Jury 2025
Fiction
Marijke de Valck
Marijke de Valck is an associate professor in Film and Media Studies at Utrecht University, where she co-directs the Master’s Programme in Film and Television Cultures. She is renowned for her work on film festivals: co-founder of the Film Festival Research Network, co-editor of the Palgrave book series Framing Film Festivals and co-editor of the festival reviews in the peer-reviewed journal NECSUS. For her most recent book Rethinking Film Festivals in the Pandemic Era and After (2023), she collaborated with 25 international scholars to document and research the impact of COVID-19 on film festivals and the film industry.
Giovanna Castellari
Giovanna Castellari is a brazilian screenwriter, director, and editor with a degree in Film from FAAP in São Paulo. In 2022, she premiered her first short film, THE HOTTEST NIGHT OF THE YEAR, at the 33rd São Paulo International Short Film Festival. In 2023, she completed her second short film, Two-Syllable Name, which has received over 50 selections and 38 awards.
Devan Whitehouse
Devan Whitehouse is a third-year Film Studies student and voracious cinephile, whose eclectic taste spans multiple genres, countries, and eras. Equally passionate about education, he has worked as a teacher, assistant archivist, and student advocate. He also acted as the UK delegate and jury member of the 2023 European University Film Award.
Documentary
Sofia Tocar
Sofia Tocar is a distributor of short films and manages festival distribution for auteur-driven fiction and documentary titles at Square Eyes, a Vienna-based agency specializing in non-mainstream films. Previously, she managed the East Silver Caravan at the Institute of Documentary Film, supporting the festival distribution of Central and Eastern European documentaries. With a background in art history, she also curates and co-creates art projects.
Nelisa Alcalde
Nelisa Alcalde is a UK-based cinematographer born in the south of Spain. She is a member of Illuminatrix-Rising, holds a BA in Film & TV from Edinburgh University and an MFA in Cinematography from FAMU. Additionally, she has worked as an assistant camera and directed and lensed “Honey Bunny Duracell,” shot on 35mm film, which won the Art of a New Era Award given by the Czech Association of Cinematographers (AČK), the Best Documentary Paper Bird Award at the LJMU MA Festival, and Best Documentary Short at the International Sport Film Festival in Slovenia.
Back in the UK, she lensed and co-directed “Isabel’s Independence” with Inma De Reyes, a BBC Scotland/Scottish Documentary Institute funded mid-length documentary that was broadcast on BBC Scotland in 2020. She also shared a cinematography credit on “The Boy and the Suit of Lights,” directed by Inma De Reyes, which won Best International First Feature Film at Sheffield 2024. Alcalde has also shot narrative shorts such as “All Up There,” directed by Bonnie McRae, which won the Best Director Award at the BFI Future Film Festival 2024 and the Silver Award for Passion Project at the Young Directors Festival at Cannes.
Sophia Duff
Sophia Duff is a final year Film Studies student at Liverpool John Moore’s University with a love for writing and directing. She has already created a number of short films, collaborated with artists in Liverpool and plans to study Screenwriting at MA after graduation. Interested in impressionistic and experimental film, she prefers cinema that challenges conventional system, thinking and narrative.
Animation
Lucy Bell
Lucy Bell works in Set Decoration for scripted and unscripted Film and TV. She has worked with major entertainment studios such as Netflix, Warner Bros, HBO, Amazon, Apple TV and Sony Pictures. A 2019 graduate of LJMU’s Film Studies program, she began her career with an internship at Aardman Animations. A lifelong fan of stop-motion animation, Lucy has transitioned from Model-Maker to Art Director before moving into her current role as a Prop Buyer.
Miriam Fox
Miriam Fox is a lecturer and animation filmmaker from the south of England. With a keen interest in the unseen, fantastic realism and all techniques of animation, she is proud to be a part of the teaching team at the renowned animation course at UCA Farnham. Her film, Dead Silent, has been nominated for Student BAFTA and Royal Television Society awards, as well as being honoured with the wonderful Paper Bird Award at the 2024 LJMU MA Short Film Festival.
Gabriella Fenlon
Gabriella Fenlon is a third-year film studies student at Liverpool John Moores University. She has a keen interest in fiction film writing and independent filmmaking. She hopes to complete a Masters degree in exhibition studies and has her sights set on running an independent experience café in the future.
Experimental
Maike Höhne
Maike Mia Höhne (b. 1971 in Hanover) studied visual communication at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg, the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Havana as well as the Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión in San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. After stays in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she completed her post-graduate studies at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg with a focus on film. She works as a curator and juror for several institutions and festivals worldwide and is involved in film funding on a regional and national level. From 2007 to 2019 she was head of Berlinale Shorts of the Berlin International Film Festival. Höhne is a professor for film at the University of Applied Sciences Europe in Hamburg. She also teaches Film theory and making at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg. Since March 2019, she has been the artistic director of the Hamburg Short Film Festival. She is mother of two inspiring kids. She produces with her partner the magazine for shortfilms only on ARTE. She has been an advisor of Sharjah Film Platform.
Lucas Kua
An avid reader and film dabbler, Lucas Kua is a fervent believer in the transcendent power of film. His experimental short Obscura was created to reflect one’s relationship with the insidious media. He has since served the media industry as an Editor and Production Manager and is currently pursuing his Master’s degree at the London Film School.
Will Knowles
Will Knowles is a third-year Film Studies student at Liverpool John Moores University. He is the President of the LJMU Film Society dedicated to allowing open conversation and filmmaking adjacent to students’ academic work. His main interest in cinema is understanding how film has infinite potential to capture societal movements, attitudes, and everyday life in a globalised world; an area experimental film leads, and he has worked in.
Sean Bass
Fiction Programmer
Trailer Editor
Jake Butcher
Fiction Programmer
Trailer Editor
Alexander Connolly
Experimental Programmer
Trailer Editor & Instagram
Bridget Harvey
Documentary Programmer
TikTok/Podcast Production
Poster Design
Max Kenney
Animation Programmer
P.R. & Poster Design
Facebook, Threads, Bluesky
Podcast Host
Jon Mortimer
Documentary Programmer
LinkedIn
Trailer Editor
Podcast Support
Harry O’Connell
Experimental Programmer
Trailer Editor
Oscar Bradshaw
Animation Programmer
Letterboxd & Trailer Editor
Adam Byrne
Experimental Programmer
TikTok/Instagram
Josh Darlington
Fiction Programmer
P.R. & Instagram
Leon Hamilton
Fiction Programmer
Festival Support
Devan Jones
Experimental Programmer
Social Media Campaign Manager Trailer Editor
Podcast Host
Leo Manfrinato De Lima
Documentary Programmer
Trailer Editor
Poster & Graphic Design
Podcast Producer
Vivien Nelson
Animation Programmer
Festival Support
The Paper Bird Award
“According to popular legend, they are a male and female pair: the female looking out to sea, watching for the seamen to return safely home, and the male looking into the city, watching over the seamen’s families (or “making sure the pubs are open”, as a jocular version has it). Local legend also holds that the birds face away from each other, for if they were to mate and fly away, the city would cease to exist.”
The paper bird trophies that will be given to the winners of this year’s festival are the creation of Dave Treadwell, an incredibly talented artist, musician, & director.
The Liver Bird is a symbol of Liverpool John Moores University and the City of Liverpool, whilst the material of paper reflects the academic context of the LJMU MA Short Film Festival.
