Competitions

Duc-Thi Bui was born in Vietnam and came to Germany with his family as boat people when he was a child. First he studied Architecture & Urban Planning (Diploma) at the University of Stuttgart and later Film & Screenwriting (Bachelor of Arts) at the ifs internationale filmschule köln. As a director, he was honoured with the German MuVi Award at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in 2023. Most recently, he worked as a screenwriter on two episodes of the anthology series MADE IN GERMANY, which was released on ARD in 2024. – He lives in Stuttgart and is co-founder of the cultural format “PLAYTIME Album Sessions” and part of the “ZEBRAS Collective”, which is committed to strengthening migrant perspectives in the regional art and cultural landscape.

Nina Friemann studied film and media science in Bochum and Frankfurt am Main. At the OFF Theater nrw in Neuss, she completed further training as a cultural manager. She has been a member of the organizational team of the Weiterstadt Open Air Film Festival since 1997 and took over its organizational management in 2023. She is also a member of the program jury for many years. She is the regional coordinator of the German SHORT FILM DAY for Hessen for the last 2 years. She has also been involved in the selection of films for the Aktion Theaterfoyer e. V. at the Darmstadt State Theater for over 20 years.

Hanna Szczepkowska, born in 1991 in Poland, has been active in the cinema sector for nearly ten years and has extensive experience as a project and marketing manager, particularly in the field of arthouse cinemas. Her responsibilities include organizing and promoting film programs, planning events, and supporting cultural film projects. Hanna served as a member of the industry jury at the Sarajevo Film Festival and the Berlinale in the Generation 14plus section. Her passion for cinema was further deepened through participation in international training programs such as the “Arthouse Cinema Training” in Venice and the mentoring program “Women’s Cinema Leadership”. Her most recent work includes serving as a reviewer for the German Film and Media Rating (FBW).

Esther Fehn, born 1981 in Freiburg, grew up in Karlsruhe, studied German language and literature, cultural studies and cultural management (M.A.), former jury member of the Independent Day Film Festival, press officer at the Karlsruhe Trade Fair and Congress Society, event manager at the Media and Film Society Baden-Württemberg, consultant at the Academy of Platform - Spaces for Contemporary Art in Munich, since 2020 curator of event series at the Stuttgart City Library in the field of digital literacy/digital culture.

Born in 1964, she has been active in the field of short film since 1996. From 1997 to 2001 she was director of the Filmfest Dresden. With the founding of AG Kurzfilm in May 2002, she took over the development of the Federal Association. Until 2013 she was active as Managing Director, member of the FFA board, and several committees. Since 2014 she has been a member of the Filmfest Dresden selection committee, in 2017 she took over the position of the festival’s director once more. She has been a supporter of the Clubkino at the Lingnerschloss Dresden on a voluntary basis and was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit in 2020.

From 2017 to 2022, he studied at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg with an emphasis on series producing followed by a master programme of “knowledge culture” at the University of Stuttgart up until now. During his school graduation, he founded the film production company “WickingerFilm”. Here, his focus has been the production of campaign and advertising films for public administrations, federal and national political players, and mid-sized companies. Alongside his work for customers, he realized two fictional short films and an experimental film. His academic research focuses on the film historical depiction and reception of military conflicts.

Franz-Erdmann Meyer-Herder studied cultural sciences in Lüneburg and dramaturgy at the Hamburg University of Music and Drama. From 2016 to 2018 he worked at the Theater Bremen as an assistant director. Since 2019/2020 he has been working at the State Opera Stuttgart as dramatic advisor. Here, he worked on productions with directors such as Lotte de Beer (Don Carlos), Silvia Costa (Juditha triumphans), Bastian Kraft (Rusalka), and Ulrich Rasche (Johannes-Passion). He also organised and hosted parties and fancy-dress balls for the festival formats of the State Opera Stuttgart as his Drag alter ego Flametta M. Sauvage. Since 2023 he has been organising and designing the Drag infotainment “How queer!” in an ongoing series at the White Noise Club in Stuttgart.

Louis Stiens, choreographer, was born in Munich and studied dance at the Heinz Bosl Foundation and the John Cranko School in Stuttgart. He was a member of the Stuttgart Ballet from 2011 to 2022. Stiens has worked both as a dancer and choreographer in the classical, neoclassical and contemporary dance scene. Important projects include his collaboration with Marco Goecke for Dancer in the Dark (2012) and his choreography for the Stuttgart production of Die sieben Todsünden / Seven Heavenly Sins and the premiere of Tal for Ballett Zürich in January 2023. For the 35th Stuttgarter Filmwinter, he created the work In my room (2022) together with Shaked Heller.

Katja Spiess (*1963 in Stuttgart) graduated with a Magistra Artium in German Studies, History and General and Comparative Literature from the University of Stuttgart. From 1998 to 2001, she was co-director of the FITZ Theater animierter Formen in Stuttgart (together with Helmut Pogerth) and has been theater director of the FITZ since 2001. Katja Spiess is a member of the international theater festival of animated forms IMAGINALE since 2008 and was artistic director of the anniversary edition of the international puppet theater festival FIGURA in Baden (CH) in 2012 and a member of the Goethe-Institut's theater/dance advisory board from 2015 to 2020.

Dagmar Schürrer is a digital artist working in the field of expanded animation and extended reality (XR) technologies, with international presentations of her work at the ICA London, the Louvre Paris, HKW Berlin, the Eunam Museum South Korea, Ars Electronica Linz, ISEA Brisbane, and Tate Modern London. Since 2018 she is a research assistant and workshop leader for artistic XR development at the University of Applied Sciences Berlin and since 2021 she is board member of the Berlin media art association.

www.dagmarschuerrer.com

Born in Berlin. Trained as a director at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna, founding member of the theatre label “internil”. Independent theatre work under this and his own name since 2005. Experiments with various combinations of documentary material, new media and performance. Main focus: political radicalisation, deviant practices, digitalisation of the human. Also freelance work as a video artist, lectures and workshops on the aesthetics of radical internet propaganda, literary publications, cultural education and artistic research.

https://vogelgesang.internil.net

Nataša Vukajlović’s interdisciplinary background derives from working at the intersection of curation, production, and communication of artistic and scientific projects. She is currently an art coordination fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude (2024), where she is concerned with multidisciplinary artistic practices and projects in the fields of art, culture, and socio-technological discourses. Nataša was part of the Track’s curatorial team of re:publica (2024) and curatorial assistant for the exhibition “Broken Machines & Wild Imaginings” and project coordinator of the “AI Anarchies” fellowship at the JUNGE AKADEMIE of Akademie der Künste (2022-2023). Previously, Nataša led the monthly discussion series “Digitaler Salon” at the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (2019–2021).