The winner of the Golden Chair for Best International Short Film is awarded NOK 50.000. The winning film qualifies to be considered for an Oscar® nomination for Best Short Film, Live Action or Animated, provided it meets the requirements set by The Academy® for nominated films.
Mélissa Bouchard is the Head of Programming at REGARD – Saguenay International Short Film Festival. She has been working in the wonderful world of short films for more than 20 years. After studying cinema at university, Mélissa stood out as a director and worked as editor on different projects. Between 2003 to 2009, she has planned and organized nearly a hundred independent short films screenings and events.
She joined REGARD – Saguenay International Short Film Festival (Quebec, Canada) in 2009, and since then she has devoted herself entirely to programming. REGARD is an Oscar qualifying international short film festival hosting the only short film market in Quebec, and screening more than 200 live action, animation, documentary and experimental shorts.
Laurence Boyce was born in Leeds, UK and began his career in 1999 at the Leeds International Film Festival. He relocated to Tallinn, Estonia in 2010 and works for the Black Nights Film Festival and is the head of Programme (Live Action) for PÖFF Shorts, the short film section of the festival.
He is also an award winning film journalist who writes for numerous publications, amongst them Screen International, Sight and Sound and Cineuropa. He is a member of FIPRESCI, the London Critics Circle, the European Film Academy and BAFTA. He is currently the Chairman of the board of the Short Film Conference, a network of short film organisations from across the globe.
Marius Matzow Gulbrandsen is an award-winning cinematographer educated at the National Film School in Łódź, Poland, where he graduated under Prof. Witold Sobociński and Jerzy Wójcik. Central to his projects is human destiny, and their position in relation to this is often the starting point for his compositions.
Matzow Gulbrandsen has shot several major feature films, including Before Snowfall, Valley of Shadows, Disco, and Let the River Flow.
He started his cinematography career with the short film Bawke, which made a major breakthrough at the Norwegian Short Film Festival in 2005, winning five awards, including the Film Workers Association’s Technical Award for Best Photo.
Matzow Gulbrandsen has since received several international nominations and awards, such as three Amanda Award nominations, Best Photo at Tribeca FF, the Sven Nykvist Award at Gothenburg IFF, and the Kanon Award at Kosmorama FF.
Bartholomew Sammut is a Maltese-Australian, non-binary film curator living in Berlin. They began by writing and producing short films, and then worked for several programs at SBS Television Australia, namely Eatcarpet, a late night program dedicated to screening smart, experimental and queer short films.
In 2006 they founded the XPOSED Queer Film Festival Berlin, which they directed for 15 years until 2021. In 2009 Bartholomew began working for the Panorama section of the Berlin International Film Festival and is part of the program selection committee.
In 2019 they became the Program Manager and the TEDDY Award Coordinator for Panorama, as well as becoming a member of the Berlinale Series selection committee.
Bartholomew established the Queer Short Film Fund in 2015, an initiative of the XPOSED Queer Film Festival to help foster and support queer film production and development in Germany.
Geir Ørnholt is an editor from Bergen, now based in Oslo. Ørnholt graduated from The Norwegian Film School in 2014, and has since edited several award-winning drama series, including Nudes (Liv Barbosa Blad, Erika Calmeyer), Nach (Ernst De Geer, Fanny Ovesen) and Nede (Siri Seljeseth).
He has also worked on the feature films Gritt (Ionje Søimer Guttormsen), My Wonderful Stranger (Johanna Pykkö) and the upcoming Explosions of the Heart (Yen).
He cut the short film Play Schengen (Gunhild Enger), which won the award for best Norwegian film at Minimalen Film Festival in 2022.
He is a member of the editor collective Klippegangen and has also worked as a film coordinator for Bergen International Film Festival. klippegangen.no
Other juries and awards
The Norwegian Short Film Festival / kortfilm@kortfilmfestivalen.no
Kortfilmfestivalen i Grimstad
kortfilm@kortfilmfestivalen.no