Abu Dhabi Film Festival announced today the names of its jury members who will select the award winners of this year’s ADFF competitions.

  

ADFF 2014 presents films in the sections Narrative Feature Competition, New Horizons Competition, Documentary Feature Competition, Emirates Film Competition and Short Film Competition. The juries will also evaluate the merits of film entries for the Child Protection award, FIPRESCI and NETPAC awards.  

 

This year’s Narrative Competition jury led by Mumbai-based actor Irrfan Khan will be rounded out by renowned Algerian novelist and academic Waciny Laredj, award-winning English writer-director Steven Shainberg, Australian film director Cate Shortland and the internationally acclaimed award-winning Palestinian actor Ali Suliman.

 

Meanwhile, the panel evaluating the New Horizons section led by Paris-based film producer Catherine Dussart includes the Syrian actor Bassel Al Khayat, Moroccan filmmaker Leila Kilani, Geneva-based Indian filmmaker Anup Singh and influential film critic Charles Tesson, Artistic Director of Critics’ Week at the Cannes Film Festival.

 

Heading the Documentary Competition jury is Brooklyn-based director and cinematographer Christina Voros. The other jury members in this category are Moroccan filmmaker Daoud Aoulad Syad, documentary filmmaker Elyes Baccar from Tunisia, US-Egyptian filmmaker and cinematographer Sherief Elkatsha and video artist and documentary filmmaker Amar Kanwar from India.

 

The Emirates Film Competition (EFC) jury, scouting for the best talents among UAE and GCC filmmakers, will be headed by Moroccan screenwriter and director Farida Benlyazid. The judging body further includes Saudi actor Ibrahim Al Hassawi, Qatari cultural advisor  Fatima Al Remaihi, acting CEO of the Doha Film Institute and director of the Ajyal Youth Film Festival, Abdullah Saleh, playwright and stage actor based in the UAE and Kurdish-Norwegian filmmaker Hisham Zaman.

 

ADFF 2014’s international Short Films Competition will be judged by a panel headed by Bahraini director and producer Bassam Al Thawadi. The jury will also figure director Gustavo Taretto from Argentina, programmer and director Maike Mia Höhne from the Berlin International Film Festival, director Hala Lotfy from Egypt and filmmaker Alexandre Charlet from France.

 

Egyptian award-winning director Marwan Hamed (president), Faisal Al Shamari, director of the UAE Ministry of the Interior Child Protection Centre, UAE media expert Heyam Al Juma, popular actress Nelly Kareem from Egypt and Italian audio-visual expert and lecturer Alessandra Priante are named as the ADFF 2014 Child Protection Awards jury.

 

The Network for Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) jury consists of Vietnamese director Dang Nhat Minh (president), US film journalist E. Nina Rothe and Dale Hudson, professor of Film and New Media at New York University of Abu Dhabi. The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) jury for ADFF 2014 will include eminent journalists Kirill Razlogov from Russia (president), Subrahmanyan Viswanath from India, Rich Cline from Great Britain, Kais Kasim from Iraq and Tarek Elshenawi from Egypt.