Official Jury:

Beatriz Batarda

Beatriz Batarda was born in London in 1974 and grow up in Lisbon where she started as an actress.
Her first participation in the cinema was in "E Agora Maria?" by Maria Armanda Passos and Cláudia Fernandes, in 1978, followed by appearances in "Tempos Difíceis", by João Botelho and "Vale Abraão" by Manoel de Oliveira.
But it was in "A Caixa" by Manoel de Oliveira, in 1993, that Beatriz Batarda truly began her artistic career.
In 1997, she leaves to London to study theatre in the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Holder of a scholarship from the Ministry of Culture, she finishes her studies in 2000, being awarded with the gold medal.
Since then, she has been working in England and Portugal.
In cinema, with directors as José Ávaro de Morais, Vicente Jorge Silva, Ivo Ferreira, Jeanne Waltz, Pedro Caldas, João Canijo, Margarida Cardoso, Marco Martins, David Moore, Chrispher Morahan, Andy Wilson, Nick Laughland and Mike Dowse.
In the theatre she started with the Cornucópia in "Conto de Inverno" (Winter Tale) from William Shakespeare, in a staging by Luís Miguel Cintra.
She integrated several casts of the Cornucópia and was directed by directors as Diogo Dória, João Perry, Ana Támen, Carlos Pimenta, Steven Unwin, Edouard Kemp and Joseph Blatchley.
In the big screen, to highlight some of the characters she played: João in "Peixe-Lua", Ana in "Quaresma", Evita in "Costa dos Murmúrios" and Carla Boca de Aço in "Noite Escura".
She received several prizes of best actress, as the SIC Golden Globe and the Andorinha in the Film Festival Cineport.
She was an invited teacher in the Art and Design School and in the ACT.
She presently lives in Lisbon.

Kamran Shirdel

Kamran Shirdel was born in Teheran in 1939. He studied architecture and design in the University of Rome and directing in the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (CSC), equally in the Italian capital. During his studies, he had Roberto Rossellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Nanni Loy, Francesco Rosi, Gillo Pontecorvo, Vittorio di Seta and many others as teachers or trainers. His graduation film Gli Specchi ("The Mirrors") won the honour diploma in the World Cinema School Film Festival, in Tokyo. For this period he also worked as John Houston’s direction assistant who, at the time, was shooting "The Bible" in the studios of the Cinecittà.

After his graduation, in 1965, Shirdel returned to Teheran where he started to direct documentaries for the Iranian Culture and Art Ministry. In the three following years, he directed his best known socio-political documentaries, six films which, in a brave and sincere way, reveal the darkest side of the Iranian economical boom then, analysing the effects of a society immersed in the petrodollars. These films can be placed in the area of a deep social conscience, reminiscence from the best neo-realistic Italian tradition; a cinema marked by his stay in Italy. The furious documentaries of Shirdel and his cinematographic language, caused discussion and persecution by Xá Reza Palevhi’s political regime, forcing him to meet the exile, once they talked about the life of the less privileged and excluded people, denouncing and criticizing, this way, corruption inside the power mechanism.

Due to the strict Iranian censorship, almost all his films were banished and confiscated. Shirdel was finally expelled from the Ministry and placed in the black list. Seven years later, he directs "The Epic of the Gorgani Village Boy (The Night It Rained!)", winner of the great prize in the Third International Festival of Teheran (1974) and fairly considered to be a landmark in the worldwide documentary. But the film was censored, as it had happened with his other works "Nedamatgah" ("Women’s Prison", 1965), "Qaleh" ("Red light District", 1966) and "Teheran is the Capital of Iran" (1966) among others. The cinematographer ended up being banished again.

His only (and until today complete) long-film "The Morning of the Fourth Day" (1972), a remake of the film "L’A Bout de Soufle" by Jean-Luc Godard, won several prizes in the Sepas National Film Festival. Three years later, the second long film, "The Camera", based on "The Inspector General" by Nikolai Gogol was censored, still during the shooting, and thus that’s the way it remains. Shirdel was forbidden to proceed his work of observation and social analysis. He’s forced to place his creativity and technical talent in the direction of a huge volume of orders and institutional films. A fertile production of technical and educational films with a huge quality.

Kamran Shirdel is considered being a main figure and a father to the School of the New Iranian Cinema, opening the way to a certain kind of critical cinema with social worries the Iran refuses as it presents an assertive and politically documented reflection about reality.

Many Iranian cinematographers from the new generation as Abbas Kiarostami, Amir Naderi, Jafar Panahi, Rakhshan Banietemad Reza Aslani, Khosrow Masooumi, Mahvash Sheikholeslami and Soudabeh Babagap were his students or worked with Shridel while they were students. Shirdel’s films are fairly pointed out as true references regarding social documentary and the cinematographic direction in Iran, and were presented in countless international film festivals and in many retrospectives as Moscow, Krakow, Leipzig, Florence, Paris, Berlin, Stuttgart, Montreal, Toronto, Beirut, Sicily, Rome, London, UCLA, Chicago and Lucerne among others.

Kamran Shirdel equally worked in countless selection committees and as a jury in several international film festivals, in Iran and abroad. He was awarded in many of those events and received a Career Prize in the Libyan Festival Docudays in 2003.

He is the founder and director of the production company FILMGRAFIC CO. and of the Kish International Documentary Film Festival (KIDFF), the only independent documentary festival in Iran. The activity of this event was abruptly ceased when the present Iranian government took the power and assaulted the festival office.

Jorge Campos

Jorge Campos is 58 years old.
Journalist, cinematographer, cultural programmer and university teacher.
He’s Coordinator of graduation in Audiovisual Communication in the Polytechnics School of Oporto where he teaches Cinema, being also responsible by the scientific area of Visual Studies.
He was Commissioner for Cinema, Audiovisual and Multimedia Department of Porto2001 – European Capital of Culture.
Worked on the Press, Radio and Television, having been a journalist of the RTP for 25 years, during which many of his works were awarded or distinguished.
Specialist in documentary he integrates several national and international work groups whose objective of encourage its learning and practise in College, in a professionalizing perspective.

João Cerqueira

With several years dedicated to training and education, João Cerqueira develops a parallel activity as a director, photography director and cameraman.
He is a most versatile audiovisual creator, his work can be seen in short films, documentaries, television spots, reports.
His films (as some others where he participated as photography director) were present in several international festivals and were awarded with some technical prizes and Best Film in Competition.

Leonardo Autera

The Italian photographer Leonardo Autera was born in Pomarico in 1961 and attended High School of Matera. Early he gets interested in image and photography. At 15 he decides to leave home and start working. One year later, Autera leaves clandestinely to France where he stays for a year. However he was forced to go back to Pomarico for health reasons. Tried to get again closer to his father but quickly the old conflicts come up. He organizes his first exhibition in his birth town, and once more packs and leave to Germany.

In 1981, Autera is in Dusseldorf. Participate in a photography exhibition which takes place simultaneously in Matera, Rome, Florence, Milan and Venice, his work received praise and recognition in all those cities. In 1982, he repeats the experience in several cities of France, including Paris. Also here the welcoming of his work is rather positive. In 1983, he took his exhibition to the most importantGerman cities as Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg, Köln, Frankfurt and Düsseldorf., where he got the opportunity to meet the great photographer Helmut Newtonand started working in his studio. Newton must have transmitted him the passion for models many of which became famous due to the wisdom Leonardo’s camera.

In 1984 and 1985, he made exhibitions in Switzerland and Austria. His photography portraits the strong contrast between the quiet life of his small Pomarico and the tumult of the big European cities. Due to the permanent interest of the Italian consulate he makes photography exhibitions (from 1986 to 2001) in Russia, China, Japan, USA, Spain, Canada, Belgium, South Korea, England, Norway, Sweden, Finland and, again in Germany.

Presently, Autera returned to his origins and lives in the province of Lucania, still promoting his photographic themes. Leonardo Autera has a long career devoted to the photojournalism and artistic photography. He developed his activity in more than 160 countries and exhibited his works in other 50.

Jury from the International Federation of Film Societies:

Don Quijote Prize of the International Federation of Film Societies.
Founded in 1947 during the Cannes Film Festival, FICC/IFSS is the international umbrella organization of film societies and non-profit cinemas from all over the world. One of its aims is to discover outstanding films and to promote them internationally. In order to achieve this, FICC/IFSS has created its international film network "Discoveries". By complementing existing distribution activities, this network creates an audience for films that are not normally screened in cinemas. All films awarded by the FICC/IFSS Juries are listed in the catalogue of FICC’s Network "Discoveries" that was started in Spring 1998 as a pilot project. In addition to this, a selection of awarded films is presented at the annual International Festival of Film Societies in Calabria, Italy. The president of FICC/IFSS is Italian director Gianni Amelio.

Sofia Miranda

Born in Oporto in 1983.
Studies at the Portuguese Catholic University, Master in Sound and Image, specializing in Computer Animation.
Works from Publicity and Graphic Design to Photography and Animation Cinema works.
Last May she had her first exhibition at the Portuguese Photography Institute and during the last months developed the graphic line and TV spot for the FIKE 2007 based on a photography by Leonardo Autera.

Christl Grunwald-Merz

Born in 1939, Christl worked about 30 years in the Communication Agency FWU Gruenwald /FWU Institut Für Film Und Bild), keeping herself deeply connected with documentary fiction after being retired, through Bundesverband Jugend und Film.

António Claudino de Jesus

Teacher in the Federal University of Espírito Santo, Claudino is film society member and film producer, President of the National Council of Brazilian Film Societies – CNC and Vice- President of the International Federation of Film Societies – IFFS, and is also a Member of the Consulting Council of the Audiovisual Secretary of the Culture Ministry in Brazil.