JURY MEMBERS

Stefania Bochicchio studied semiotics under the tutorage of Umberto Eco and cinematography with Bernardo Bertolucci at Bologna University.

Upon moving to London, she worked at a number of top Pan European publications as a music journalist having articles published in Melody Maker and the NME, and becoming the first woman editor-in-chief at Metal Hammer Magazine (Italy). Shifting to radio and television, she devised the format of ROCK CAFE’ before adding producing and directing to her range of activities.

In 2017 she founded a new theatre in inner London, the ground-breaking Theatre @DraperHall, specialising in new audiences, inclusion and London Premieres. Its pioneer scheme “TickForward” was featured in the Londonist and The Stage and had Sir Patrick Stewart.

Stefania has been collaborating with the London Film Festival for the past 15 editions, with Cinema Made in Italy UK since its inception 14 years ago and she is the co-curator of ITALIA DOC, the only dedicated series of contemporary Italian documentaries together with Dr.Cristina Massaccesi (UCL).

Nathan is an award winning director and editor based in the Lake District. He’s directed and edited short films, documentaries and music videos that have been selected at several international film festivals. He is also a member of The Roxy Collective, a group that owns the Roxy cinema in Ulverston, with the aim of protecting and restoring the art deco building. 

Dr Maryam Ghorbankarimi is a filmmaker and film scholar, focusing on representation of women both in front of and behind the camera. Her current research is on transnational cinemas and cultures, specifically the representation of gender and sexuality in Iranian cinema. Her first book entitled A Colourful Presence; The Evolution of Women’s Representation in Iranian Cinema was published in 2015. Her second book is on seminal Iranian female filmmaker Rakhshan Banietemad, ReFocus: The Works of Rakhshan Banietemad was published in spring 2021. She started her production company Bina Film in 2020 and has been collaborating with other local filmmakers in the Northwest England.

Emily Swain is an accomplished Anglo/Irish actor with experience in both the UK and international productions. She trained at The Academy of Live & Recorded Arts (ALRA) in London and has worked alongside notable talents such as Sir Michael Caine and Shah Rukh Khan.

Emily's acting career highlights include her role in the multi-award-winning productions of "King Charles III" with the Almeida West End & Sydney Theatre Company and recently as the hero Sue in The Royal Television Society (Southern) award winning “What About Me”. As a filmmaker, her projects have received Official Selections and Awards at various festivals, including Independent Shorts, Los Angeles' Indie Shorts Fest, 2 Irish Film and TV Academy - affiliated festivals and Dublin's Bloomsday.

Her feature "The Confessional" and its award-winning short form "The Shriving" were inspired by her experiences filming in a Lebanese Refugee Camp, demonstrating her commitment to socially conscious storytelling.

Irina Luur is an actress, stand-up comedian and writer based in Australia. She is an Academy of Theatre Arts graduate and a Laureate of the "Muses of St. Petersburg" contest. 

As a stand-up comedian, she won the show “Make the comedian laugh” in Ukraine in 2018 and was one of the winners of the Russian comedy show “Comedy Battle”. 

Irina acted in several short and feature films and successfully performed on stages in Britain, Europe and Australia.

Rob is a former filmmaker turned film analyst, currently known for his deep dive film analysis videos on YouTube with a special emphasis on Stanley Kubrick. His film studies have received coverage from dozens of news media outlets and his main YouTube channel, Collative Learning, has approx. 230k subscribers.

Previously he wrote, directed and edited multiple short films and a feature, all independently produced, worked on multiple shoots for other filmmakers and ran filmmaking workshops at the Basement Film Unit at the University of Liverpool. Alongside film work, Rob worked for seventeen years in mental health, youth work, probation and with the homeless, and studied psychology extensively in his spare time, using these experiences often as inspiration in his own creative projects. In the late 1990's he was an animator in the video games industry.

Currently, Rob is writing a film analysis book and developing a video game, both for publication in early 2024. 

Janie Price, known as "Bird," is an award-winning half-English, half-Irish singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist based in London. She began classical cello at 6 and drums at 11, leading to performances in youth orchestras and rock bands.

As a session musician and songwriter, she's worked with artists like Emeli Sande and penned Belgian number ones with Hooverphonic. Price has self-released four singles, gaining BBC Radio 2 support.

Notably, she wrote the script and soundtrack for a short film that has won 8 awards, including the Global Music Silver Medal Award. She's currently working on her second short film, a comedy, and a documentary about London's Licensed Taxi Drivers.

Price recently completed a studio album co-written with Grammy winner John Paul White and produced by Mike Hedges. She's now heading to Nashville and Austin to record an acoustic EP, "Heads or Tales," accompanying her latest single "Roy."