THE KURDISH FILM JURY

This year’s Kurdish Film Jury is spearheaded by Jury President Producer Marcos Tellechea who worked on prestigious productions starring actors like Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise and Naomi Watts. He was the executive producer on  RIO I LOVE YOU, which represented Brazil at the Oscars in  2018 and together with Paula Linhares he played a significant role in the funding of Inárritu’s Oscar-winning film THE REVENANT. 

Joining Marcos Tellechea, we have the following jury members:

Burhan Özkan was originally educated as a sculptor and later advanced in advertising and publishing. In 2004 Özkan was chosen as the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival’s brand manager. In 2010 he founded SEKA Film Studios and initiated a career as TV & Film producer. 

Hishyar Zero Ahmad from Amedi in the KRG, fled the war in Iraq and eventually settled in Iran, where he earned his degree in cinema directing and started pursuing a career in the film industry as producer and actor. After returning to Kurdistan he set up his own company in Erbil. 

Dr. Kawthar M. Ali Jabara is an academic and critic specialised in literature and film criticism. She has a PHD in Modern criticism and Comparative Narratives in Literature and Film. Jabara is employed at  the Besikci Center for Humanities Studies at the University of Duhok. 

Muriel Aboulroussis is a multiple award-winning cinematographer from Lebanon, considered to be the first female cinematographer in the Arab world. Her titles include award-winning MERCEDES by Hady Zaccak, Michel Kammoun’s FALAFEL and George Hashem’s STRAY BULLET. In 2012 Aboulroussis founded CINE-JAM film lab where she works as lecturer, and in 2014, she debuted as a director with the doc series ZYARA which so far has won 45 international awards.