Gal Zigmond
Gal Cohen is the President of the Jury for this year's edition of the Festival. She is the writer and director of the award-winning film Deja Vu, which earned the prestigious Early Bird 2023 Grand Award. The jury awarded this film for its powerful direction, which draws the audience into a pivotal moment in a mother's life. Through empathetic storytelling and emotional performances, the film delivers a moving portrayal of her experience, enhanced by the thoughtful use of camera movement to convey the depth of her journey.
After her military service, where she served in the filming unit as a film producer, Gal Cohen studied at the Kibbutzim College in the department of cinema and communication. During her studies, she specialized as a director and screenwriter and made several short films. In addition, she participated in other student films as a producer. After her studies, shespecialized in post-production, and today is work at a commercial production company called “Carmi and Cohen as Post Manager department.
Adam Balazs
Adam Balazs is a Hungarian composer known for his extensive work in film and television. He gained acclaim for his score in the Oscar-winning short film Sing, which won 14 additional awards. His music significantly contributed to the acclaimed feature On Body and Soul, which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and received an Oscar nomination.
He also created the score for Seth Grossman’s Tribeca Film Festival winner “Shock Act” and “The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations” (Lionsgate), over a thousand episodes of Television including HBO Europe’s “Terápia” (In Treatment”) and “Umbre” (“Shadows”) and was responsible for the worldwide network identity of Cinemax and HBO for seven years. Mr. Balázs symphonic poem, “The Path of the Extraordinary” premiered at the Stern Auditorium of Carnegie Hall in 2006.
Mr. Balázs is a Lecturer of Digital Orchestration and Sound Recording, Logic and Studio Technique at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest since 2014 and is a Member of the European Film Academy since 2017.
Ema Konstantinova
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ema Konstantinova teaches film producing at the National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts “Kr.Sarafov” (NATFA) since 2018. Her professional interests focus primarily on documentary filmmaking. She takes different creative roles – of a director, writer, editor and producer.
Since 2004 she has been working on over 50 documentary films in one or more of the above-mentioned capacities, as well as on over 15 TV shows that span a wide variety of genres and topics (e.g. education, history, current affairs, music and entertainment). Ema also created numerous music, commercial and social campaign videos, as well as videos for multimedia projects.