N.B.Ceylan to head Sarajevo 14 Jury

Nuri Bilge Ceylan President of the Jury
30.5.2008
The 14th Sarajevo Film Festival (Aug 15-23) has announced that Cannes Critics Week Grand Prix winner Snow by Bosnian Aida Begic will officially open the festival at the Heineken Open Air with capacity of 3,000 seats.

Other films to screen at the prestigious venue include Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, Ari Folman's Waltz With Bashir and Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys. Ceylan will also serve as the president of the jury which will also be comprised of British director Hugh Hudson, Croatian actress Marija Skaricic (Das Fraulein, the best film of Sarajevo 2006 and best actress in Sarajevo 2004 for That Beautiful Night In Split), founder and director of Match Factory Michael Weber, and Deborah Young, the artistic director of Taormina Film Festival. Ceylan, Leigh, Terry George and Slavoj Zizek, influential Slovenian phylosopher, sociologist and critic, will be among the lecturers at the second Sarajevo Talent Campus.

In its 14th edition and within its Competition Programme – Features, the Sarajevo Film Festival will present the best films from the region. This year again, the Competition Programme Jury will include some of the leading, internationally recognised filmmakers and film professionals, who will decide on the following awards:

• Heart of Sarajevo for Best Film
• Special Jury Award
• Heart of Sarajevo for Best Actress
• Heart of Sarajevo for Best Actor

NURI BILGE CEYLAN, DIRECTOR, WRITER, TURKEY
Nuri Bilge Ceylan is one of the most relevant film authors of our time. He is a versatile author who selects his topics most carefully. Critics usually describe his films as realistic images of our world today, particularly because his characters are almost always the ‘ordinary people’ whose lives and stories the audience finds easy to identify with. His work has received numerous prestigious awards from leading festivals across the world – Berlin, Cannes, Chicago, San Sebastian... His first short film KOZA was screened at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival, and two years later his feature debut KASABA was received with considerable success, leading Ceylan to numerous film festivals. His next film, CLOUDS OF MAY, received the FIPRESCI European Film Award, and success continued with his film UZAK. The awards this film won included the Jury Grand Prix and the France Culture Award at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. He also won the FIPRESCI award at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival for his film CLIMATES, which also won the international film critics and film professionals’ award, as well as five awards at the Antalya Film Festival the same year. At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, his latest feature, THREE MONKEYS, won him the Best Director Award.
HUGH HUDSON,DIRECTOR, UK
Hugh Hudson is the director of the cult film CHARIOTS OF FIRE which won as many as four Academy Awards. Before this extraordinary success with his debut feature, Hudson had directed numerous outstanding documentaries. After that, in 1970 he teamed up with Ridley Scott, with whom he directed a host of TV commercials. Hugh Hudson’s work includes titles such as REVOLUTION, which starred Al Pacino, Donald Sutherland and Nastassja Kinski, LOST ANGELS with Donald Sutherland, and I DREAMED OF AMERICA with Kim Basinger, Vincent Perez, Daniel Craig, MY LIFE SO FAR with Colin Firth...
MARIJA ŠKARIČIĆ, ACTRESS, CROATIA
Marija Škaričić is one of the most successful Croatian actresses of the younger generation. His role in Arsen Ostojić’s film THAT BEAUTIFUL NIGHT IN SPLIT won her the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Actress at the 10th SFF. Two years later she was again the winner of the Best Actress Award, and the Heart of Sarajevo was won with her role in Andrea Staka’s FRAULEIN. She delivered notable roles in a number of films produced in Croatia – SALESLADY WANTS TO GO TO THE COAST, WHAT’S A MAN WITHOUT A MOUSTACHE, ALBERT EINSTEIN’S GREATEST MISTAKE, SOCIETY OF JESUS, 100 MINUTES OF GLORY, IT’S NOT BAD...

MICHAEL WEBER, FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR OF MATCH FACTORY, GERMANY
Michael Weber is the founder and director of one of the most successful world sales companies in Europe - Match Factory. Match Factory represents established authors as well as the new names in this form of art. Films represented by this renown company include some of the most highly awarded titles of the past two years: GRBAVICA by Jasmila Žbanić, THE EDGE OF HEAVEN by Fatih Akin, TAKVA by Ozer Kizilatan, YELLA by Christian Petzold, EL CUSTODIO by Rodrigo Moreno, MADEINUSA by Claudia Llose, TOUGH ENOUGH by Detlev Bucka, LOVE AND OTHER CRIMES by Stefan Arsenijević... At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Match Factory presented five films: WALTZ WITH BASHIR by Ari Folman, CLOUD 9 by Andreas Dresen, O'HORTEN by Bent Hamer, LIVERPOOL by Lisandro Alonso and TULIPAN by Sergey Dvortsevoy, which also won the Un Certain Regard award.
DEBORAH YOUNG,TAORMINA FILM FESTIVAL ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, USA / ITALY
Deborah Young is Taormina Film Festival artistic director. Since 1980, she wrote film reviews for the Variety. Deborah Young is an American citizen, although she has been living in Rome for several years now. Presently she is the editor for Italy of New York magazine “Cineaste”. And since 2005 she has been an advisor for Tribeca Film Festival also in New York. She’s the artistic director of New Italian Cinema Events (N.I.C.E.), a showcase for new indie Italian cinema in New York, San Francisco, Amsterdam and Moscow. In 1988 she collaborated at the Venice Film Festival selections.