Portuguese filmmaker and winner of the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at the Berlinale 2017, Diogo Costa Amarante; US filmmaker and curator Mark Toscano; and South African filmmaker and academic Jyoti Mistry will make up the International Short Film Jury in 2018. They will award the Golden and the Silver Bear, as well as the Audi Short Film Award. In addition, they will nominate a film for the European Film Awards in the category European Short Film 2018. “The diverse perspectives that Mark Toscano, Jyoti Mistry and Diogo Costa Amarante bring to the jury portend a well-versed, young and contemporary discussion on the 2018 selection,” comments Maike Mia Höhne, curator of Berlinale Shorts.
Diogo Costa Amarante (Portugal) Diogo Costa Amarante completed his Master of Fine Arts at New York University / Tisch School of the Arts in 2016 with his film Cidade Pequena, which celebrated its international premiere at the 67th Berlinale in 2017 and received the Golden Bear for Best Short Film. Amarante is a member of the widely acclaimed third generation of Portuguese filmmakers, whose works have established an impressive position for Portugal in the cinematic world. His first film Jumate/Jumate received accolades at many festivals, and in 2007 he received a scholarship for documentary film and cinematography at the School of Cinema and Audiovisuals of Catalonia (ESCAC). In 2009, he was a participant at Berlinale Talents, and shot his second documentary film In January, perhaps.
Jyoti Mistry (South Africa) Filmmaker Jyoti Mistry is an Associate Professor and Deputy Head of Division at the Wits School of Arts in South Africa. She received the CILECT Teaching Award (The International Association of Film and Television Schools) in 2016 in recognition of her outstanding achievements in film pedagogy and film practice research. Her research areas include cultural policy, questions of identity, and multiculturalism. Her experimental film The Bull On the Roof (2010) celebrated its debut at the Durban International Film Festival and was presented at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris, among other institutions. Her feature film Impunity (2014) celebrated its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and her most recent short film When I Grow Up I Want to Be a Black Man was a competition selection at the short film festival Winterthur in 2017. Her publications include “'we remember differently': Race, Memory, Imagination” (2012), “Gaze Regimes: Film and Feminisms in Africa” (2015) and “Places to Play – Practice, Research & Pedagogy” (2017) which was adapted for the screen.
Mark Toscano (USA) Mark Toscano has functioned as curator and presenter of stand-out programmes for many noted institutions such as The Museum of Modern Art, Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art, EYE Filmmuseum, Tate Modern, Los Angeles Filmforum, as well as for festivals in Rotterdam, London, Oberhausen, Zagreb and Bangalore, functioning as curator and presenter of stand-out programmes. In addition, he lectures on experimental film and archiving at numerous universities. At the California Institute of the Arts, he is an instructor in the history of experimental animation. A distinguished filmmaker and curator, Mark Toscano has been a contributor to the conservation of cinematic heritage at the Academy Film Archive since 2003, where he specialises in the restoration of independent, experimental and documentary films, maintaining exchange with over 100 international filmmakers.