JURIES

DEEYAH KHAN, filmmaker, musician (Pakistan, Norway) – President of the jury

Born in 1977, Deeyah Khan has led many lives tied around her profound commitment to women’s rights and freedom of expression. A successful singer, she is now a an award-winning filmmaker. Her two films, Banaz A Love Story, as well as Jihad: A Story of the Others, both selected at the FIFDH, have received numerous awards, including an Emmy Award. She is also the founder of the production company Fuuse Media, which encourages women and minorities to tell their own stories. In 2016, she was appointed the first UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for artistic freedom and creativity.

METIN ARDITI, writer,  patron (Turkey, Switzerland)

Author of numerous essays and novels, Metin Arditi’s work is marked by themes such as the difficulty of lineage, loneliness and exile. His works, published by Actes Sud and Grasset, have been received with great international recognition, most notably his novels, Le Turquetto. La confrérie des moines volants as well as the unsettling, l’Enfant qui mesurait le monde. Appointed UNESCO Special Envoy for Intercultural Dialogue, he frequently travels to Armenia and Turkey. A patron of the music arts, he is also active in Israel and Palestine, where he founded the Instruments of Peace Foundation with Elias Sanbar. He is currently working on the Dictionnaire amoureux de la Suisse, due to be published by Plon.

ELENA FORTES, film producer and co-founder of the Ambulante Film Festival (Mexico)

Elena Fortes is currently a film producer, having successfully directed the Ambulante Film Festival from 2005 to 2016. Founded by Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, the festival offers films, workshops and discussions in hundreds of towns and villages throughout Mexico, as well as 20 other countries in Central America. In 2010, she founded Ambulante Beyond, a training program for young documentary filmmakers in rural areas throughout Central America. In addition to her work in visual media, Elena Fortes is very active in the Mexican political sphere, and has collaborated with numerous organizations that denounce violations against human rights throughout the country.

LAURENT GAUDE, writer and playwright (France)

A passionate dramatist and a brilliant French author, Laurent Gaudé is the author of eight novels, including The Death of King Tsongor, awarded the Prix des Libraires in 2002, The Scorta’s Sun awarded the Prix Goncourt in 2004, as well as Eldorado, adapted for the theatre by Geneva resident Patrick Mohr and Ecoutez nos défaites, which revives histories of clashing wars and civilizations. His multifaceted work explores the imaginary through history and fiction, and lends a voice to those who are often overlooked. He is the author of Cinq jours au camp de Kawergosk, poems and blogs for ARTE, and the text for Nulle part en France, a mesmerizing documentary by Yolande Moreau, filmed in the Calais jungle. He is also an author of short stories and an album for children.

He will give a lecture in collaboration with the Société de Lecture.

FARAHNAZ SHARIFI, director and film editor (Iran)

With six award-winning documentaries presented at major international film festivals, Farahnaz Sharifi is one of the most gifted and renowned filmmakers of Iran’s younger generation. Her fourth film, Revolutionary Memories of Bahman Who Loved Leila, is particularly stunning. The film returns to the turbulent period of the Iranian revolution in 1978 using a mosaic-like collage of old photographs. Farahnaz Sharifi is also the editor of the film Drum by Keywan Karimi, the filmmaker who was sentenced to prison time and 223 lashes in Iran, and to whom this edition of the FIFDH is dedicated.

 

WU WENGUANG, filmmaker (China)

Wu Wenguang is an independent documentary director from China, and one of the main founders of the country’s emerging genre. His first film, Bumming in Beijing: The Last Dreamers introduces his use of handheld cameras and spontaneous interviews, marking a break with traditional style of documentaries in which interviews were meticulously prepared and managed. In 2010, he launched the Memory Project with the purpose of collecting oral memories of survivors of the 1958-196 great famine. Many young filmmakers have joined the project and have traveled to rural China in search of these survivors.

MOUNIR FATMI, visual artist and videographer (Morocco) - President of the Jury

mounir fatmi, born in 1970 in Tangier, is recognized as one of the major contemporary artists of our time. His powerful, radical videos, multimedia installations, paintings and sculptures confront religious objects with desecralization and tackle the end of ideologies, thus shedding light on “a world that one does not want to see," with his own words. His works are regularly censored or erased, as was the case in Dubai, Toulouse, the Arab World Institute in Paris, as well as in Venice... The FIFDH is proud to present, in partnership with the Galerie Analix Forever, an exhibition of the artist’s work created especially for the Maison des Arts du Grütli.

PINAR SELEK, writer and sociologist (Turkey)

Born in 1971, Pinar Selek is a courageous activist for the rights of women, Kurds and Armenians. In 1998, she was accused of participating in a terrorist attack that killed seven people. Arrested, tortured, and incarcerated for two years, until the authorities came to the conclusion that the real culprit was... a gas leak. Despite four acquittals, her trial is still ongoing. She currently teaches political science at the University of Nice in France, where she benefits from political asylum. Four of her books have been published in French, including Loin de chez moi… mais jusqu’où ? (2012), La maison du Bosphore (2013), Devenir homme en rampant (2014) and Parce qu’ils sont Arméniens (2015). 

FARZANA WAHIDY, photographer and videographer (Afghanistan)

Born in Kabul, Farzana Wahidy is the first female Afghan photojournalist to work in a country where, up until recently, all images were banned and women were denied the right to work. She has collaborated with major international agencies such as the AFP and later the Associated Press, with her photos published in the most prestigious magazines. She is best known for her striking work on Afghan women who were victims of self-immolation, and has presented several international exhibitions. The film Frame by Frame, presented at the FIFDH, is a profile of her fearless work.

CLARISSA COLLIARD, Art curator (Switzerland)

For ten years, Clarisse Colliard has been the curator of an international collection of contemporary art and design.

Trained in the visual arts during the 1990s, her professional expertise in visual media brings a privileged perspective to the Prix Barbour jury for the 15th edition of the FIFDH.