Meet the Jury of the 7th AJB DOC Film Festival

The international jury of five members who will select the best film in the Competition Selection includes Deborah London-Harrington, documentary filmmaker and Head of Production Management at Dogwoof, Namik Kabil, film director and writer, Mila Turajlić, documentary filmmaker, Francesco Montagner, documentary filmmaker, and Myriam Francois, journalist and documentary filmmaker.

The jury composed of film and documentary professionals, prolific and award-winning authors recognized and respected in their communities, but also internationally, will decide on the best films that will be shown as part of this year’s festival theme, “Justice?”.

The local audience is already familiar with the works of authors Namik Kabil and Mila Turajlić. Francesco Montagner is the author of the film Brotherhood and winner of the Special Mention of the international expert jury at the 4th AJB DOC Film Festival, while Deborah London-Harrington is a well-known expert in production and business development in global companies. Myriam Francois is an author and journalist who has recently been in the spotlight as one of the prominent voices when it comes to the conflict in Palestine.

"Given the theme of the festival we chose this year, ‘’Justice?’’, and the phenomenal selection of top documentary films that will be shown on very current topics – the suffering and ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people being by far the most current one - the jury will not have an easy task, but we have confidence in them because they are individuals and authors who have always tackled serious issues that divide the public. I am certain in their assessment, and I would like to use this opportunity to invite the audience to follow the seventh edition of AJB DOC," said the Festival director Edhem Fočo.

Deborah (Debbie) London-Harrington, Head of Production Management Dogwoof, is a senior executive leader in the global multimedia market, overseeing business development and production for National Geographic, Discovery, and Al Jazeera Network worldwide. Debbie has an extensive experience in the US, UK, Middle East and Asia Pacific with Ancestry.com and various international indies. She returned to London in 2017 after five years of living and working in Qatar where she established the Department of Business Affairs and Rights Management for Al Jazeera Media Network. Under her leadership the Network was able to monetise content for distribution and licensing in more than 50 markets worldwide. Debbie previously oversaw more than 150 hours of factual programming every year, as a Senior Vice President and acting President of National Geographic Partners at the global headquarters in Washington DC. She was born in London.

Namik Kabil is a film director and writer. He wrote several award-winning screenplays, including the screenplay for the feature film Days and Hours. His documentary Interrogation won the Heart of Sarajevo Award for Best Documentary Film at the 2007 Sarajevo Film Festival, as well as other international awards. Kabil’s feature film Nightguards, which he both wrote and directed, had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 2008. His novels include Alone, Amarcord, Isijavanje, Yesterday and Beskućnik. The novel Isijavanje was shortlisted for the Fric Literary Prize in 2020, and the novel Yesterday was shortlisted for the same prize in 2022. He lives in Sarajevo.

Mila Turajlić is an award-winning director born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Her documentary The Other Side of Everything won 32 awards including the prestigious IDFA Award for Best Documentary Film. It was nominated for the European Parliament’s LUX Prize. Mila’s first film, Cinema Komunisto, premiered at Tribeca and won 16 awards including the FOCAL Award for Creative Use of Archival Footage. In 2018 she was commissioned by MoMA to create archive-based video installations for their landmark exhibition on Yugoslav architecture, and has participated in international exhibitions with her video work. Her most recent project, the documentary diptych Non-Aligned and Cine-guerrillas: Scenes from the Labudović Reels, an archival road trip through the birth of the Third World, premiered at TIFF and IDFA in 2022. Mila was invited to the AMPAS Documentary Branch and was named the Chevalier des Arts et Letters by the French government in 2022.

Francesco Montagner is an award-winning filmmaker and film mentor. Animated Resistance (2014), his first feature-length documentary, won the Venice Classics Award for Best Cinema Documentary at the 71st Venice International Film Festival. Brotherhood (2021), his second feature, won the Cineasti del Presente Golden Leopard at the 74th Locarno Film Festival. Brotherhood has been screened at more than 40 international festivals receiving numerous awards. His first short film Asterión (2022) was screened at the 75th Locarno Film Festival, and it won at RIGA IFF, Film Fest Dresden, Odense IFF. It was an official candidate for the European Film Awards 2023. Montagner divides his teaching time between three renowned international film universities, FAMU (Czech Republic), EICTV (Cuba), CISA (Switzerland), and various international documentary workshops for film professionals.

Dr Myriam Francois is an award-winning Franco-Irish journalist, filmmaker, and writer. She currently presents The Stream on Al Jazeera English, a bi-weekly show focused on digital natives. Her documentary directorial debut Finding Alaa won multiple awards, including Best Documentary Film at the Academy Award qualifying Flicker Festival 2024. Francois is also known for her work on BBC World Service documentaries and her Channel 4 documentary The Truth about Muslim Marriage, which was nominated for best investigative documentary in 2018. A former columnist at the New Statesman, her writing appears in major publications like the Guardian, TIME, and Foreign Policy. Francois hosts the podcast We Need to Talk About Whiteness, which was shortlisted for the BBC Audio labs in 2021. She holds a PhD from Oxford University, focusing on Islamic movements in Morocco, and was nominated as part of the “40 under 40” European Young Leaders, class of 2017. Francois is a regular speaker at international events and universities, including Oxford, McGill, and Harvard. In 2021, she was awarded the Woman in Media Award at the Muslim Women Awards.

The 7th edition of the AJB DOC Film Festival will take place in Sarajevo from September 13th to September 17th, 2024, under the auspices of BH Telecom, the Ministry of Culture and Sports of the Canton of Sarajevo and Visit Sarajevo - Tourism Association of the Canton of Sarajevo.