Senior Curator and Vimeo programmer from the USA, Jeffrey Bowers; MUBI’s Director of Acquisitions, Vanja Kaludjercic from Croatia; and Koyo Kouoh, founding artistic director of RAW Material Company from Senegal, make up the International Short Film Jury in 2019.
The Jury will award the Golden and the Silver Bear as well as the Audi Short Film Award. In addition, they will nominate the Berlin Short Film Candidate for the European Film Awards 2019. Maike Mia Höhne, who has been the curator and head of Berlinale Shorts since 2007, comments: “I am looking forward to intercultural perspectives, which will lead to multilayered ways of reading.”
Jeffrey Bowers (USA) Jeffrey Bowers is a Senior Curator at Vimeo, where his responsibilities include selecting Staff Picks, managing Staff Pick Premieres, Staff Pick Awards and Vimeo's Best of the Year awards. His background includes programming features and shorts for the Tribeca Film Festival, Hamptons International Film Festival, and Rooftop Films. He also co-curated VICE media’s VICE Shorts, where he wrote the short film column, “I'm Short, Not Stupid”. Bowers has served on juries and participated in speaking engagements at places like the Toronto International Film Festival, SXSW Film Festival, Slamdance Film Festival, Palm Springs International ShortFest, Guanajuato Film Festival, and IFP (Independent Feature Project) in New York.
Vanja Kaludjercic (Croatia) Vanja Kaludjercic works for the curated streaming platform MUBI as Director of Acquisitions. Previously, she was part of the International Film Festival Rotterdam where she headed the Masterclasses & Talks section. She has also worked as director of the Holland Film Meeting of the Netherlands Film Festival, as head of industry at Les Arcs European Film Festival, and established the Paris Co-Production Village in 2014. As a programmer, she has worked for the Sarajevo Film Festival, Paris-based Cinéma du Réel and CPH:DOX. Outside of festivals, Kaludjercic has also teamed up with Slovenia-based distribution outfit Demiurg and Paris-based sales and production company Coproduction Office.
Koyo Kouoh (Senegal) In addition to her work as founder and artistic director of RAW Material Company in Senegal, Koyo Kouoh has been responsible for a huge variety of international exhibitions, including “Saving Bruce Lee: African and Arab Cinema in the Era of Soviet Cultural Diplomacy” at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, co-curated with Rasha Salti. She was a curator of the 1:54 FORUM Contemporary African Art Fair in London and New York, as well as a member of several curatorial teams for documenta 12 (2007) and documenta 13 (2012). Kouoh was the curator of the 37th EVA International, Ireland’s Biennial (2016). In 2018 she participated in the 57th edition of Carnegie International with the exhibition “Dig Where You Stand”. Her published works include “Word!Word?Word! Issa Samb and the Undecipherable Form” (2013), “Condition Report on Building Art Institutions in Africa” (2012) and “Chronicle of a Revolt: Photographs of a Season of Protest” (2012).