Jury
Fiction
Yorgos Karamihos
Actor, Director and Acting Teacher - Greece
Yorgos Karamihos is an acclaimed actor, director and acting teacher, born and raised in Northern Greece. He has graduated from the Ionian University with a degree in Philosophy & History, as well as from The Greek National Theatre Academy. In 2012 he received a Fulbright Scholarship as an exceptional artist to attend the full time program at the Stella Adler Academy in Los Angeles, where he was immediately offered to teach his own acting technique applied on Ancient Greek drama and A. Chekhov as well as theatre history. His credits as actor include over thirty theatre productions from ancient Greek dramas and Shakespeare to Anton Chekhov, Tennessee Williams and other classical and modern plays. He has also appeared in more than thirty feature films and numerous TV series such as The Durrells in Corfu, Bulletproof, Genius-Picasso among others. Karamihos has also directed multiple theatre plays in several major venues in Greece and the USA. In 2008 he received the national award as Best Stage Actor of Greece. He has translated plays and books from English, French and Spanish into Greek and has published several theatre plays. He is also known for supporting charitable organizations such as Therapeutic Riding Association of Greece, The Smile Of The Child, Animal Welfare Organizations etc.
Paola Starakis
Translating scripts and dialogues - Head of the Short Film Department at the Greek Film Centre (1999-2012) - Greece, France
After starting her career as an archaeologist, Paola Starakis joined the Greek Ministry of Culture in 1984 and worked in Melina Mercouri's office. In 1986, she joined the Greek Film Centre and specialised in translating scripts and dialogues of Greek films (including among others the films by Theo Angelopoulos from “The Beekeeper” to his last, unfortunately unfinished, opus, “The Other Sea”). From 1999, she was head of the Short Film Department at the Greek Film Centre, which she left in 2012, but she remains passionate about the short film format and continues her work as a translator.
Antonios Vallindras
Director - Greece
Antonios Vallindras was born in Athens and raised in various cities both in Greece and abroad. He studied economics in Athens and has worked as an Account Executive for Ogilvy Greece. In 2014, he decided to change careers and focus on filmmaking. He holds an MA in Directing Film and Television from Bournemouth University and has directed four short films. His film The Life of a Sober Man (2016) was nominated in the UK for the RTS Student Television Award. He has worked on numerous projects as a director and producer and as assistant director and co-producer in the film Amerika Square (dir. Yannis Sakaridis). He took part in the START – Create Cultural Change program of the Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki and is a co-founding member of the Ladies’ Fingers directing duo. His latest film, White Christmas 1948 (2022), received funding from the Greek Film Center and the Microfilm program ran by the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation. He has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by Artworks (2022). Currently he is working on his new short film, Kiatochella.