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Introducing the Jury for the Special Award for Promoting Gender Equality at the 29th Sarajevo Film Festival

Special Award for Promoting Gender Equality, sponsored by Mastercard, is dedicated to the promotion of gender equality for debut films by female authors.

Films and directors eligible for the Special Award for Promoting Gender Equality are not limited to Competition strands and include other programmes and territories as well, provided that the film is the director’s first feature film.

The Sarajevo Film Festival Special Award for Promoting Gender Equality was established by Sarajevo Film Festival in 2021 as a continuation of the activities in which the Sarajevo Film Festival contributes to the establishment of women's equality in the film industry.

Jury members who will serve on the Jury for Special Award for Promoting Gender Equality at the 29th Sarajevo Film Festival are producer Jay Van Hoy, Festival Director of Sydney Film Festival Nashen Moodley and Head of Programming in the Eye Filmmuseum Mila Schlingemann.

Jay Van Hoy
Producer
(USA)

Jay Van Hoy has produced over 30 films including the Cannes-award-winning AMERICAN HONEY (2016) by Andrea Arnold, the Sundance-award-winning box-office success THE WITCH (2015) by Robert Eggers and his Oscar® nominated follow-up THE LIGHTHOUSE (2019). Other titles include Mike Mills’ Oscar® winning BEGINNERS (2010), Kelly Reichardt’s OLD JOY (2006), David Lowery’s AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS (2013), and Ira Sachs’ LOVE IS STRANGE (2014) and KEEP THE LIGHTS ON (2012). Jay Van Hoy is a long-time advisor at the Sundance Institute Creative Producing Lab, a participant in the creation of the Catalyst program at Sundance, and a mentor for the Cinetrust mentorship program at Cinereach.

Nashen Moodley 
Festival Director of Sydney Film Festival
(Australia, South Africa)

Nashen Moodley is in his twelfth year as Festival Director of Sydney Film Festival. During his tenure, the festival has grown vastly. Moodley’s career in film programming has encompassed many leadership roles, including Manager at the Durban International Film Festival (2001–2011) and as a Programming Consultant for Dubai International Film Festival (2005–2017). During Moodley’s 11 years at Durban International Film Festival, he dramatically increased its content and reach. He has been a jury member at various film festivals worldwide including San Sebastián, Busan, Toronto, Rotterdam, El Gouna, Durban and Tokyo film festivals. Born in South Africa in 1978, Moodley studied English and philosophy at the University of Natal and worked as a journalist before turning to film programming.

Mila Schlingemann
Head of Programming in the Eye Filmmuseum
(Netherlands)

Mila Schlingemann (1978, Amsterdam) completed Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Schlingemann was co-founder of the Unheard Film Festival, an annual festival about the narrative power of sound in film. Next to working for student cinema Kriterion, Mila was the project developer and producer for Rocket Cinema. Rocket Cinema is a long-standing film festival, hosted by world famous music venue Paradiso, which combines live music and film at various sites in Amsterdam. Then, after a few years of working as a programmer in Flemish Arts Centre De Brakke Grond, a cutting edge cultural organisation in the centre of Amsterdam, she returned to the film industry, and started working at Eye Filmmuseum, as Head of Programming. Eye is the national museum for film and the art of moving image in the Netherlands. It stores, restores and presents film; from classics, blockbusters and early avant-garde films to the very latest VR experiments. As Head of Programming, Schlingemann is responsible for the entire film program, varying from retrospectives, theme programming, special events, and recurring series, like the VR series, Xtended. For the latter she has brought “Carne y Arena”, the internationally acclaimed VR installation/ immersive exhibition, on immigrants in the US, made by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, to the Netherlands. Next to her work at Eye Filmmuseum Schlingemann is also on the advisory board of the cultural organisation Transnatural, that exhibits artworks where man, nature and technology merge. The platform works with a multi-faceted mixture of national and international creators, thinkers, businesses, R&D labs, studios and research institutes.

29th Sarajevo Film Festival will take place from 11th to 18th of August 2023