Nadav Lapid’s work always raised questions, but who are the other international panelists on IFFI Jury 2022?

Displaying the political stand that his movies are known to take, Lapid at the closing ceremony of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Goa, on Monday evening called Vivek Agnihotri-directed The Kashmir Files (2022) a “propaganda, vulgar movie”. The Israeli filmmaker was the jury chairman of the International Competition section, which featured 15 films including The Kashmir Files. Presenting his jury report, Lapid said: “I feel totally comfortable to share openly these feelings here with you on stage since the spirit that we felt in the festival can surely accept a critical discussion which is essential for art and life.”

Considered to be a prominent screenwriter and director, Lapid’s decade-long career is defined by his scathing socio-political commentary which often comes from a deep personal and emotional space. Designed as a film within a film, Ahed’s Knee opens with a casting call for the part of Ahed Tamimi, the young Palestinian protester who made headlines in 2017 after she slapped an Israeli soldier. Those auditioning for her role were asked to enact a scene in which a general retaliates by breaking the character’s knee. This fictional scene is inspired by Israeli politician Bezalel Smotrich’s tweet that young protesters should have “gotten a bullet, at least in the kneecap”.

Through Ahed’s Knee, Lapid questions his complicated relationship with his birth country; he has now moved to Paris. Though this is something he has done earlier too, in his movies such as Synonyms (2019), in Ahed’s Knee the director-writer makes his anger and frustrations against the Israeli state evident. Based on Lapid’s own experiences, Synonyms is about a young Israeli moving to Paris to start a new life and trying to escape his identity. The protagonist refuses to speak Hebrew and harbours complex feelings for his country whose politics he finds disagreeable. Synonyms was the winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2019 and the FIPRESCI Award (Competition).

Son of writer Haim Lapid and film editor Era Lapid, the filmmaker was born in Tel-Aviv in 1975. Lapid studied philosophy in Tel-Aviv University, and literature in Paris. He worked as a cinematographer in several documentaries in Israel. Graduated in 2006 from the Sam Spiegel Film School, Jerusalem. He made his directorial debut with the feature film Policeman (2011), which won the special jury prize at the Locarno International Film Festival in 2011.

He shares an old connection with the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Goa, as Sarit Larry, the lead actress of his second feature, The Kindergarten Teacher (2014), who was given the Best Actor Award (Female) at the festival. This film also featured in the 2014 Cannes Film Festival’s International Critics’ Week. Later, Lapid was chosen as a member of the International Critics’ Week’s jury in 2016.

Lapid is acutely aware of the role of art when it comes to taking a stand. He also believes in telling stories that have “a universal truth”. That makes him and his work relevant. When approached on the Cannes’ red carpet, Nur Fibak, who essays the role of Yahalom in Ahed’s Knee, talks about the clarity Lapid has about his characters and story. Fibak says: “He is someone you can trust with your eyes closed.”

Here’s a look at the other jury members who are powerhouses in their own fields:

Jinko Gotoh

Film Producer, United States

Award-winning producer and consultant for the animation sector, Jinko Gotoh lays a lot of emphasis on visual storytelling. Her areas of expertise include identifying new voices, developing creative talent and exploring new technologies. Gotoh served as Director, Digital Production, at Walt Disney Feature Animation, where she oversaw the studio’s inevitable transition to CGI animation and its extensive use in films such as Dinosaur (2000) and Fantasia 2000 (2000).

Gotoh was born in Japan and developed a passion for animation at a young age as a result of two life-changing encounters: watching Disney’s 1955 musical, Lady and the Tramp and having an unforgettable encounter with Astro Boy creator Osamu Tezuka.

The BAFTA winner, who has worked in the animation industry for more than 25 years, started her career as the CGI producer for Space Jam (1996). She went on to work for Walt Disney Feature Animation as the director of digital production. She had a key role in the development of The Secret Lab, the company’s now-defunct VFX division, and was one of the driving factors behind its switch to CGI animation.

Gotoh is currently producing the computer-animated fantasy, Escape from Hat for Netflix, based on the children’s book of the same name by Adam Kline. Her other producing screen credits include the Oscar-winning Finding Nemo (2003), Oscar-nominated The Illusionist (2006), 9 (2009), The Little Prince (2015), The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019), and the Oscar-nominated, Klaus (2019).

Besides being vice president with the NGO Women in Architecture, Gotoh is also a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where she serves on different committees as a representative of diversity and inclusion. She is also a founder member of the board of Symphonic Jazz Orchestra, which offers music instruction to impoverished communities.

Javier Angulo Barturen

Documentary Filmmaker, Film Critic and Journalist, France

Spain-born Javier Angulo Barturen, 73, is co-director of award-winning documentaries, The Loss (2006), which won the top prize at the Habana Film Festival, and Helios’ Suitcase (2019), which had its world premiere at the Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival in Spain.

He was appointed the artistic director of the Valladolid International Film Festival (in 2008) popularly known as Seminci, one of Spain’s major international film festivals that honours auteurs and independent filmmakers. The highest institutional prize of the Community of Castilla y León, the Castilla y León Award for the Arts, was given to Seminci in 2016.

But he’s known for his journalistic acumen as well. Not only has he served as the Basque Country representative, director of the Political/Spain section and the Sunday Supplement editor at El Pais, which was founded in 1976, but he has been mentoring journalism students at the University of Valladolid.

Barturen started the cinematographic information magazine Cinemana in 1995, serving as its director until 2006. He attended various international film festivals during that period, some of which invited him to serve on their international juries.

Barturen has taken part in the Unifrance-organised European Meetings with French Cinema since the end of the 1990s, where all of the most recent films from France that are now accessible for festivals and the market are screened. He has been a member of the European Film Academy since 2006, voting in the organisation’s annual awards each year, and frequently attending public meetings in Berlin where the development of European cinema is discussed.

He frequently contributes to the Zeta group’s El Dominical supplement and the SER chain’s Hoy por Hoy show on film-related topics. Additionally, he has worked with the Malaga Festival, the first Spanish film and fiction festival for television which began in 2007.

Pascale Chavance

Film Editor, France

Pascale Chavance has worked on a number of critically acclaimed movies, such as Catherine Breillat’s Fat Girl (2001) and Sex is Comedy (2002), among others. Her films have been screened globally at numerous film festivals and received honours at Cannes, Berlin, Rotterdam, and Venice, among others. As an editor, Chavance is forceful and distinctive, and adds a natural freshness to films. She is known to take chances in her editorial decisions, especially in films which have sensitive content, enriching the art form in the process.

(Inputs by Aditya Vaddepalli)