The Berlin International Film Festival has confirmed its full juries for the 2024 edition (February 16-24), with Italian actress Jasmine Trinca and German filmmaker Christian Petzold among those joining president Lupita Nyong’o on the main international jury.
Also on the jury are filmmakers Ann Hui (Hong Kong) and Albert Serra (Spain) alongside Ukrainian novelist and poet Oksana Zabuzhko.
The international jury will select the winners of the Golden and Silver Bears from the 20 films playing in Competition.
The three-member jury for the Encounters strand comprises filmmakers Lisandro Alonso (Argentina), Denis Côté (Canada) and Tizza Covi (Italy).
The Encounters jury will choose the winners of best film, best director and a special jury award from the 15-strong line-up.
The best first feature jury – judging debuts across all the main sections – includes US filmmaker Eliza Hittman, Canadian programmer Andréa Picard and Danish producer Katrin Pors.
Sitting on the documentary award jury are filmmakers Abbas Fahdel (Iraq/France) and Thomas Heise (Germany), and French artist Véréna Paravel.
Finally, the international jury for the Generation sections comprises filmmakers Amjad Abu Alala (Sudan) and Ira Sachs (US) and German/Iranian actress Banafshe Hourmazdi.
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The festival has also secured world premieres of two anticipated Chinese dramas, completing the selection for its youth-focussed Generation strand: Above The Dust by Wang Xiaoshuai and She Sat There Like All Ordinary Ones by Qu Youjia.
Wang was last at the Berlinale in 2019 with So Long, My Son, which played in Competition and secured Silver Bear awards for lead actor Wang Jingchun and lead actress Yong Mei.
His latest is a Mandarin-language drama that tells the story of a Chinese village and its inhabitants from the perspective of a 10-year-old Wo Tu, against the backdrop of social change. It is produced by China’s DongChun Films and the Netherland’s Lemming Film (Pleasure, The Lobster). The Match Factory handles international sales on the film, which plays in the Generation Kplus competition.
She Sat There Like All Ordinary Ones marks the feature directorial debut of Qu and is a coming-of-age drama about a determined teenager who is about to take an important university entrance exam but is thrown off course after an encounter with an enigmatic long-distance runner.
The film, which plays in the in the Generation 14plus competition, is produced by Xie Meng, CEO of Beijing-based sales outfit Rediance, whose credits include Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria.
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