The winner of the Golden Chair for Best Short Documentary is awarded NOK 50.000, and qualifies to be considered for an Oscar® nomination for Documentary Short Subject, provided it meets all requirements set by The Academy® for all nominated films.
Mohamed Jabaly is a Palestinian filmmaker and artist from Gaza City. His award-winning documentary work is deeply entwined with the beauty and defiant spirit of his hometown. His latest film Life is Beautiful – Al Haya Helwa has received numerous awards, including Best Directing at IDFA 2023, Best Nordic Documentary Award at the Nordic Panorama 2024, the Grand Prix Award at FIFDH 2024, the International Competition Jury Award for Best Film at One World Festival 2024 and the Audience Award at Docville Belgium 2024.
His previous award-winning documentary Ambulance (2016) has been shown at some of the world’s largest film festivals, has been broadcast globally and continues to screen regularly. With a deep commitment to the film community and education, Mohamed ran filmmaking workshops for young people in Gaza for a decade before coming to Tromsø, Norway, where he manages partnership programmes. As a driving member of the Palestine Film Institute, he is also responsible for festival delegations. Mohamed has served on juries for festivals, including One World Media and IDFA. He holds a BA from Nordland Film & Art College in Northern Norway and is currently completing his MA at the National Academy of Arts in Oslo.
Yvonne Ashley Kouadjo is an Emmy-winning producer and curator for Op-Docs, The New York Times’s award-winning platform of short documentaries by independent filmmakers from around the world. Recent Op-Docs include 2024 IDA Documentary Award winner and 2025 Oscar Nominee “Instruments of a Beating Heart”, 2024 Oscar nominee “Island in Between,” 2023 News and Documentary Emmy winner “My Disability Roadmap,” and 2022 Oscar winner “The Queen of Basketball.” Yvonne Ashley is an active participant in panels, forums, workshops and juries at international film festivals and markets.
Torstein Parelius has worked at UpNorth Film as a documentary filmmaker for over 10 years, after many years of sporadic freelance work prior. He has over 25 films under his belt, primarily as a producer, co-producer and outreach producer, including Portrait of a Confused Father, Praying for Armageddon, Phantoms of the Sierra Madre, Norwegian Dream, Nelly & Nadine, Trond Giske – Makta Rår, and iHuman. Several films have won awards, been shown on BBC, Netflix, Al Jazeera, ZDF, NRK, DR, SVT and a large number of other international broadcasters, as well as at festivals such as the Berlinale, CPH:DOX, Hot Docs, IFFR Rotterdam, Sheffield Docfest, etc. His greatest strengths are creative production work and outreach, where he has been responsible for about one cinema release per year in recent years. He holds several board positions, including for the Fund for Sound and Image, and is a member of the European Film Academy and Virke Producers’ Association. He has also served on several juries and program committees, as well as being a guest lecturer, mentor and speaker based on different aspects of his expertise and experience. He lives in Vanvikan outside Trondheim, and is happy about that.
Shane Smith is a documentary programmer for TVO. From 2015- 2023 he was programming and artistic director at Hot Docs, North America’s largest Festival and Market for documentary film. Smith previously worked at the Toronto International Film Festival as the director of special projects at TIFF Bell Lightbox. Before this he was the director of public programs at TIFF.
Prior to joining TIFF he worked as Executive Producer, In-Flight Entertainment at Spafax, overseeing entertainment on Air Canada. He was previously Director of Programming at Channel Zero Inc, overseeing the digital cable operators programming of Silver Screen Classics and Movieola- the Short Film Channel. Other positions include Director of the CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival, Short Film Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, Founder and Co-Director of OzFlix: Australian Film Weekend and Programmer for Inside Out LGBTQ Film Festival.
Nataša Urban is a film director working professionally since 2005. Her films have been screened at international film festivals worldwide and have received over 40 awards. Her latest film, The Eclipse, has won several international awards, including DOX:AWARD – the main award at the CPH:DOX 2022, and Doc Alliance Award Special Mention.
It was shortlisted for EFA Documentary Award, nominated for EUFA and was one of Cineuropa’s 25 best films of 2022. The Eclipse screened at major film festivals worldwide, including IDFA, Leipzig, DocLisboa, Sarajevo, Vancouver, and MoMA Documentary Fortnight in NYC.
