The LUX Prize panel

Ms Aladag, director and producer of Die Fremde, began her film career as an actress. She acted in numerous films and she also maintained a career as a successful scriptwriter and film director, directing various spots for Amnesty International and writing scripts for the German television series Tatort.

Mr Baron is President of the Hungarian Film Critics’ Association (Hungarian Fipresci) and professor at the University of Drama and Film (Budapest). He is also author of several books, essays and studies as well as writer-editor of TV documentaries on film topics.

Ms Binns is an operator.

In the business for some 30 years, Mr Branco has produced more than 200 films with such directors as Manoel de Oliveira, Wim Wenders, Sharunas Bartas or Michel Piccoli. He has received numerous awards and accolades in festivals and film museums all over the world. Since 2007, he is also the Director of the Estoril Film Festival.

Ms Buresi has been working in the media and film industry for almost 20 years. She is also Former Deputy Director of the European Film Market for the Berlinale.

“I always considered cinema as a mind opener and a particularly important media in to-day Europe. Working for a film market, my daily job is to offer a service structure allowing films to sell well and circulate all over Europe. The LUX prize is certainly a most important and adapted support in this field and shows the commitment and concern of the European Parliament towards the film industry.”

Mr Courcol is an actor by training. He has played in some 30 theatre plays and 20 films for cinema and television before turning to script writing. As a scriptwriter, he co-signed with Philippe LioretMademoiselle, L’Echiquier and Welcome.

Mr De Potter has been working for more than 15 years in Independant Distribution Companies. He joined Cineart in 1997 as General Manager Benelux and is in charge of acquisitions and theatrical releases in Belgium and The Netherlands.

“The Parliament's support of films representing the diversity and the values of Europe will benefit the whole film community. By the quality and the messages they bring, the Prize will also favour the spread of culture among all the Member states and to the European citizens".

Ms Döring, a former journalist, has been connected with the European Film Academy since it started in 1988. In 1996 she became the Academy's director. Since 2004, she also acts as producer for the European Film Awards and, since 2006, as managing director of EFA Productions GmbH, the company producing the Awards together with the European Film Academy.

“In a globalizing world, films can play an essential role in helping understand other cultures and mentalities. A camera can get extremely close to a human being, sometimes closer than a human eye and, at the same time, it is able to transmit what it sees to a large audience. Initiatives like the LUX Prize are important measures to bring our films to the attention of the people.”

Mr Drobny is one of the family founders of the film distribution company Continental Film, and is currently General Director. He has been involved in the establishment, creation and programming of the new cinema chain CINEMAX - members of Europa Cinemas chain. As of this year, he is councillor for the new Audiovisual fund in Slovakia as a representative of film distribution and exhibiton.

Per Ericsson is the head of the Swedish Federation of Film Societies that organises screenings and film discussions through more than 100 film clubs all over Sweden and oversees the publication of the organisation's own film magazine. He is a former film policy adviser and head of education at the Swedish Film Institute. He has worked as a film festival producer, film consultant and film critic. He is also a board member of ECFA (European Children Film Association). 

Francesca Feder is a feature films and television producer. She created  ÆTERNAM FILMS. Among the most recent films and documentaries produced: "Shun Li and the Poet" by Andrea Segre (2011), "Pauline et François" (2010) by Renaud Fély,"The Ditch" by Wang Bing, "The Green Blood" by Andrea Segre, "My Father, Francis the Belge", and many others.

Ms Gabereau is the Managing Director of the UK-based independent distribution company Soda Pictures. Founded in 2002, the company now boasts a library of over 100 films, including many award-winning films from around the world. She has a background in film journalism, festivals and new media; she came to cinema through a love of intercultural communication and visual expression.

Mr Gonzalez Kuhn is in charge of acquisitions at the distribution company Alta Films, and a cinema operator.

The Danish Film Institute Children & Youth department is responsible for film promotion and film education for children and young people. Based on the key words: Experience, understand and create, the strategies and activities is focused on all aspects of film education at all levels.

Previously, Claus has held the position as Senior Advisor at the Danish Ministry of Culture and at Local Government Denmark (the national association of local authorities in Denmark). Claus has a Master’s Degree in Political Science.

One of the best known film critic in Germany, Paul Peter Huth is currently running a film critic programme at 3SAT, cinema channel of the ZDF. Co-writer and co-director for several documentaries on European cinema (Kennwort Kino - Mot de Passe Cinéma), he is the author of some of the most important interviews of European directors.

Dirk Impens started his career in 1981 in theatre as a manager of the Internationale Nieuwe Scène - well known for their performance of Dario Fo's Mistero Buffo. Until 1985 the company toured with several productions in Belgium and other European countries.

In 1989, Impens started his own production company called Favourite Films, now Menuet. After his first feature Blueberry Hill (Robbe De Hert) he produced Daens (Stijn Coninx), a Belgian historic epic which became a big hit right after its release. Daens was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars in 1993. And it wasn't just beginners luck: his next motion picture, Manneken Pis  (Frank Van Passel), was selected in 1995 for Semaine de la Critique in Cannes. Meanwhile, Impens produced over more than 30 features and several TV series. The most famous series are a.o. Terug Naar Oosterdonk, Kongo & Katarakt, and more recently Code 37 (nominated for the TV Awards in Monte Carlo more than once).

De Helaasheid Der Dingen (an adaptation of Dimitri Verhulst's novel) and The Broken Circle Breakdown, both directed by Felix van Groeningen, were very succesful in respectively 2009 & 2012, and still doing tremendous at home and abroad.

Mr James, a former rock musician, has been the editor of Sight & Sound, the British Film Institute’s critical magazine since 1997. He is also the author of Heat, a book on the BFI’s Modern Classics series, and has worked as the presenter of a BBC4 documentary on British Cinema.

"I think the new government in UK may not be so involved in culture and in Europe in general. So I am demonstrating here (in the premises of the EP) a British interest in the EP and the European culture."

As a director and producer he organized the Sofia International Film Festival (since 2001), as well as several smaller film events. The Sofia International Film Festival is the only Bulgarian film festival member of the European Coordination of Film Festivals and is considered as the biggest and most successful film festival in Bulgaria. He is a member of the European Film Academy.

Kitanov produced several films. He is also involved in distribution.

Lars G. Lindström has been working at Nordisk Film Production Sverige AB since 2013. He has both a long and broad experience of  film, TV and theatre. In 1984, he began working at the Stockholm Civic Theatre (Stadsteatern) where he stayed for 19 years as a Producer and business developer. This was interlaced with numerous jobs as FAD on Scandinavian feature film projects. As a producer and artistic director of the Civic Theatre, he introduced a number of new directors, playwrights and plays, and succeeded in attracting a younger audience to the theatre scene. Between 2009 and 2012, Lars G. Lindström was a film commissioner for the Swedish Film Institute (SFI) and provided support on a number of productions, which included Black Power Mixtape, Avalon, Call girl, Searching for Sugarman, A Royal Affair, The Hunt, Force Majeure, They Called Him Morgan, etc. After several smaller film projects, including a series of  short films about Martin Kellerman's cartoon character Rocky, he started working as a full-time producer. For Nordisk Film, Lars G. Lindström  previously produced Amanda Kernells debut film Sami Blood, Daniel Espinosa's debut film Babylon Disease, and To Love Someone.

Mr Maeck is the producer of the 2007 LUX Prize winner, Auf Der Anderen Seite.

Honorary President of the LUX Prize Selection Panel 2012.

Radu Mihaileanu was born in Bucharest, in 1958, in a Yiddish-speaking Jewish family. In 1980, Radu Mihaileanu fled the country under the control of the dictator Ceaucescu and  reached France where he embarked a career as assistant director to Marco Ferreri, Fernando Trueba and others directors.

In 1992 he released his first film, Trahir, while in 1998 Train de vie won him international renown: Oscar nominations for best script and best actor, the Fipresci prize at Venice, the People’s Choice Award at Sundance and the David di Donatello for best foreign film. His third feature film, Va, vis et deviens about a Christian, Ethiopian boy pretending to be a Jew in order to immigrate to Israel for survival purposes, was an instant hit worldwide. The film sold 150,000 DVDs in France alone and won over 30 awards such as the César for Best Screenplay, Public Award at the Berlin Festival, Best Film and Best Screenplay at the Copenhagen Festival etc. In 2009, Mihaileanu released his fourth feature film entitled Le concert and last year in the Competition of the festival de Cannes La source des femmes.

In 2008, Mihaileanu was named European Ambassador of Intercultural Dialogue (by the European Commission) and in 2009, European Ambassador for Creativity and Innovation.

He's very active at the European political level, working for the promotion and protection of European cinema.

The Spiritus Rector of the School of Film Agents (SOFA), Nikolaj has been the Central/Northern/ Eastern-Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus delegate to the Berlin Film Festival since 2002.

Nikitin has been working for the past two decades as a film curator for numerous Film Festivals, around Europe and for the Goethe-Institut. As the founder of the independent German film magazine Schnitt (1995) and the Cologne film editing festival Filmplus (2001), hehas been a member of many international juries and teaches at film schools around the world. In 2004, Nikitin gained production experience working as Artistic Director on the omnibus film LOST AND FOUND.

Nikitin is a member of FIPRESCI, the European Film Academy and is a board member of Cineuropa.

Responsible for programming at the French Cinematheque from 1995 to 2009, Olivier Père had been director of the Cannes' Directors' Fortnight (Quinzaine Des Réalisateurs) from 2004 to 2009 and then  appointed director of the Locarno International Film Festival. From January 2013 Unit Director of ARTE France Cinema and Chief Operating Officer of ARTE Cinéma.

Tina is in the Board of Ljubjana Film festival Rotterdam Trainee Project 2015, Slovenian Tina Poglajen is a freelance film critic and journalist who regularly reports from international film festivals for Indiewire, Film Comment, Sound on Sight and Slovenian media outlets such as Ekran magazine, Dialogi, KINO! and radio Slovenia. She is an alumna of 27 Times Cinema in Venice, Critics Academy in Locarno and the Trainee Critics Programme in Rotterdam.

Iris is cinema exhibitors at Moviemento – a historic cinema in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district. She took over management of the cinema in 2007 and focussed their programming in one direction: Young Audiences and a special programme that have been set up destined for schools -Schulkino Berlin- a catalogue of 70 films put together each year by the exhibitors at Moviemento. The films are classed by age category, and each screening is accompanied by specific pedagogical material. Iris is also very much committed in showing children films in the original version by providing a selection of works in English, French and Spanish. 

Mrs Ramaskiene is the director of the Kino Pavasaris Film Festival.

Critic and writer for Film Comment, Sight and Sound, The Observer, and lecturer at London College of Communication.

Éva Vezér has been working in the film profession for more than thirty years. During her professional carreer she was - among others - programming director of Duna Television, head of MEDIA Desk Hungray and in the past ten years she was managing director of Magyar Filmunió, the international promotion arm of the Motion Picture Public Foundation of Hungary. For 3 years she was President of European Film Promotion, she is member of the Experts’Committee of Europa Cinemas and she is member of the European Film Academy.

"'Europe Loves Cinema' – this is the slogan of the MEDIA  Program. The creation of the LUX Prize is actually a proof that this slogan is taken seriously by the European Parliament. The LUX Prize selection process  focuses the attention of cinema goers to the best European films and talents. Cinema is part of our culture. The nominated films are coming from diverse European countries, so the selection reflects our culural diversity in the field of the seventh art."

LUX Film Prize 2015 - Selection Panel: Observer

Born in Genoa (Italy) in 1966, Matteo Zacchetti works at the European Commission since 1995.

He is Deputy Head of Unit " MEDIA Programme and media literacy"  in DG Education and Culture and he is responsible for the Media Literacy initiative. He spent almost all his professional life in the media or dealing with media related issues both in the private sector (NBC Super Channel ltd.) and at the European Commission where he has been working for more 15 years on different policy aspects of the audio-visual media. 

In 2012, he has been Visiting Professor in the School of International Relations of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He holds a degree in Economics of the University of Genoa.