The members of the Proxima Competition Jury

PROXIMA JURY

Bianca Balbuena

Filipino producer, general manager of Kroma Entertainment’s Anima Studios, which produced Leonor Will Never Die (Special Jury Award at Sundance and at KVIFF the same year). She was previously CEO of Epicmedia, producers of such films as Engkwentro (Best Debut in Venice), A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery and Cu Li Never Cries (both awarded at the Berlinale), Viet and Nam (Un Certain Regard competition at Cannes) and In My Mother’s Skin (Sundance and KVIFF). Balbuena has served on the jury at a number of festivals, she has mentored at various workshops, and she holds important distinctions, such as Producer of the Year, conferred upon her by the Asian Film Commissions Network.

Wouter Jansen

Dutch founder of the sales company Square Eyes, known from 2013 to 2019 under the name Some Shorts; the company represents bold, author-driven features and shorts, and in close collaboration with filmmakers it devises bespoke festival distribution and sales strategies. This has resulted in a catalogue of films that have premiered at prestigious festivals. In the past Jansen worked for ten years as head of programming at the Dutch short film festival Go Short. His specialist knowledge is welcomed at Locarno Open Doors and First Cut Lab, and he has given lectures at schools such as Le Fresnoy, HEAD Geneva and the Netherlands Film Academy.

Adéla Komrzý

Czech film director. She studied art history at Charles University’s Faculty of Arts, and documentary filmmaking at FAMU, where she is currently taking her doctorate. In 2018 she was enrolled at the Konrad Wolf Film University of Babelsberg, where she took a course in film direction. Her films Intensive Life Unit (2021) and Art Talent Show (2022) screened at a series of prestigious international festivals all over the world and won numerous awards (Czech Lion, Czech Film Critics’ Award, top prize in KVIFF’s Proxima Competition, FIPRESCI Prize, among others).

Mohamed Kordofani

Sudanese aircraft engineer turned filmmaker after fifteen years in aviation. He is the co- founder of Klozium Studios, a production house based in the Sudan, Kenya and the UAE. His debut feature film Goodbye Julia, which was executive produced by Hollywood star Lupita Nyong’o, was first screened in Cannes in the Un Certain Regard competition, where it won the Prix de la Liberté; the film also won the Roger Ebert Award at the Chicago International Film Festival and had various successful screenings at last year’s KVIFF.

Daniela Michel

Mexican festival organiser and Founding Director of the Morelia International Film Festival, an annual event launched in 2003 to support and promote a new generation of Mexican filmmakers. The festival has an ongoing partnership with Cannes’ Critics’ Week. She holds a degree in English literature and studied filmmaking at Mexico’s Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica. She has curated major retrospectives of classic Mexican cinema, both at home and abroad. Michel has also served on the jury at the festivals in Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Sundance and San Sebastián among many others as well as for other institutions, such as the Rockefeller Foundation’s Media Arts Fellowship, the Fulbright García-Robles Film Fellowship, and the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.