Festival Jury

Graduated from Essec and ESCP, Leonard worked at Studiocanal Australia, Iconoclast in Los Angeles and Vendôme Films in Paris. He joined Charades as Festivals Manager in 2022.

Film Director, My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To

Sci-fi film-maker from Mexico (THE INCIDENT, THE SIMILAR, PARALLEL), co-founder of Red Elephant Films and Autocinema Coyote (Coyote Drive-In)

His first film The Incident (2014) premiered at Cannes and 50 more festivals, gaining support from Del Toro. His second film The Similars (2015) won Best Latinamerican Film at Sitges, making him the first Mexican with two films in two straight years in Fantastic Fest and Sitges. He then got hired by BRON Studios to direct Parallel (2018), first English spoken film, broke box office records with Mal De Ojo (2022), his first full horror entry, and just premiered his new movie Párvulos (2024) at Fantasia, Fantastic Fest and Sitges.

Professor of Jewish Studies and Near Eastern Studies and Film Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Screenwriter and director, her short film "The Update" won Best Film at the 2018 Utopia Film Festival.

A 33-year-old filmmaker from Tel Aviv and graduate of the Sam Spiegel Film & Television School. Writer and director of ReFeel, winner of the short film section at the 2021 Utopia Film Festival.

Independent film and media/video-art programmer and curator & part of the programming team for the LICHTER Frankfurt International Film Festival, where he is head of the LICHTER Art Award and Programmer/Curator for the LICHTER International short film program.

Film and Media Producer

Editor of prose and screenplay, essayist and cultural critic, recipient of the 2021 Israel Minister of Culture's Award for Editing. Head of the Hebrew Literature Department, Kinneret-Zmora-Dvir publishing.

Science Fiction scholar in the English Department, University of Haifa.

Director, the Imagine Film Festival in Amsterdam

From cinematographer to 4D capture expert, Addie Reiss builds the real-life 'holodeck'—creating star-studded holograms for Digital Nation Entertainment's studio in LA.

writer, filmmaker, artistic programmer and genre film expert

Festival Director of the Lund Fantastic Film Festival. Maritte loves everything violent, but also everything cute. You have to take the good with the bad. Keep it balanced!

Film-maker - editor and director

Film actress, working in Israeli and international cinema, exploring complex female characters and questions of identity and transition.

Film and tv producer with over 18 years of experience and a producing partner of the actress Anna Faris. He also teaches Independent Film Financing at UCLA.