NEW DIRECTORS CRITICS JURY
& LIVE DELIBERATION

VLAFF is pleased to host a live streamed deliberation in Spanish with three Latin American film critics to choose the winner of the New Directors Award.

Public deliberation, Sunday, Sept 15 at 11:00am (Vancouver time).
VLAFF Facebook Live

For a long time the method of how prizes are awarded in the arts has been a much debated topic. We hope that this exercise will contribute to a greater transparency in how prizes are awarded, as well as for the public to learn more about the work of film critics and to view the films in discussion from new perspectives.

Sergio Raúl López (MEXICO). He is a cultural journalist AND has directed the magazines Cine Toma and 24x Segundo Magazine. Sergio was a culture reporter for Reforma Newspaper and collaborated in El Financiero, the Mexican Culture Magazine of El Nacional, Caras, National Geographic in Spanish, Chilango, Hotbook, Transgresiones, Empire Magazine, De Largo Aliento, La dignified metaphor, Notimex and currently in La Day. He has been a jury at festivals, taught classes, workshops and conferences. Sergio is currently working on a couple of books about Amat Escalante, Busi Cortés and Rafael Rangel.

Alejandra Meneses Reyes (COLOMBIA) Philosopher from the Universidad del Rosario and Master of Arts with an emphasis in Cinematographic Studies from the University of Amsterdam. Film critic, curator and audience trainer. Interested in the construction of memories of violence, documented fiction and fictional documents.She has been part of the editorial committee of the Colombian film magazines Cero en Conducta and La nightmare de Nanook and has been a collaborator in several publications on cinema in Colombia and Latin America: Arcadia, Diario Criterio, Canaguaro, Cuadernos de Cine Colombiano, La Rabia, Desistfilm . Alejandra has participated in the curatorial committees of the Mirrors section of the Bogotá International Exhibition-MIDBO 21 and of feature films at the Cartagena de Indias International Film Festival-FICCI 63. Alejandra has taught communication, cultural cartographies, and in theoretical-practical laboratories of the cinema of the real. Alejandra is currently part of the Audience and Training team at the Cinemateca de Bogotá.

Thomas Stiegwardt (ARGENTINA) Filmmaker, screenwriter, essayist and academic at the University of Palermo where he teaches scriptwriting and filmmaking. Winner of the Eliseo Subiela, Ibermedia, UP and National Arts Fund scholarships. With more than 30 awards in writing and direction for his short films La Leyenda del Camino del Carancho and his animation project Diablillos Estelares, he has been invited by Dreamworks Animation Studios, L.A., USA, UNIACC University of Chile and the Creative Talent Network, L.A. USA to speak and share their projects. Thomas writes about creativity and education in various countries and is invited to give talks at Columbia College in Chicago and the Illinois University at Urbana-Champaign (USA).His formal education has been at the National School of Fine Arts as a national professor, film and TV director at the Professional Film School and he has a Bachelor’s Degree in Design from the University of Palermo. Thomas currently resides in New York City, where he works and teaches filmmaking at NYFA (New York Film Academy).