Christine Vachon and Geoffrey Rush Among the Jury Members

CRYSTAL GLOBE JURY

Christine Vachon

American producer and recipient of the Independent Spirit Award and Gotham Award, who co-founded powerhouse Killer Films with partner Pamela Koffler in 1995. Over three decades they have produced more than 100 films, including some of the most celebrated and important American independent features, such as Kids, I Shot Andy Warhol, Happiness, Boys Don’t Cry, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Far from Heaven, One Hour Photo, Still Alice, Carol, Beatriz at Dinner, and Dark Waters. Vachon has executive produced acclaimed miniseries such as Mildred Pierce and Halston. Notable releases from last year include Todd Haynes’ May December and Celine Song’s Past Lives, the latter marking her first Oscar nomination in the Best Motion Picture category.

Geoffrey Rush

An internationally acclaimed actor, who started his career in Australian theatre. He was catapulted to global recognition in 1996 with his starring role in director Scott Hicks’ feature Shine, for which he won an Academy Award, a BAFTA, Golden Globe, SAG Award, and New York and Los Angeles Film Critics’ Awards, among many others. In 2004 he received an Emmy for his performance in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. Five years later he won a Tony Award for his part as the ailing king in Ionesco’s absurdist drama Exit the

King. His most recent effort is his role in James Ashcroft’s thriller The Rule of Jenny Pen alongside John Lithgow. In 2022 Rush received the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

Sjón

Icelandic author and screenwriter, who broke into the world of film with his script for the Cannes prize-winning drama Lamb (2021), starring Noomi Rapace, which became one of the top ten highest-grossing films in the USA and was Iceland’s entry for Best International Feature at the Oscars. He co-wrote the script for the revenge drama The Northman (2022), and he is working on a screen adaptation of Hamlet with Ali Abbasi. Sjón’s novels have been translated into more than forty languages, among them, The Blue Fox, From the Mouth of the Whale, Moonstone and the ambitious CoDex 1962: A Trilogy. Several of his works are published in Czech. In 2017 Sjón became the third writer to be chosen to contribute to the Future Library project, a public artwork based in Norway. In 2001 he was nominated for an Academy Award for his lyrics to the song “I’ve Seen It All”, performed by Björk in Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark. In February 2023 the Swedish Academy awarded him its Nordic Prize for his contribution to the art of storytelling.

Eliška Křenková

Czech actress. During her studies at the Duncan Centre contemporary dance school she received an offer to appear in the popular film The Rafters (2006) and decided thereafter to focus on acting, subsequently graduating from Prague’s Theatre Faculty (DAMU). She is highly respected for her collaboration with director Olmo Omerzu, which brought her a Czech Lion award for Best Supporting Actress in Winter Flies (2018) and a nomination for the same award for his Bird Atlas (2021). She was nominated for a Best Actress award from the Czech Film Academy on three more occasions, in works directed by Michal Hogenauer (A Certain Kind of Silence), Jan Foukal (Two Ships) and Matěj Chlupáček (We Have Never Been Modern). All the above-mentioned films competed at the Karlovy Vary IFF, which also screened the world premieres of Borders of Love (2021) and the acclaimed series Wasteland (2016). Her performances in alternative stage productions are also outstanding, such as Viktor Tauš’s American Chick and Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

Gábor Reisz

Hungarian director, screenwriter and composer. He studied film history and theory, and later film directing as well. His feature debut For Some Inexplicable Reason premiered in the East of the West Competition at Karlovy Vary in 2014 and went on to become a cult film and also a huge success at the box office both in Hungary and on the international circuit. A year later he was invited to the Cannes Film Festival’s Residence programme, where he developed his second feature Bad Poems; this film ultimately won sixteen awards, including best Hungarian film of 2018. His third feature, Explanation for Everything, presented at this year’s KVIFF, won Best Film last September in the Venice FF’s Orizzonti competition, and a Gold Hugo at the Chicago IFF.