The three jurors of the two International Juries each award the Grand Prix for the Best Film (worth 7,500 Euros) and the Special Prize for the Best Short Film (worth 2,500 Euros). The prize in the 14plus competition is provided by the Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung), in the Kplus competition the Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk (The Children’s Charity of Germany) is the sponsor.

The Members of the International Jury of Generation Kplus:

Venice Atienza (Philippines)

Venice Atienza is a Filipino documentarist. She co-founded Svemirko Film and Audiovisual Art Productions with Taiwanese director and producer, Fan Wu, and is a member of DAE (Documentary Association of Europe). Her first feature film, Last Days at Sea, premiered at the 71st Berlinale, Visions du Réel 2021, and Hot Docs and is supported by the IDFA Bertha Fund. It obtained a grant from DMZ Docs Rough Cut Presentation and awards at Visions du Réel – Rough Cut Lab 2020. Last Days at Sea is part of the IDFA Project Space 2020. Atienza is currently producing Taiwanese film director Fan Wu’s documentary entitled XiXi, which is part of CIRCLE – Women Doc Accelerator 2020.

Alise Ģelze (Latvia)

Alise Ģelze has been active as a film producer since 2006 and has produced both features and short films, which have been premiered at festivals like Cannes, Berlinale, Rotterdam IFF, Karlovy Vary IFF, Busan IFF. Her most successful productions are Oleg (2019), directed by Juris Kursietis which had its world premiere at Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, Mother, I Love You (2013), directed by Janis Nords, which has received more than 15 international and national awards, including the International Jury prize for the Best Film in Berlinale Generation Kplus, and Mellow Mud (2016), directed by Renars Vimba, which received the Crystal Bear at Generation 14plus.

Gudrun Sommer (Germany)

Gudrun Sommer is director of DOXS RUHR and founder of various festival formats in the documentary field. In 2002, the graduate in philosophy founded the festival doxs! and doku.klasse, a few years later the association Freunde der Realität e.V. and the regional festival DOXS RUHR. Before that, she worked as a committee member and festival director for Duisburg Film Week, and was a curator and jury member at Diagonale, steirischer herbst, the Golden Sparrow children’s media festival, the Goethe Institute, and the Grimme Prize, among others. Along with her office fair enough, as Green Consultant Film & TV she is committed to sustainable and collaborative cultural work.

The members of the International Jury of Generation 14plus:

Fion Mutert (Germany)

Fion Mutert is a cinematographer and freelance media educator. In 2020, his debut feature film Nackte Tiere (Naked Animals, directed by Melanie Waelde) screened in Encounters at the Berlinale. The film was also shown in the Cross Section screenings with Generation and received a Special Mention from the jury of the GWFF Award Best First Feature, as well as nominations in four categories for the German Film Critics Award, including Best Cinematography. Fion participated in the Children’s Jury at Generation, also making films as a teenager that were screened and received awards at several film festivals. Since 2021 he has been studying Image Design/Cinematography at the German Academy of Film and Television Berlin (dffb).

Juanita Onzaga (Colombia)

Juanita Onzaga is a filmmaker and artist born in Colombia, based between Brussels, Bogotá and México. Her films interlace fiction with non-fiction, touching the importance of mysticism, ancestral knowledge and transformation of trauma from violent conflicts. Her works have been presented at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, at the Berlinale in Generation, the MoMA of New York, IFFR and many more festivals and venues, while being awarded internationally. She is currently developing her first fiction feature film The Landscapes That You Seek and a series of installations about ancestral futurism.

Kateryna Gornostai (Ukraine)

Kateryna Gornostai is a Ukrainian director and screenwriter. After gaining a degree in journalism, she studied at the School of Documentary Film and Theatre run by Marina Razbezhkina and Mikhail Ugarov in 2012. She made her debut as a documentary film director but later began working with fiction films and hybrid forms. In 2015, her short fiction film Away won the National Competition at Molodist International Film Festival. In 2021, her feature-length fiction debut Stop-Zemlia won the Crystal Bear for Best Film, awarded by the Youth Jury at Generation 14plus at the Berlinale. Alongside her work as a filmmaker and editor, she also teaches documentary filmmaking. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine she has stayed at home in Kyiv.

The Children’s and Youth Jury

The youngest official Berlinale juries are staffed by seven Berlin children aged eleven to 14 for the Generation Kplus competition and five young people for the Generation 14plus competition. Independently of the International Juries, they award the Crystal Bears for the best short and long films. All young festival visitors who have shared their thoughts and comments on Generation films via the film questionnaires can qualify for participation in the Children’s or Youth Jury.