Juries 2015

Darren Aronofsky (USA)

Following his studies at Harvard University, Darren Aronofsky celebrated his feature film debut in 1998 with Pi, which won the award for Best Director at the Sundance Film Festival and Best Script at the Independent Spirit Awards. He presented his highly acclaimed cinematic adaptation Requiem for a Dream at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000, and the cult film The Fountain at the Venice Film Festival in 2006. Again in Venice, his film The Wrestler won the Golden Lion in 2008, and was hailed as the film of the year at the AFI Awards in Los Angeles. The film’s success also represented a sensational comeback of actor Mickey Rourke.
In 2011, Darren Aronofsky presented Black Swan, a psychological thriller taking place in the world of professional ballet. It was nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, the Director’s Guild of America Awards and the BAFTAs. His visually sweeping film Noah was released in 2014.

Daniel Brühl (Germany)

Daniel Brühl is one of a handful of German movie stars who have also established a successful international career. Following his distinction with the German Film Award for Das weiße Rauschen, Vaya con Dios and Nichts bereuen in 2002, he celebrated his breakthrough in 2003 with Good Bye, Lenin!, which screened in Competition at the Berlinale. For that role, Daniel Brühl received the European Film Award as well as another German Film Award. His international work has included roles in Anton Corbijn's A Most Wanted Man, Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, Bill Condon's The Fifth Estate and Michael Winterbottom's The Face of an Angel. Following various productions in Germany, Spain, France and the US, he was recently nominated for numerous awards, including a Golden Globe Award, for his work in Ron Howard's Rush. His most recent role was alongside Helen Mirren in Simon Curtis's Woman in Gold.

Martha De Laurentiis (USA)

Martha De Laurentiis and her husband Dino founded their production firm - today known as the De Laurentiis Company - in 1980. Since then it has been responsible for over 40 feature films and television series, including Stephen King’s directorial debut Maximum Overdrive, The Bedroom Window by Curtis Hanson, Michael Cimino’s Desperate Hours, Breakdown and U-571 by Jonathan Mostow and Brett Ratner’s Red Dragon. It produced Ridley Scott’s film adaptation of Hannibal, which screened out of competition at the Berlinale in 2001. De Laurentiis Company is also an executive producer of the Hannibal television series, which stars Mads Mikkelsen and has entered its third season in the US. At the 2014 festival, Martha De Laurentiis talked about the Hannibal series at Berlinale Talents.

Bong Joon-ho (Republic of Korea (South Korea) )

Born in 1969 in Seoul, South Korea, Bong Joon-ho studied sociology before graduating from the Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA). He initially worked as a screenwriter and director’s assistant while also making many short films of his own. His feature film debut Barking Dogs Never Bite was released in cinemas in 2000. His film Memories of Murder was screened at the San Sebastián film festival, among others, and won numerous awards. In 2006, following its world premiere in the Quinzane des Réalisateurs in Cannes, The Host would go on to become the biggest box office hit ever in South Korea. Bong Joon-ho was invited to Cannes once again in 2009 for Mother, this time in the section Un Certain Regard. His English language film debut Snowpiercer, featuring Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton and John Hurt, was a selection in the 2014 Berlinale Forum programme.

Claudia Llosa (Peru)

Peruvian native Claudia Llosa studied Communication Studies in Lima and later scriptwriting at the Escuela TAI in Madrid. She began her career in advertising before starting her own film production company. Her first feature film Madeinusa was released in 2006. Three years later, the WCF-funded film The Milk of Sorrow was a selection in the Berlinale Competition programme and went on to win the Golden Bear and the FIPRESCI Award. The film was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2012, her short film Loxoro was a selection in the Berlinale Shorts programme and won the Teddy Award. Her English-language film debut Aloft, starring Jennifer Connelly, Mélanie Laurent and Cillian Murphy, screened in Competition in 2014 and Sundance Spotlight 2015.

Audrey Tautou (France)

Audrey Tautou's feature film debut - in the comedy Venus Beauty Institute - garnered her a César Award. Her international breakthrough came in 2001, when she starred in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amélie and was nominated for the European Film Award, as well as for another César and a BAFTA in 2002. Other films in her repertoire include Cédric Klapisch's acclaimed L'Auberge Espagnole trilogy, Not on the Lips by Alain Resnais, Salvadori's Priceless, Coco Before Chanel, and international productions such as The Da Vinci Code and Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things. Most recently, the French actress worked with Claude Miller (Thérèse Desqueyroux) and Michel Gondry (Mood Indigo).

Matthew Weiner (USA)

Since 2007, Matthew Weiner has been the creator, executive producer and writer of the successful and critically acclaimed television series Mad Men, whose seventh and last season is currently running in the US. To date, he has received nine Emmys, two BAFTAS, three Golden Globes, numerous WGA awards and many other distinctions recognising his work on the series. As a director, he has been nominated twice by the DGA for his work behind the camera. Are You Here, starring Owen Wilson and Amy Poehler, marks his feature film debut as a writer, director and producer. Weiner's other credits as a writer include the television series Becker, The Naked Truth, and The Sopranos - for which he was also an executive producer.

Fernando Eimbcke (Mexico)

Fernando Eimbcke studied at the UNAM Film Institute in Mexico. He was invited to the Berlinale Talent Campus in 2003 and celebrated his feature film debut with Temporada de Patos in 2004. Following its world premiere at the festival in Guadalajara, he was invited to "Semaine de la critique" in Cannes as well as numerous other international festivals. He took part in Competition of the Berlinale in 2008 with Lake Tahoe, winning the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize and the FIPRESCI Award. He contributed to the episode film Revolucion, which screened in Berlinale Special in 2010. In 2013, he received awards in San Sebastián and Turin for Club Sandwich.

Olga Kurylenko (Ukraine)

International actress Olga Kurylenko had her breakthrough alongside Daniel Craig's James Bond in A Quantum of Solace. Appearances in films by directors such as multi award-winning Terrence Malick (To the Wonder), Martin McDonagh (Seven Psychopaths) and the hit American series Magic City followed, as well as a lead role alongside Tom Cruise in Oblivion. Most recently she worked with Academy Award winner Russell Crowe in his directorial debut The Water Diviner, and completed filming for the drama A Perfect Day with Benicio Del Toro and Tim Robbins.

Joshua Oppenheimer (USA)

American documentary director Joshua Oppenheimer has been making militias, death squads and their victims the focus of his work. His harrowing debut feature-length film The Act of Killing won several international awards all over the world including the Panorama Audience Award, the BAFTA award and a European Film Award. It was also nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary and has been released in more than 31 countries. The Look of Silence celebrated its premiere at the 2014 Venice Film Festival, receiving the Grand Jury Prize and the FIPRESCI Award, followed by the prestigious Danish Arts Council Award.

Halil Altındere (Turkey)

The Istanbul-based artist Halil Altındere explores political, social and cultural codes, and focuses largely on depicting marginalisation and resistance to oppressive systems. Altındere has been a central figure in the Turkish contemporary art world since the mid-1990s, not only as an artist but also as the publisher of art-ist Magazine and as a prominent curator. His works have been included in exhibitions at the Documenta, the Manifesta, and the biennials in Istanbul, Gwangju, Sharjah and São Paulo, as well as at MoMA/PS1, New York. In 2015, the Kunstpalais Erlangen will present a large solo exhibition of his work.

Madhusree Dutta (India)

Since the 1990s, filmmaker, curator and pedagogue Madhusree Dutta’s inter-disciplinary engagement revolves around urbanology, migration, gender and identity. Madhusree’s films have been screened at film festivals and art events all around the world. Her latest multi-disciplinary, multi-scalar curatorial project Cinema City (2009 - 2014) was shown at Berlinale Forum Expanded in 2010. She is the executive director of Majlis, a centre for rights discourse and multi-cultural art initiatives in Mumbai.

Wahyuni A. Hadi (Singapore)

Curator and author Wahyuni A. Hadi is the executive director of the Singapore International Film Festival. In 2013 she co-produced Ilo Ilo, which won many awards, including the Caméra d’Or at the Festival de Cannes. She is a partner in Objectifs – Centre for Photography and Film, and founding member of the independent short film distributor Objectifs Films. As leading expert and advocate of Singaporean cinema, she initiated in 2009 the Singapore Short Film Awards with filmmaker Chai Yeewei and The Substation, Singapore’s contemporary art centre.

The recipients of honorary awards are not chosen by a jury but by the Festival Director.

A Children's Jury with members aged 11 to 14 awards the Crystal Bears in the Generation Kplus competition. The jury members are selected from film questionaires submitted the previous year and officially invited to participate by the festival director.

The members of the 2015 Generation Kplus Children's Jury: Nathan J. Frank, Midori Fuchs, Hannah Kähler, Ilayda Koyuncu, Lasse Kühlcke, Jascha Richter, Anaïs Rother, Alanza Schmidt, Joseph Askar Schönfelder, Gustav Wallgren and Béla Eric Winde.

A Youth Jury with members aged 14 to 18 awards the Crystal Bears in the Generation 14plus competition. The jury members are selected from film questionaires submitted the previous year and officially invited to participate by the festival director. The members of the 2015 Generation 14plus Youth Jury: Leila Albrecht, Jan Hendrik Blanke, Alina Neichel, Maya Viola Oppitz, Lotta Schwerk, David Siegmund-Schultze and Fabian Volkers.

This Jury awards the "Grand Prix of the Generation Kplus International Jury" for the best feature-length film, endowed with € 7,500 by the Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk (German Child Support Organisation). The "Special Prize of the Generation Kplus International Jury" is awarded to the best short film, endowed with € 2,500 by the Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk.

Members of the Generation Kplus International Jury 2015 were: Bettina Blümner, Tom Hern and Michal Matus.

This Jury awards the "Grand Prix of the Generation 14plus International Jury" for the best feature-length film, endowed with € 7,500 by the Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung (Federal Agency for Civic Education). The "Special Prize of the Generation 14plus International Jury" is awarded to the best short film, endowed with € 2,500 by the Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung.

Members of the Generation 14plus International Jury 2015 were: Sophie Hyde, Alix Madigan-Yorkin and N. Marten Rabarts.