Docudays UA-2015 presents the festival’s juries, who will select the best films in three competitions: DOCU/LIFE, DOCU/RIGHT  and  DOCU/SHORT.

Today we continue with the short introduction of the members of DOCU/SHORT jury. This competition presents documentaries of no more than 45 minutes of running time.

Artchil Khetagouri (Georgia) is a director, an educator and a director of the CinéDOC Tbilisi documentary film festival

Artchil got acquainted with Docudays UA two years ago. Suddenly at the end of March Kyiv was covered with a deep snow and some foreign guests of the festival didn’t manage to arrive in Ukraine. Still, directors Artchil and Ileana managed to arrive. For one day only, and of course with adventures. Because of the weather conditions their plane landed in Dnipropetrovsk. However, whereas Georgian documentary film directors were learning ins and outs of Ukrainian transport system, the jury of the competition DOCU/LIFE awarded them with a special prize for the film Noosfera.

Next year Ukrainian cinema delegation went to Georgia in order to present there the program Ukrainian voices. The thing is that besides documentary films, Artchil and Ileana also dealt with their active promotion. In 2013 they founded the first international documentary film festival in the Caucasus – the CinéDOC Tbilisi documentary film festival.

According to a good tradition now it’s our turn to welcome guests from Georgia. At Docudays UA-2015 Artchil will present a set of the best films about modern Georgia, will conduct a workshop on storytelling and possible means of search of characters. Artchil will also choose winners of the short film competition DOCU/SHORT.

Artchil grew up in Tbilisi, Georgia, and studied at the Film and Television Academy in Amsterdam. His graduation film Heritage premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and was the Netherlands’ selection for the Student Oscar. In 2006 Artchil came back to Tbilisi, where he directed a documentary Akhmeteli 4, for which he received a number of awards. Artchil also worked as a tutor for filmmakers in Denmark and the Netherlands. Since 2011 he has worked for the Noosfera Foundation managing the travelling project Cinemobile Caucasus, the documentary training initiative DocStories Black Sea and the CinéDOC Tbilisi documentary film festival. 

Martichka Bozhilova (Bulgaria) is a producer

For more than 15 years Martichka Bozhilova has been a producer for the Bulgarian AGITPROP group. In cooperation with the group Martichka shot many films which received important awards at the main international cinema forums – from the Tribeca to the Berlinale. In Cannes she received the so-called Trailblazer Award, which was initiated by Robert Redford himself remarking her creativity, innovation, originality and breakthrough in the field of documentary cinema.

However, Martichka herself often confessed that she started her way in this field as she considered that shooting documentary cinema would be cheaper. And her first film Georgi and the Butterflies was demonstrated at more than 50 various festivals which convinced her in her talents and she found her place in life. These distinctions pushed Martichka to initiate the Balkan Documentary Center for supporting documentary filmmakers from the Balkans in Sofia. She realized that her native territory remains quite problematic, due to which the profession of a producer is often a scorn. During the years of her activity Martichka learned and told the world about at least one or two great producers of documentary films in each Balkan country. She admits it insufficient but there is no limit to perfection.

It should be noted that recently she was ranked in the prestigious selection ‘100 Most Influential Women in Bulgaria’ and in the top 7 most influential Bulgarian creative visionaries according to Forbes.

Producer for the Bulgarian AGITPROP group since 1999. Founder and director of the Balkan Documentary Center for supporting documentary filmmakers from the Balkans. Jury member at DokLeipzig 2014 and IDFA 2014. Martichka received the International Trailblazer Award at MIPDOC in Cannes for creativity, innovation, originality and breakthrough in the field of documentary cinema.

Andrei Rus (Romania) is a critic

Besides being the youngest jury member Andrei Rus isn’t directly involved in filmmaking. Andrei is one of those to whom directors have no special liking as a rule. No wonder, as it is usually people of his profession determine the destiny of a film and ‘translate’ to the audience the main ideas of the author. However, Andrei is reliable in such questions: he is a professional critic.

He graduated from the Ion Luca Caragiale National University of Theater and Cinematography in Bucharest, where he now teaches film studies and film history. There he also coordinated the Film Menu magazine about cinema written by young critics (students of the same University), which covers and actualizes the issues of modern cinema in Romanian context, organizes a Cineclub and other types of projections in the University cinema. He is a programmer for the NexT International Short Film Festival in Bucharest.

At the Cannes International Film Festival last year Andrei worked in the section International Critics’ Week, in which a Ukrainian film The Tribe directed by Myroslav Slaboshpytsky received the award. 

Andrei Rus was born in 1985. He graduated from the Ion Luca Caragiale National University of Theater and Cinematography in Bucharest, where he now teaches film studies and film history. He coordinated the Film Menu magazine about cinema. He is a programmer for the NexT International Short Film Festival in Bucharest