Silver Linings Playbook actress to lead Narrative Competition jury.
The juries of the 7th Abu Dhabi Film Festival (Oct 24-Nov 2) have been revealed.
The Narrative Competition jury president is Australian actress Jacki Weaver, best known for her Oscar-nominated performances in David Michôd’s Animal Kingdom and David O. Russell’s The Silver Linings Playbook.
Joining her on the jury are Israeli actress Hiam Abbass, chief executive of Film London and the British Film Commission Adrian Wootton, Tunisian producer Dora Bouchoucha and Sandra den Hamer, current CEO of EYE Film Institute Netherlands.
The New Horizons Competition jury is lead by Yeşim Ustaoğlu, director of Turkish drama Araf.
Ustaoğlu is assisted by Irene Bignardi, co-founder of daily newspaper La Repubblica and former director of the Locarno Film Festival (2000–05), Moroccan filmmaker Nour-Eddine Lakhmari, Ukrainian director Valery Todorovsky and Lebanese director Michel Kammoun.
President of the Documentary Competition is the co-director and artistic director of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Cameron Bailey.
He is joined on the jury by Dutch screenwriter Leonard Retel Helmrich, A World Not Ours director Mahdi Fleifel, South African arts and film writer Peter Machen and Algerian film critic, journalist and filmmaker Nabil Hadji.
The inaugural Child Protection Award will be judged by Egyptian actor and producer Khaled Abol Naga, supported by jurors Afaf Al Marri, Chairman of the Department of Social Services and member of Executive Council of Sharjah; Lt. Col. Faisal Al Shamari, director of the UAE Ministry of the Interior Child Protection Centre, Emirati film director Juma Al Sahli and Mona Al Bahar, member of the Federal National Council and the UAE National Higher Committee on child protection.
The Short Film Competition will be judged by President Mohamad Malas, a pioneer in Syrian auteur cinema whose latest film Ladder to Damascus premiered at Toronto.
Jurors include Egyptian writer director Hala Khalil, Danish director and playwright Jenle Hallund, who was a consultant on Lars von Trier’s Melancholia and Nymphomaniac, Abu Dhabi director Khalid Al Mahmood and Matthieu Darras, French film critic and founder of NISI MASA, the European Network of Young Cinema.
The Emirates Film Competition will be presided over by veteran Algerian director and screenwriter Ahmed Rachedi.
He is supported by Iraqi director and writer Oday Rasheed, the founder and chairman of the Cultural Circle in Kuwait Taleb Al-Refai, Hafiz Ali Abdulla arts programme manager at Cultural Development Centre at Qatar Foundation and filmmaker, and UAE filmmaker Fadel Al Muhairi.
FIPRESCI, the International Federation of Film Critics, has sent a jury which will focus on Arab Films from the Narrative Feature, New Horizons and Documentary Feature Competition sections.
The FIPRESCI jury is lead by Wilfried Reichart (Germany) and includes Janusz Wróblewski (Poland), Madhu Eravankara (India), Mostafa Messnaoui (Morocco) and Vicky Habib (Lebanon).
The jury for NETPAC (the Network for the Promotion of Asia Cinema) will select an Asian film from the Narrative, New Horizons and Documentary Feature competitions as the feature winner of the NETPAC Award.
The jurors are: Gulbara Tolomushova (Kyrgyzstan), Deborah Young (USA) and Ziad Khatlan (Iraq / UK).
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