ANDREJ GUSTINČIČ
film critic
Andrej Gustinčič was born in London in 1963. His family moved back to Yugoslavia in 1967, and around that time, at the Dom sindikata cinema on Marx and Engels Square in Belgrade, he saw his first film, Mary Poppins. In 1970, they moved to New York, where he completed his formal education and graduated from Hunter College in 1984 with a degree in British and American literature and film. In 1984, he returned to Yugoslavia, completed his military service and began working as a reporter for Reuters. In 1993, he returned to New York and continued working as a journalist for Reuters and Fox News Channel. In 2004, he moved to Slovenia to work for the national broadcaster RTVSLO. Since then, he has been a film critic, contributing to Delo’s and Dnevnik’s Saturday supplements, Ekran magazine, and the Multimedia Centre (MMC) of RTVSLO. As a critic, he also appeared regularly on the programme Kino Fokus.
JURAJ LEROTIĆ
film director and screenwriter
Juraj Lerotić graduated in Film Directing from the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb, Croatia.
His first feature film, Safe Place (2022), which he wrote, directed, and acted in, premiered at the Locarno Film Festival (winning three awards) and was showcased at festivals worldwide, from Rotterdam IFF and Shanghai IFF to New York’s MoMA. The film was also nominated in the European Discovery category of the European Film Awards as one of the five best debut features in 2023. Juraj currently works in Zagreb, where he lectures at the Academy of Dramatic Arts and serves as an artistic consultant for the Croatian Audiovisual Centre.
NATALIJA MAJSOVA
film scholar
Natalija Majsova is a professor of cultural studies and film scholar. After completing her doctorate at the University of Ljubljana (2015), she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp and the Catholic University in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. Since 2020, she has been employed at the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Social Sciences. Published in numerous Slovenian and international scientific journals and anthologies, her research work examines film in the broader context of contemporary transmedia popular culture and links it to memory studies and theories of politics and aesthetics. Majsova is the co-editor of Interval, a theoretical section of Ekran magazine, and an occasional film critic. In 2021, Lexington Books published her second academic book on film, utopias, and space, ‘Soviet SF Cinema and the Space Age: Memorable Futures’.
SARA BEZOVŠEK
intermedia artist
Sara Bezovšek is an intermedia artist working across internet art, experimental cinema, and graphic design. Her artistic practice is characterised by the reappropriation of online and pop culture material. Using a dense visual language of references, she touches on the collective imagination and constructs narratives that are both a critique and a celebration of the highly saturated online media landscapes through which we navigate daily. For her film www.s-n-d.si, Bezovšek received the Grand Prix at the 2021 FeKK festival and the Vesna Award for Best Experimental Film at the 2022 Festival of Slovenian Film. In 2024, she received a special mention at the latter festival for her film The Future… Is Just Like You Imagined. She regularly presents her work at local and international exhibitions and festivals.
NIKOLA MAJDAK
/ cinematographer, animator, and film director
Nikola Majdak Jr. (1972, Ljubljana) has worked as a cinematographer, animator, film director, lecturer, and animation workshops supervisor for 30 years, after graduating in film and TV camera from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. He has shot more than 50 documentaries, short films, music videos, and animations, and has collaborated with TV outlets such as BBC, ARTE, MTV, HRT, TF1 and others. Together with Ana Nedeljković, he has created award-winning animated films Rabbitland (2013), Untravel (2018), and Money and Happiness (2022). They are currently developing a feature-length animated film, New Rabbitland. Majdak teaches at the Faculty of Digital Arts in Belgrade.
SLAVKO HREN
film director and screenwriter
Slavko Hren (1959) graduated in film and television directing. He spent his youth and early education, including his first encounters with photography, cinema, and theatre, in Koper. After completing his studies at the Ljubljana film school AGRFT, he decided to go freelance and spent more than 33 years working on Slovenian films, and to a lesser extent foreign co-productions, as a screenwriter and director for national television, in puppet theatre and in the wider cultural landscape (state celebrations, public events, special-purpose films). In 2016, he took up permanent employment at the national broadcaster RTV Slovenija. He is recognised by professionals as the most prolific director in the history of Slovenian television, and a screenwriter and director with the most extensive archival legacy.
Association of Slovenian Film Critics Award
The Fipresci Association of Slovenian Film Critics presents its award for best Slovenian feature film in the Official Competition of the Festival of Slovenian Film Portorož with the aim of increasing the visibility of cinema, particularly up-and-coming (young) talent.
Jury for the Association of Slovenian Film Critics Award
Tina Bernik graduated in classics and Slovenian language and literature from the University of Ljubljana. She works as a correspondent from Zagreb for the Slovenian Press Agency (STA), covering various topics associated with the Western Balkans, and as a journalist for the newspaper Dnevnik, specialising in cinema and television. Previously, she worked as a freelance film critic and journalist for Ekran magazine, where she was also a member of the editorial board, and as a journalist for the weekly magazine Vklop, where she covered film and television topics, including international film festivals.
Vanja Gajić is a translator and film critic. She began writing about cinema at Mad About Film workshops and continued on the ‘Koridor – križišča umetnosti’ platform, where she was also co-editor of the film and television section in 2023. In 2022, she joined the cultural desk at Radio Študent, where she still works as a journalist and editor of the film programme ‘Temna zvezda’. She also contributes to the magazines Ekran and KINO! and writes film reviews for Radio Ars. Gajić is the catalogue editor and host at the FeKK festival, host at the Liffe and FDF festivals, and programmer of the student programme at Animateka. In 2024, she was selected to be the Slovenian ambassador for the 2025 LUX Audience Award.
Slovenian Art Cinema Association Award
The award presented by AKMS, an association that brings together arthouse film exhibitors, supports the screening and promotion of the award-winning feature film in 28 cinemas across Slovenia. The jurors for the 2025 award are: Blaž Cotman (Mestni kino Domžale), Armand Meterc (Javni zavod KRC Hrastnik) and Erik Toth (Art kino Odeon Izola).
Blaž Cotman graduated in philosophy and works as a coordinator and organiser of cultural programmes at the Domžale City Cinema, which is part of the Franc Bernik Cultural Centre in Domžale. Cotman occasionally hosts discussions about films and participates in film education for younger audiences. He previously served as the editor of the film section on the online cultural platform ‘Koridor – križišča umetnosti’. Art, especially cinema, also intrigues him from a critical and philosophical point of view. He is known for his pluralism of interests ranging from ‘high’ (art) to ‘low’ (pop) culture.
Armand Meterc works at the Hrastnik Culture and Sports Centre as a projectionist and film programmer. He is expanding his professional knowledge in the field of video and visual content as a part-time student of media production, while pursuing photography in his free time, which gives him a broader and deeper insight into visual storytelling. In 2022, Meterc was a jury member for the Art Cinema Association Award at the 33rd LIFFe International Film Festival. He is also part the organisational team of the Kamerat Labour Film Festival, where, as the technical, logistic, and operational head, he is responsible for the festival running smoothly. As part of the festival, he also serves as the secretary of the jury for the Kamerat international photography competition on the theme of labour.
Erik Toth is the long-standing head of programme at the Art Cinema Odeon in Izola and coordinator and organiser of cultural events at the Izola Centre for Culture, Sport, and Events. Aiming is to bring culture, especially cinema, closer to the wider audience in Izola and the coastal region, he has started three film education projects: for kindergartens, primary schools, and students; and co-founded the IZOLA SHORT short film festival. Toth steadily strives to emphasise the importance of the coexistence of two cultures in the bilingual coastal area through various film programmes, discussions, and other events which take place in collaboration with the Italian community. And if it’s not already obvious – he loves cinema.