Juries

International Jury

Line Klungseth Johansen

Line Klungseth Johansen was born in Fauske, Norway. She has a master in Film Science. She has worked as a programmer and the festival producer of Minimalen Short Film Festival for several years, as well as other film festivals. In 2008 she began to write and direct short films in Norway, and she has worked with several different production companies in Norway. Her films have been screened on numerous festivals around the world. She is currently working as a senior producer for an international company as well as Minimalen Short Film Festival.

Ivana Laučíková 

Ivana Laučíková (b. 1977) is a Slovakian producer and director of animated films. After studies of animation at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava she founded a production company feel me film. She debuted as a producer with an internationally awarded animated short Four (dir. Ivana Šebestová, 2007) and continued with a combined animation-live-action The Last Bus (2011) that she also co-directed with Martin Snopek. The Last Bus gained international recognition including Grand Prix from Tampere, Stuttgart, St. Petersburg and others. She is a founder and an editor in chief of a magazine Homo Felix specialized on animation.

Ulla Simonen

Ulla Simonen has worked as a film producer for 15 years. She has been particularly involved with films blurring the line between documentary and fiction. At the moment, Simonen is a producer and a partial owner of production company MADE. For four years she worked as a production adviser for AVEK, The Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture, specializing in short and documentary films. In addition, Simonen is a tutor for Sources2 Script Development Workshops, as well as for Berlinale Talent Campus Doc Station. Simonen has been a member of European Film Academy since 2001, and a member of Tampere Film Festival Board of Directors since 2010.

Nick Deocampo

Nick Deocampo is a prizewinning filmmaker, film historian, and Director of the Center for New Cinema. He received his Master of Arts degree in Cinema Studies at the New York University and his Certificate in Film as a French Government scholar in Paris, France. He has won awards for his gritty documentaries and personal films about life during the military dictatorship in the Philippines. He has also received academic honors as Scholar-in Residence in New York University and fellowships from prestigious academic institutions. He has written several books on cinema and contributed to international book publications. He has served as a film jury member in international and Philippine film festivals.  He is presently a faculty member at the University of the Philippines.

Rich Warren

Rich Warren began working for Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival in 2008.  Looking after all aspects of the programme from submission to screen, his role requires him to travel to various other short film festivals across Europe in search of the latest emerging talent. He has also recently taken on the role of Talent Scout for the National Film and Television School in the UK. Throughout the year Rich conducts various guest lectures and filmmaker Q&A sessions at universities and cinemas with the aim of giving emerging talent more exposure to key content and practices, and allowing them to consider their own work within a festival or industry context.

National jury

John Anderson

John Anderson is a film critic for Variety, Newsday, the Wall Street Journal and America magazine. He appears regularly in the New York Times, and has contributed to the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Film Comment, Artforum, and the Village Voice. He is a former member of the selection committee of the New York Film Festival and the author of Sundancing (Avon), Edward Yang (University of Illinois), I Wake Up Screening (Billboard) with Laura Kim, and an upcoming book on Finnish director Pirjo Honkasalo. With David Sterritt, he edited The B List, the most recent collection by the National Society of Film Critics. He is a three-time chairman of the New York Film Critics Circle, and a member of the National Society of Film Critics.

Mikko Kuutti

In 2001, Mikko Kuutti joined the Finnish Film Archive which nowadays is known as the National Audiovisual Archive. Alongside daily bureaucratic acrobatics, he is in charge of the preservation and restoration of Finnish film – and more recently its digitization to re-enable access to it in the digital era. Before landing in the archive, he was a pioneer of Finnish digital post production. In addition to his yearly film festival ritual, he is connected to Tampere by studies of yore in architecture. 

Iris Olsson

Iris Olsson is a Helsinki-born (1981) film director. She has directed many award-winnign documentary films, television documentaries, and documentary television series. Her films include the Tampere Film Festival winners Between Dreams (Unien välissä, 2009) and Burden of My Heart (Sydämeni taakka, 2011). After graduating from the University of Art and Design she’s been doing film work from various standing points for ten years. Besides directing, she has taught TV production and documentary making, juried in several international film festivals, and contributed to many cinematic organizations in Finland. At the moment Olsson is a freelancer, working on her documentary and fiction projects.

Risto Jarva Jury

Liisa Akimof

Liisa Akimof, MA (b. 1962) is a producer and CEO at Production House Ltd. Finland. She has produced a number of dramatic programming series for the Finnish television (including Tahdon asia, Harvoin tarjolla, Kumman kaa, Naisia kaupungilla, Onni von Sopanen, Remontti and Maailma on valmis). In addition, she has produced documentary series, talk shows, entertainment, and variety shows, such as 70-luvun Sekahaku, Arto Nyberg and Jaakko ja maailmanvalloittajat. Liisa Akimof is a member of the Board of Directors of the Finnish Film Foundation . She is also known as a singer and a songwriter.

Antti Heikki Pesonen

Antti Heikki Pesonen (b. 1982) is originally from Eastern Vantaa. He is a film director graduate from the Degree Programme in Film and Television at Aalto University. Pesonen has been awarded many prizes on international film festivals. He makes films, because of the free coffee available on the set, so if you ever happen to see any of his films (like Korsoteoria and Sano kiitos ja tanssi) you can tell yourself: he is drinking free coffee and I am not. He thinks it is funny, in a good way, to write introductory texts about himself in the third person.

Marjo Pipinen

Marjo Pipinen (b. 1983) works as a maternity stand-in for an assistant of international affairs at the Finnish Film Foundation. Pipinen has graduated from Stockholm University's Master's Programme in Cinema Studies. Earlier she has worked as a publicist for Media Desk Finland, and as a cashier and an usher at Orion cinema in her hometown Helsinki. Pipinen has been an assistant on a number of film festivals and also a member of the board of the student film organization of HYY (The Student Union of the University of Helsinki).

Youth jury

Johannes Blom

Hi! I’m a high school student from Lempäälä, turning 18 soon. I’m studying at Sammon keskuslukio high school, in a special communication-oriented programme, where we study photography, video filming, drama, graphic design, media critique, and many other areas of media. Alongside with school, my time is spent coaching at Tampere Slalom Club, playing the guitar, and photographing. I enjoy films as a form of art, and in addition to my studies in drama and film, I watch a lot of films in my free time. I haven’t been to a film festival before, so this spring’s festival will be a new and interesting experience for me.

Wille Luosa

I’m a student, born and bred here in Tampere. I’m taking visual arts at the Tammerkosken lukio high school, and films and videos have been a daily hobby of mine foryears. I think the best thing we Finns have ever achieved are our black and white films. In addition to action and horror, I find documentary to be the most interesting film genre and hope in the future to be working in that area. By making my own little short films and sketches I’ve come to understand what it takes to produce quality work. So, while I do voice my opinions politely, I believe it’s very important to be honest with your feedback. 

Leo Mörö

Hello! My name is Leo Mörö. I’m a freshman at the Rudolf Steiner high school in Tampere. My hobbies include watching films and practicing juggling at Sorin Sirkus twice a week. I spend most of my time studying, juggling, and visiting the cinema. In the future, I hope to have a career that has to do with culture, and one of my biggest dreams is to become a film critic. Last year was my first time at the Tampere Film Festival, and I wanted to repeat the experience this year, so here I am. I’ve always loved how films can evoke a range of deep emotions in a viewer. These emotions can be used to redefine the world.

Veera Penttilä

My name is Veera Penttilä and I’m a sophomore at Tampereen yhteiskoulun lukio high school. Music, photography and theatre have always been my favourite hobbies, and I could see myself working with one of these in the future, maybe even with all of them. What I love about films is that when you go to see one you never know what sort of atmosphere it’s going to create. Although I’ve seen a variety of films, I’ve so far thought of them as either entertaining or moving. Now, being a member of the Youth Jury offers me a really interesting opportunity of gaining a new, more discerning way of understanding films as the sum of their parts.