents (2008-2014) and as Director of the European Film Market (2014-2020). Matthijs is an activist, pushing for anti-racism and far-reaching diversity/inclusion policies within the European film industry.

Wilhelm Faber is working in the management of the Berlin International Film Festival since more than 25 years. Programme-organization, organizational development and the coordination of special events are the main fields of his job. Since the beginning the viewing and selection of short films has always been a heartbeat of his work.

Chris Belloni (1980) is a documentary filmmaker, producer and director of the International Queer & Migrant Film Festival, which he initiated in 2015. His debut film I am Gay & Muslim screened at film festivals worldwide. In 2018, he initiated LGBT & arts related projects in Azerbaijan and in the Western Balkans region. In 2020 he launched a multiple year project on activism and human rights in the Caribbean region. Recently, he was juror at Teddy Award 2020, the award for best queer film in Berlinale. From September 2021 he will be in charge of Supernova Cinema, an alternative cinema space in the center of Amsterdam.

Full list of films find at prifest.net.

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