SELECTION COMMITTEE 2026

Hamed Soleimanzadeh is an Iranian film critic, film philosopher, filmmaker, and lecturer at the University of Göttingen in Germany and the DAM Academy in Rome, Italy. He holds a Ph.D. in Art Research with a focus on Film Studies and a postdoctoral qualification in Film and Philosophy from the University of the Arts in Berlin (UdK). His career includes serving as a jury member at more than thirty prestigious film festivals and events worldwide, such as the Golden Globes Award, Cannes, Berlinale, Karlovy Vary, Warsaw, Istanbul, ZagrebDox, Oberhausen, and Gothenburg. He is also the founder and director of the Abbas Kiarostami International Short Film Festival and a programmer for the Cinehill (Motovun) Film Festival in Croatia. Soleimanzadeh has directed over seven short films and authored several books and hundreds of articles on cinema, theater, philosophy, culture, media, and more. He is a permanent member of the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI).

Eileen Jones is a film critic at Jacobin magazine and co-host of the Filmsuck podcast. She’s a retired lecturer in the Department of Film and Media at the University of California at Berkeley, where she also earned her Ph.D. in Film Studies. Her credits as an independent film screenwriter and producer include Suture, directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, and Conceiving Ada, directed by Lynn Hershman-Leeson.

Lucía Salas is an Argentinian film critic, programmer, editor, and filmmaker based in Spain. Her work navigates cinema, past and present. She is one of the editors of La vida útil magazine. She studied Image and Sound Design at the University of Buenos Aires and Aesthetics and Politics at CalArts and is currently a PhD candidate in the Communications-CINEMA program at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. As part of the filmmaking collective LaSiberia Cine she made the films Implantación (2016), Los exploradores (2016), and Implantación (2011). She edited the books “Una luz revelada. El cine experimental argentino” by experimental filmmaker and writer Pablo Marín and, together with Ricardo Matos Cabo, “Se acercan otros tiempos. El cine de Peter Nestle”.

Amos Borchert, born 1987 in Leipzig. Studied film studies and philosophy in Mainz. Lives and works as a freelance programmer and festival organizer in Leipzig. He pays homage to anachronism in video stores and film clubs. Worked for the online magazine NEGATIV and the film festivals Nippon Connection, goEast, Lucas and exground in Rhein-Main and at the Iranian Film Festival Leipzig and the Cinémathèque Leipzig. Since 2015 part of the GEGENkino collective and the Kurdish Film Festival in Leipzig. Co-founder of the video art exhibition paradoks – An den Rändern des Dokumentarischen and member of the migrant self-organization DOZ e.V.
Artistic Co-Director and Managing Co-Director of Berlin Critics’ Week since summer 2019.

Dennis Vetter works as a freelance film critic, moderator, film educator, curator and editor, mainly in Berlin. Texts have been published since 2009 in Film Comment, taz – Die Tageszeitung, Kolik Film, Filmbulletin, epd film, Jungle World, Senses of Cinema, among others. He hosts film conversations at international festivals and worked as a film educator at bi’bak Projektraum Berlin, Filmfest Dresden, BFMAF, among others. Since 2023 advisory board member of the German Film Critics Association, previously a board member since 2013. Co-founder of the Critics’ Week, conception, organization, and film/debate programme of the event since 2014, Artistic Co-Director since 2020. Since 2023 member of the feature film commission of the Kassel Doc. Film and Video Festival. Organisation of retrospectives with the Filmkollektiv Frankfurt on N. Nikolaidis and A. Frick. Co-founder of the Hungry Eyes Festival in Giessen. Founding member and former co-editor of the online magazine NEGATIV (2010-2015).