of the 19th Baikal International Rasputin Film Festival «People and Environment».
Liina Härkönen
Finland | Chairman of the jury
Chairman of the Board of Directors "Tampere Film Festival", translator
Liina Härkönen has served on the Board of Directors of the prestigious Tampere Film Festival (est. 1970) for over 15 years and, for the last five years, in the selection team of the festival's International Competition. Since 2009, she has been the chair of Pirkanmaa Film Centre which, among other things, runs the much loved Arthouse Cinema Niagara in the centre of Tampere. She is also the chair and coordinator of the Finnish branch of the Malmö-based Doc Lounge network with six documentary film clubs around Finland.
Besides working as a professional translator since 2006, Liina holds a Master of Social Sciences majoring in Media Culture. She wrote her thesis on the theatrical distribution of Finnish feature documentary films. She has subtitled hundreds of films and TV series into Finnish and also works with production companies to translate Finnish treatments, pitches and screenplays into English for international funding purposes.
Ljubomir Stefanov
Macedonia | Jury member
Director, producer, screenwriter
He has over 20 years of experience in developing and producing communication concepts and documentary films related to environmental and human development issues. His clients are various United Nations agencies, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, EuroNatur, Swisscontact, etc. As a co-director of a documentay film Honeyland (2019), he has 2 Oscar nominations. Since July 2020 he is an AMPAS member.
Tamara Kotevska
Macedonia | Jury member
Film director, screenwriter
Born on the 9th of August, 1993, in Prilep, North Macedonia, in a family of anti-filmmakers (electronic engineers), but falling in love with the magic of film when she was 12, set high obstacles of filmmaking for Tamara Kotevska. The most important experience that shaped her love for documentaries was the year as an exchange student in Chattanooga, Tennessee when she was 16. The cultural shock was the greatest inspiration to start making the first documentary footages of human stories. It was obvious this will keep being her interest during The Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Skopje, where she graduated (2012-2016). During her studies she had done 4 documentaries, 8 short fiction films and 2 stop-animations. She enjoyed discovering new forms of filmmaking and she was always trying to make brave decisions in filmmaking, only to conclude that the form is just a tool. The passion for experimenting in genres continued 5 years after, leading with 3 world awarded creative documentaries of which the last one – Honeyland, became an anthology with 2 Oscar Nominations in 2020, which she codirected with Ljubo Stefanov, who shared the same passion for experimenting in genres. In her films, she aims to create unforgettable stories, strong characters and perception-changing messages. Her new feature fiction film “MAN v.s. FLOCK” explores the conflict between the traditional and the progressive World.
Yuliya Kiseleva
Russia | Member of the Jury
Director, screenwriter, documentary producer
Born in the city of Asbest in Sverdlovsk region. Graduated from the Department of Journalism of Ural Federal University and the Directing Department of VGIK (Non-Fiction Films Workshop of I. Grigoriev). А. Григорьева). Member of the Union of Cinematographers and Documentary Film and Television Guild. Finalist of the TEFI-Region award and three times finalist of the LAUREL Award. Her author's films have repeatedly participated in Russian and foreign film festivals and many times were awarded with prizes. In 2011 and 2012, studied screenwriting at the seminars of Robert McKee. Since 2014 - teacher of the AURUM film school . Author of many documentary projects, including The Brain. Evolution and Brain. The Second Universe.
Galina Afanasyeva-Medvedeva
Russia | Jury member
Doctor of Philology, ethnographer, member of the Writers' Union of Russia
Author of many works on Siberian folk culture, including the multi-volume Subdialects Dictionary of Russian old-timers of Baikal Siberia. Professor at Irkutsk State University, head of Research Laboratory for the Study of Traditional Culture of Siberia, member of the Union of Russian Writers, Director of the Regional Center for Russian Language, Folklore and Ethnography. Afanasyeva-Medvedeva became a recipient of the Governor's Award of Irkutsk region for her great contribution to preserving the traditional culture of Siberia in 2008, the Saint Innocent Award for Asceticism, the Intellectual from Provincia Award in 2011, and the Order of Friendship in 2012. In 2019 Galina Afanasyeva-Medvedeva became the winner of the highest award of the X International Slavic Forum “Zolotoy Vityaz” (Rus. Golden Knight) Gold medal n.a. Pushkin For Outstanding Contribution to Literature in 2019. She was awarded the State Prize of the Russian Federation in Literature and Arts in 2020.
