Image Credits: (Top, L-R) Heather Haynes, Mohamed Saïd Ouma, Havana Marking, Liselot Verbugge, Kristine Barford. (Middle, L-R) Diego Pino Anguita, Andy Mundy-Castle, Lindsay Poulton, Moustapha Sawadogo, Joan Parsons. (Bottom Row L-R) Toni Kamau, Mariia Tsypiashchuk, Abby Sun, John O'Shea, Zinha Morgan-Bennett.
We are excited to announce our Jury Members for this years’ International Competition, International First Feature Competition, International Short Film Competition, the Tim Hetherington Award, the International Alternate Realities Competition, alongside our previously announced members of the Youth Jury. Winners will be revealed during the Festival’s Awards Ceremony at Crucible Playhouse on 16 June. Join us at our 31th edition of the festival in Sheffield, 12-11 June 2024.
- 2024 Jury Members announced including renowned filmmakers Any Mundy-Castle, Havana Marking and Toni Kamau
International Competition Jury
The Jury members for the International Competition are: Heather Haynes (Hot Docs, Director of Festival Programming), Mohamed Saïd Ouma (DocA-Documentary Africa Executive Director), and award-winning filmmaker Havana Marking.
The eight films in the International Competition are up for the Grand Jury Award which honours films that display strong artistic vision and courageous storytelling. This Award is Academy Award® accredited.
Heather Haynes - Director of Festival Programming at Hot Docs, Haynes has been with Hot Docs for
close to two decades as the former Associate Director of Festival Programming and a Senior
International Programmer . She has spent over a decade working in Mexico, Central and South America
and travels internationally to work with filmmakers on the ground for work in progress sessions, labs and juries. She has served as a recommender for Chicken + Egg Pictures’ (Egg)celerator Labs, Doc
Society’s Climate Story Lab and Good Pitch. She has programmed for the Human Rights Watch Film
Festival, was an international programmer at imagineNATIVE, and a guest programmer for AluCine. She
has produced three award winning documentaries and recently produced a performance film based on
James Luna’s ISHI directed by Dana Claxton.
Mohamed Saïd Ouma - is a renowned filmmaker, cultural operator and executive director of DocA-
Documentary Africa who is also engaged in "The African Heritage Project", a program which aims to restore fifty African films of historical, cultural and artistic significance. He has cut his professional teeth as a festival manager for the International Film Festival of Africa and the Islands (FIFAI) from 2004 to 2015 where he managed to coordinate support for the festival from the Municipality of Le Port- Reunion Islands and the national film governing body (CNC). His latest film, Red Card premiered at IDFA 2020.
Havana Marking - Marking has been lucky enough to move between the mainstream TV industry and
feature doc arthouse throughout her career. Her first shorts, animations explaining the theory of relativity won a Pirellii science Award, while her first doc film, The Crippendales, was made having won the C4 Sheffield DocFest pitch in 2007. Determined to move into the cinema space, she teamed up with Roast Beef Films directing the feature Afghan Star (Brit Doc and More 4), winning the Audience and Directors Award at Sundance 2009, The Prix Italia and the Greirson. While part of the Roast Beef team, Havana helped develop, executive produce or direct films that garnered one Academy Award Nomination, seven Sundance Awards, and four EMMYs. Smash & Grab: The Story of the Pink Panthers had a US cinema release, was optioned first by Danny Boyle and is now being developed into a multi-episode drama for a streamer. For 3 years to 2021, Havana was Senior/Executive Producer at Nutopia. She worked to create premium, original series for the global market, always with cutting edge technology and stunning visuals. Today she is now back to doing what she loves most: making feature docs for cinema.
International First Feature Competition Jury
The International First Feature Competition jury members are: Liselot Verbugge (CEO, Film Harbour), Kirstine Barfod (Nordland Pictures founder), Diego Pino Anguita (Executive Director of the Chilean
Documentary Corporation).
The International First Feature Competition honours the future of non-fiction film, celebrates promising talent and is supported by Netflix.
Liselot Verbugge - is CEO of Dutch world sales outfit Film Harbour. Verbugge has a degree in film
production from the Dutch Film Academy, with more than 15 years experience in the audiovisual sector, first working for a few years in production before moving to film festivals. Amongst other postings, she was a festival and market producer at the IDFA Forum and Cinekid for professionals, two of The Netherland’s most preeminent cultural events. In 2013 she began working in documentary sales,
working for several companies. After five years with Deckert Distribution, Liselot launched Film Harbour in 2024, an Amsterdam based world sales for creative docs. The Film Harbour catalogue features modern classics such as the double Academy Award nominee Honeyland, as well as recent hits like Against the Tide and Close to Vermeer.
Kirstine Barfod - the Danish film producer and the founder of Nordland Pictures, established in 2022 is based in New York. She is an Oscar-nominated and Emmy and Peabody Award-winning producer and executive producer of documentary feature films and series. Best known for Black Snow (CPH:DOX), The Cave (TIFF), and Reunited (Hot Docs), Kirstine has made significant contributions to the film industry with her compelling and socially impactful documentaries.
Diego Pino Anguita - Producer and filmmaker, Executive Director of Chiledoc, an organisation created to promote Chilean documentaries in Chile and abroad. With his production company, CangrejoFilms and the MAFI Collective have been working on documentary films for the last 15 years. His films have been selected in important international markets and festivals such as Berlinale, Visions du Réel, Dok Leipzig, Karlovy Vary Film Festival, BAFICI, among others.
International Short Film Competition Jury
The International Short Film Competition jury members are: Andy Mundy-Castle (founder of Doc Hearts), Lindsay Poulton (Head of Documentaries at The Guardian), and Moustapha Sawadogo (Head of the Yennenga Workshops at the Pan-African Film Festival of Ouagadougou – FESPACO).
The nine films in the International Short Film Competition are up for the Grand Jury Award which honours the best creative approach to documentary under 40 minutes. This section is Academy Award®, BAFTA and BIFA accredited.
Andy Mundy-Castle - the BAFTA & RTS winning producer, director and founder of Doc Hearts. A creative leader with a passion for factual storytelling with extensive experience in television, film, and digital content, Andy has carved a speciality in producing high quality compelling narratives that resonate with diverse global audiences. Known for White Nanny, Black Child, The Fade, Handle With Care, Untold Stories and Everybody’s Game Mundy-Castle has produced films for leading streamers, broadcasters and brands including Nike, Footlocker, Barclays, JP Morgan and Canon reflecting a deep commitment to exploring complex themes and social issues. Mundy-Castle has also won a Commonwealth Broadcast Award and is the first documentary filmmaker to win the African Film Festival Jury prize, considered the African Oscars.
Lindsay Poulton - is Head of Documentaries at The Guardian where she commissions and curates the Guardian’s documentary strand including the Oscar-winning Colette and BAFTA-winning The Black Cop. Before commissioning, Lindsay worked as a filmmaker and journalist for more than 15 years. Her broad portfolio demonstrates her wide interests, from investigations to innovative creative documentaries, from Bangladesh to Birmingham. Her work has been recognised with numerous awards and shown at The White House as well as festivals around the world including Sheffield DocFest, Sundance, Tribeca, and IDFA.
Moustapha Sawadogo - a graduate of the EAVE program (European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs), Moustapha Sawadogo is a producer based in Burkina Faso (West Africa). Since 2021, he is Head of the Yennenga Workshops (Academy and Postproduction) at the Pan-African Film Festival of Ouagadougou – FESPACO. He is also a member of the selection committee for festivals and institutions.
Tim Hetherington Award Jury
Jurors for the Tim Hetherington Award are: Joan Parsons (Head of Culture and Arts for Queen’s University Belfast), award-winning producer Toni Kamau and founder of the Kenyan based “We Are Not the Machine”, and Mariia Tsypiashchuk (Ukrainian attorney-at-law, partnerships manager of the Ukraine War Archive).
Five documentaries will be considered for the Tim Hetherington Award which recognises a film and filmmaker that best reflects the legacy of photojournalist and filmmaker Tim Hetherington and is presented in association with Dogwoof.
Joan Parsons - as Head of Culture and Arts for Queen’s University Belfast, Joan leads Queen’s Film Theatre, Naughton Gallery and Film Hub NI teams while developing wider cultural projects and engagement plans. Joan has successfully delivered financial and cultural excellence and has organised and delivered significant UK-wide partnership projects. Joan has been a passionate supporter of documentary and the theatrical documentary experience for many years.
Toni Kamau - is the 2024 Sundance Amazon MGM non fiction producing prize winner, as well as a News Emmy and Peabody-nominated producer and founder of the Kenyan based “We Are Not the Machine” - which tells stories of African outsiders, rebels and changemakers for global audiences. Past commissioned and service produced content has aired on Bloomberg, VOA, ARTE Digital, BBC World and Al Jazeera. Recent independent feature producing credits include Softie (Sundance 2020), I Am Samuel (Hot Docs 2020) and The Battle for Laikipia, (Sundance 2024). Toni is currently in development and production on a diverse slate of factual and scripted projects, collaborating with filmmakers from across the world.
Mariia Tsypiashchuk - a Ukrainian attorney-at-law, Tsypiashchuk is partnerships manager of the Ukraine War Archive (UWA), co-founded in March 2022 by the joint team of the NGO Docudays (Ukraine) and Infoscope (Great Britain). Mariia has worked with the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union since July 2014 as a coordinator and a lawyer at the Rivne public advice centre (Western Ukraine). She is also a leader and moderator of the Docudays - DOCU/CLUB in Rivne since 2015.
International Virtual Reality Competition Jury
Jurors for the Virtual Reality Award which honours the best virtual reality non-fiction work are: Abby Sun (International Documentary Association's Director of Artist Programs), John O’Shea (Creative Director of the National Videogame Museum), and director and programmer Zinha Morgan-Bennett.
Abby Sun - is IDA's Director of Artist Programs and Editor of Documentary magazine. Before joining IDA, Abby was the Curator of the DocYard and co-curated My Sight is Lined with Visions: 1990s Asian American Film & Video with Keisha Knight. As a graduate student researcher in the MIT Open Documentary Lab, Abby edited Immerse. Abby has served on festival juries for Hot Docs, Dokufest, Palm Springs, New Orleans, and CAAMfest, as well as nominating committees for the Gotham Awards and Cinema Eye. She has reviewed projects for IDFA Forum, BGDM, NEA, SFFILM, LEF Foundation, Princess Grace Foundation, the Boston Foundation, Sundance Catalyst, and spoken on and facilitated panels at Locarno, IFFR, TIFF, NYFF, EFM, and other film festivals.
John O’Shea - is Creative Director of the National Videogame Museum (NVM) and co-CEO of the BGI Charity, whose mission is to transform lives with games. Over the past decade John has led cultural programming, commissioning and research partnerships for major national galleries & museums including creative direction for the inaugural season of the new Science Gallery at King’s College London. Specialising in digital and interactive media experiences, he is currently an advisor to ACMI (Australian Centre for Moving Image, Melbourne, Australia). John heads-up ambitious new collections, exhibitions & learning activity at the NVM, and leads on National Museums Accreditation, creative vision and research strands. He works with co-CEO Cat Powell on Future Strategy and Partnerships for the museum and Charity.
Zinha Morgan-Bennett - is a native New Yorker living in London. Zinha first discovered her love of documentaries through her undergraduate studies in Anthropology and Black studies, and she has since embarked on a career as a director and programmer interested in stories surrounding race, reproduction and apocalypse in both nonfiction and fiction narratives. She is a graduate of Goldsmiths University's Documentary Masters, a 2020 Marshall Scholar, and currently in residence at Birmingham Open Media.
Youth Jury
This award is presented by five of the UK’s most passionate young documentary lovers to celebrate non-fiction cinema. The Youth Jury was previously announced as Luke Dobson, Rose Grover, Arabella Ladiero, Mikey Pugh, and Sakura Singh Corke who have curated a selection of six films that will be considered for the Youth Jury Award. Previous announcement here.
Audience Award
The Sheffield DocFest audience have the opportunity to cast their vote at cinemas and venues for their favourite films and works - every feature film in the programme is eligible for the Film Audience Award.
Explore the full Sheffield DocFest 2024 programme and make the most of your time at the festival with the ticket and passes we have on offer this year.
Sheffield DocFest is made possible thanks to the support of our partners, funders and sponsors, including Principal Funders BFI, Sheffield City Council and Arts Council England.
