In just under a week’s time the 2023 Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) kicks off in Estonia and we will be there for the first few days to cover proceedings. Today, the juries for the festival were announced with Danish actress Trine Dyrholm named as head of the Official Competition Jury.
Dyrholm has around 70 roles in films and TV series, and dozens of awards and nominations both in Denmark and abroad. In 2016, Dyrholm won The Silver Bear for the Best Actress in Thomas Vinterberg’s The Commune, and her role in Queen of Hearts (2019, dir.May el-Toukhy), has been widey acclaimed. At PÖFF 2023, she presents Birthday Girl, directed by Michael Noer. Joining her on the Official Competition Jury is composer John Altman, director and professor Xie Fei, Icelandic director Hilmar Oddson and filmmaker Inna Sahakyan.
Nicolás Celis is head of the First Feature Competition jury, alongside Diana Iljine, Ran Huang, Ron Fogel, and Radhika Madan. On the Critics’ Pick jury is Dina Iordanova (head), Bahman Tavoosi, and Jani Pösö.
Other juries are as follows:
Rebels With A Cause Competition
The head of the jury is Jim Stark, alongside Andrius Blaževi?ius’ and Mania Akbari.
Baltic Film Competition
Head of the jury, the producer Eleanora Granata Jenkinson will serve alongside Leon Prudovsky, and Ari Tan,
NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) jury:
Mohammad Attebai (Iran, head of the jury)
Italo Spinelli (Italy)
Ra Ragnar Novod (Estonia)
FIPRESCI jury:
Yael Shuv (Israel)
Tonci Valentic (Croatia)
Tõnu Karjatse (Estonia)
In total, 185 feature films from 73 countries will be screened at PÖFF 2023. Youth and Children sub-festival Just Film will show 51 feature films, 37 shorts and 6 animated films. PÖFF Shorts sub-festival will present 240 short films.
51 world premieres and 24 international premieres will be screened. In addition to 5 competition programmes, there are 14 side programmes. This include Best Of Festivals, the collection of award-winning films from 2023, Doc@PÖFF and Screen International Critic’s Choice.
This year’s focus region is Serbia and SEE* (South-East European) countries. The focus programme consists of fresh works from Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia and North-Macedonia. Additionally, Yugoslavian Black Wave retrospective is an ode to the Yugoslavian new-wave cinema from the 1960-1970s.
The Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival runs from 3rd – 18th November.
