The Jury 2021

Ezra Edelman
Jury President, Filmmaker

Ezra Edelman
Jury President, Filmmaker
Ezra Edelman is a documentary filmmaker, whose work has examined race, politics and sport. His most recent film, O.J.: Made In America premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2017. His HBO film, Magic and Bird: A Courtship of Rivals, won a Peabody Award in 2011. His 2007 HBO film, The Ghosts of Flatbush, won an Emmy. In 2013, Edelman co-produced the Oscar-nominated documentary, Cutie and The Boxer. A native of Washington D.C., Ezra lives in Brooklyn.

Julie Bertuccelli
Filmmaker

Julie Bertuccelli
Filmmaker
Julie Bertuccelli started her career as an assistant for Krzysztof Kieślowski, Otar Iosseliani, Bertrand Tavernier, Rithy Panh, Emmanuel Finkiel, Pierre Étaix, Jean-Louis Bertuccelli… In 2002, Depuis qu’Otar est parti (César for Best First Work and the Grand Prize at Semaine de la Critique in Cannes) revealed her to the public at large. She co-writed and directed The Tree (2010), then released two documentaries for theatres: La Cour de Babel (2014) et Dernières Nouvelles du Cosmos (2016). Her last fiction feature film, La Dernière folie de Claire Darling was released in 2018. She is currently editing her next documentary film Jane Campion, la Femme Cinéma. Julie Bertuccelli co-leads the Fémis Directing Division and chairs the Documentary Cinematheque which she initiated. She also has been LaScam President and ARP co-President.

Iris Brey
Film Critic

Iris Brey
Film Critic
Iris Brey is a Franco-American film and TV series critic specialized in questions of feminism and gender. She wrote the book Sex and the Series (Éditions de l’Olivier, 2018), which analyzes the representation of women’s sexualities in American television. She also directed Sex and the Series, a documentary series for OCS about five fictional heroines, challenging the way we view sex. Her book The Female Gaze (Éditions de l’Olivier, 2020) won the Causette Prize. She is currently working on its documentary adaptation. Iris Brey is a critic for the TV show Le Cercle on Canal +, the magazine Les Inrockuptibles and Mediapart. She holds a Ph.D. in French literature and cinema from New York University and teaches film on the Parisian campus of the University of California. She is part of the 5050 collective

Déborah François
Actress

Déborah François
Actress
Dardenne brothers offer her her first role in L’enfant, Palme d"or in 2005. She comes back to Cannes in 2006 in La tourneuse de Pages (Denis Dercourt, Un Certain regard). In 2009, she is awarded with a César for the most promising actress for her play in Le Premier jour du reste de ta vie by Rémi Bezançon. Going international with London Nights (Alexis Dos Santos, Sundance, Rotterdam and Berlin festivals), she performs in English with John Cusack and Emile Hirsch (Never Grow Old) as well as in Spanish facing Mario Casas (El Practicante). She also goes from drama to comedy working with filmmakers such as Emmanuelle Bercot, Nicole Garcia, Claude Lelouch, Daniele Thompson or Dominik Moll.

Orwa Nyrabia
Artistic Director

Orwa Nyrabia
Artistic Director
Orwa Nyrabia is the Artistic Director of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. Before IDFA, Orwa co-founded Syria’s first independent film festival, DOX BOX, with Diana El Jeiroudi, and notably produced Notturno (Gianfranco Rosi, Venice 2020), Silvered Water (Ossama Mohammad and W. Bedirxan, Cannes 2014), Return to Homs (Talal Derki, IDFA 2013) and Dolls, A Woman from Damascus (Diana El Jeiroudi, IDFA 2007). His work was recognized by awards such as the George Polk Award, the HRW Courage in Filmmaking Award, and the Katrin Cartlidge Award. An actor by training (Gate of the Sun, Yousri Nassrallah, Cannes 2004), he started his film career as 1st assistant of Ossama Mohammad (Sacrifices, Cannes 2002). He is based between Amsterdam and Berlin where he co-founded No Nation Films in 2014