Selection Committee International Competition
   
Ines Seifert - Following the completion of her studies in English, American and German literature at the Technical University Dresden, Ines Seifert worked from 1999 to 2005 as a festival assistant and programme coordinator at Filmfest Dresden. Parallel to this she was responsible as production manager for the Film Nights on the Banks of the Elbe events in 2001 and 2002. These positions have been followed by regular freelance assignments at the German Institute for Animated Film (DIAF), the German Short Film Association, Filmfest Dresden and most recently for the export body German Films. Her responsibilities here have included especially the presentation and organisation of film series and exhibitions as well as editorial and press related tasks. In addition since August 2009, Ines Seifert has worked as a production assistant at the animated film company Balance Film GmbH.
     

 
Stephan Raack - was born in 1975 in Lauchhammer, Brandenburg. Already during his school time, he took his first cinematic steps with a self-created home cinema and his first photo film "Möpschen hat Zahnschmerzen"/Puggle Has Toothache. The film "Concorde Affaire"/Concorde Affair (1979), which was screened in the Rundkino cinema in Dresden, gave him his first serious contact with the cinema virus. Finally his encounter with the owner of the "Casablanca" arthouse cinema "infected" him completely with the result that he became a permanent feature there as an employee. Since 2004 Stephan Raack has been the owner and operator of his own "THALIA – Cinema. Coffee and Cigarettes" monoplex as he calls it in Dresden's Neustadt. And since 2006 he has been a integral element of the viewing and selection committee at Filmfest Dresden.
     
 
Sven Voigt - was born and grew up in Freiburg, Breisgau. He has his first chance encounter with author films at the end of the 1980s with the late nights screenings on the public TV broadcaster Südwestfunk. Soon after he initiated a series of rather unsuccessful film evenings as part of a school cinema project. He studied history as well as media and communication sciences in Leipzig and Rennes, went to the cinema now and then and completed several film seminar assignments. Then however "The Big Sleep" by Howard Hawks triggered off a fierce and enduring passion in him for good films in general and Lauren Bacall in particular. After realising that Dresden lacked a video store or library with Lauren Bacall films in it (or in which anyone would even know how to spell Howard Hawks), in 2006 the Programmvideothek Filmgalerie Phase IV video rental store was established. Since 2008 he has been a member of the Filmfest Dresden viewing and selection committee.
     
 
Andrej Krabbe - is fascinated by the short film medium with its innovative and at times subversive approach, and he is completely blown away by the endless possibilities offered by animated film. Born in 1964 in Moscow, he was a co-founder of Filmfest Dresden, playing an important role in establishing it. He has been a member of the festival's viewing and selection committee for many years. Since 1997 he has been a manager at the advertising and design agency sub Design GmbH. He is a co-publisher of the cinema listing calendar Dresdner Kinokalender and a board member of Filminitiative Dresden e. V. which organises Filmfest Dresden as well as of Filmverband Sachsen e. V, the Saxony Film Association.
     
 

Johannes Vittinghoff - was born in 1953 in Mühlheim an der Ruhr in North Rhine-Westphalia. A business graduate, he first studied German literature, the social sciences, philosophy and business administration, before passing his state exams as a secondary school teacher. Since 1993 he has been a member of Filminitiative Dresden e.V., the association which organises Filmfest Dresden. In 1995 he assumed the role of second chairman in the association and has remained in this position ever since. Furthermore Johannes Vittinghoff is the managing director and co-organiser of the Film Nights on the Banks of the Elbe events and has been a long-time member of the Filmfest Dresden viewing and selection committee.
     

Selection Committee National Competition

    
Annegret Richter - Since May 2009 Annegret Richter has been the Festival Director of Filmfest Dresden, the international short film festival. She was born in 1975 in Oberlausitz in the former East Germany. Following a one year residence period in New York, she commenced her communications and media studies in Leipzig and the USA. The film analysis seminars she attended in the USA especially played a formative role in her further professional career. Following her studies in 2002, she remained at the institute in Leipzig as a research assistant and gave seminars on film and television in the media studies field. In addition to her work as a film editor for radio stations and in the print media, from 2001 she held various positions at the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film. In 2008 she curated the Animadok-Film animated documentary special programme there. Animated documentary film was also the subject of her thesis.
     

 
Bärbel Haage - was born in 1975 in Erfurt, Thuringia. Following her studies at the Theatre Faculty in the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (DAMU), since 1997 she has worked as a freelance stage designer, sculptor, illustrator and maker of animated films. Following her appointment as a Lecturer in Figure Design at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), from 2003 to 2005 she was head of the puppet theatre studio at the theater junge generation in Dresden. Since 1998 she has produced a consistent output of sketches, writings, drawings and illustrations for a wide range of publications ("Das Wespenbuch"/The Wasp Book, "Ich bin der Wald"/I Am the Wood, "Ich bin nicht lustig"/I'm Not Funny). In 2007 she received the Budapest Short Film Festival Award for her animated film "Goats First".
     

 
Frank Pawella - was born in 1971 in Gotha, Thuringia. Following his apprenticeship and work as a carpenter and organ builder, he completed his studies in art history, economic and social history as well as philosophy at the Technical University Dresden. Since 2005 he has been a research assistant at the university's Art and Music Studies Institute, focusing on modern art. He has released numerous publications, talks and research work on the subject of film music, adaptations and the iconography of pop stars in feature films as well as in propaganda films during the Nazi period.
     
 
Simone Lade - was born in 1973 in Aue, Saxony. However already by the mid 1990s she was drawn from the Ore Mountains region where she lived to Dresden, the capital of Saxony. Here she initially worked as a restaurant manager. From 2002 she worked for the PAN Veranstaltungslogistik und Kulturgastronomie GmbH Dresden event and catering company at the Film Nights on the Banks of the Elbe events. This was followed by several years with the German Short Film Association and various freelance positions such as for instance as a curator for Filmfest Dresden and the Dresden State Art Collections. Since 2006 Simone Lade has been a member of the film viewing and selection committee at Filmfest Dresden, while since 2007 she has worked as a freelance culture and event manager.
     
 
Jörg Polenz - Not only is Jörg Polenz a natural born Dresdener, he was also one of the "founding fathers" of Filmfest Dresden. Following his technical college culture studies, already in 1988 with the establishment of Filmfest Dresden and as a member of Filminitiative Dresden e.V. – the non-profit organisation that arranges the festival – he laid the foundation stone so-to-speak for Europe's most endowed short film festival. The activities he undertook here in the areas of film production and distribution as well as for the various cinema events led him one year later to become a co-founder of the Film Nights on the Banks of the Elbe event, which he has prepared and co-organised up to the present day. In addition since the mid 1990s he has been involved in various gastronomic facilities and in co-responsible for founding the Palais Sommer events in Dresden.