Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova named as presidents of the Giornate degli Autori jury

26/07/2021 – The Bulgarian director/producer duo will head the jury composed of 27 young cinephiles coming from every European country and which will hand out the GdA Director’s Award

The directing/producing duo Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova

Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova: for the first time, two directors/producers will head the jury charged with handing out the GdA Director’s Award, which is given every year by 27 young cinephiles coming from every European country as part of the project 27 Times Cinema (whose participants will follow the festival on our dedicated blog), to a film from the official selection competing in the Giornate degli Autori section in Venice. 

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“A Duo jury president is a groundbreaking idea from the artistic director and her fantastic team”, said Mileva and Kazakova, nicknamed “the demonic duo” by a member from the Bulgarian parliament in reaction to their subversive documentaries (Uncle Tony, Three Fools and the Secret Service, The Beast Is Still Alive [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]). “Although we count as one, always directing and producing together, such a decision is rather revolutionary. We strongly believe in daring film work, breaking boundaries, doing something that may not appear acceptable at first and we feel well suited to this very special section which is Giornate degli Autori.” 

The two Bulgarian filmmakers are also the authors of two fiction films, both equally provocative: Cat in the Wall [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mina Mileva, Vesela Kazakova
film profile], selected in competition at the 2019 Locarno Film Festival, and Women Do Cry [+see also:
film review
interview: Mina Mileva, Vesela Kazakova
film profile], seen recently in Cannes, in the Un Certain Regard section.

“Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova are women, activists, feminists, and filmmakers,” declared Artistic Director Gaia Furrer. “Today more than ever, we need both filmmaking and activism. We need people who can challenge boundaries through cinema, and open up new paths. In their work we have discovered a vital, daring mix of public and private, of individuality and collective rights, of form and substance. Mina and Vesela’s cinema is empathetic, smart, provocative, angry, ironic, alive and deeply honest.”

“We have always conceived of our competitive showcase as more than a simple contest at the highest levels,” added General Delegate Giorgio Gosetti, “but as an opportunity to support the best independent films out there after their world premieres in Venice. For this reason we seek personalities endowed with enormous vitality and courage, who can bring a new perspective to filmmaking as well as a new heart, and spend 11 days in dialogue with a quite diverse group of young cinephiles who have a sense for the films of the future.”

(Translated from Italian)