23-10-2012

16th Black Nights Film Festival juries span the globe

    International Competition Programme EurAsia – the main competition of the festival has a globe spanning jury with members from Asia, North America and Europe to judge the 19 films. The films will be judged by Hollywood cameraman Alar Kivilo,“Sopranos” star Karen Young (photo) and Japanese Oscar nominee Yong-hi Yang among others.

    Karen Young has appeared in a wide range of films, including US indies (Joe the King), European films (Vers le sud), Hollywood features (Daylight), and TV movies for both the US networks and the BBC.  TV audiences know her as FBI Agent Robyn from The Sopranos.  

    Canadian born Alar Kivilo began his career as a cinematographer shooting documentaries and short dramas including the 1984 Oscar winner “Boys and Girls”. Kivilo has won critical acclaim for his feature film cinematography on Sam Raimi’s “A Simple Plan”, “Frequency”, “The Glass House”, “Hart’s War”, “Aurora Borealis”, ”The Lakehouse” and Harold Ramis’ “The Ice Harvest” and “Year One”. Kivilo also photographed “The Blindside” which won Sandra Bullock a best actress Oscar. Recently he completed Jake Kasdan’s “Bad Teacher” starring Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake, and Scott Hick’s “The Lucky One.”

    Jan Erik Holst is the Executive Editor and Deputy Director General (since 1988) at the Norwegian Film Institute (NFI), he is a member of the European Film Academy and the Norwegian Association of Film Critics, ass. with FIPRESCI. He is also a founder of the Tallinn Black Nights film Festival.

    Yonghi YANG was born in 1964 in Osaka, Japan as a second-generation Korean resident. In 1995 she started making films, mainly documentaries. After spending several years in New York she returned to Japan in 2003 to work for TV news programs and to direct two documentary films Dear Pyongyang (2005) and Sona, the Other Myself (2009). Our Homeland is her first fiction feature film and has been nominated by Japan for the best foreign film Oscar.

    Laila Pakalnina born 1962 in Liepaja, Latvia, is a director and scriptwriter of 21 documentaries, 5 shorts, 4 fiction features. Her latest feature „Pizzas“ premiered at Rome International Film Festival.

    Kiki Sugino from Japan highlights the Tridens Herring Film Competition Jury. In 2006, she made a film debut by starring in “One Shining Day”, followed by “Time” which was directed by Kim Ki-duk. In 2011, Tokyo IFF focused on Kiki Sugino in a special section called “Muse of Asian Indie Cinema” in the “Wind of Asian Cinema” programme. Also Yokohama Film Festival and Osaka Cinema Festival awarded her the title of “Best New Actress” in 2012.

    There are another four juries selected, more information soon available on the website.