The juries of the two International Competitions of the 11th Milano Film Festival consist of personalities from different sectors of the international and Italian cultural scene. The choice of the juries reflects the Milano Film Festival's disposition to become a meeting place for interaction between various cultural areas. The diversity of the juries' composition triggers a lively debate, in which the selection of the winning films will be the outcome of the convergence between different geographic, artistic and social knowledge and experience.


Feature Film Competition Jury

Danielle Arbid

Born in 1970, Danielle Arbid left Beirut when she was 17 and moved to France, where she studied literature and journalism. For five years she worked as a journalist, until she started to make films in 1998.
She is interested in different forms of narration, fiction, creative documentaries and video essays. Furthermore, Arbid loves to experiment with mixtures of film genres. She participated in the selection committee at the Centre National de Cinématographie and in the direction of "Né à Beyrouth", a festival dedicated to Lebanese films.
Selected for different festivals throughout the world, her films always receive great acceptance from the public and the critics. Among others, she has been awarded with the Golden Leopard in Locarno. Dans les champs de bataille, her first feature film, was presented at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in Cannes, in 2004 it won the Prix Europa and the Best Feature Film Award at the Milano Film Festival.

Filmography
Fiction short and medium-length films
Raddem / Démolition [1998 – S16mm, 17']
Le passeur [1999 – S16mm, 13']
Étrangère [2002 – 35mm, 46']
Documentaries
Seule avec la guerre [2000, Beta num. 60']
Aux frontières [2002, Beta num, 60']
Video essays
Conversation de Salon 1, 2 et 3 [2003/04, Beta num, 3x10’]
Nous / Nihna [2004, Beta num, 13’]
Fiction feature films
Dans les champs de bataille / Maarek Hob [2004 - 35mm, 1h30’]


Luca Rastello

Luca Rastello lives in Turin, where he was born in 1961. A journalist and a writer, he worked in the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Africa and South America. He operated in in the field of international cooperation and non-profit organisations for more than 10 years. Rastello collaborates as a correspondent for Diario, D and La Repubblica, among others. He is currently editor at the Osservatorio sui Balcani, and is a former editor of Narcomafie.
He published the book La guerra in casa (Einaudi, 1998) on the contradictions implicit in journalism and social works.
His last book, Piove all'insù (Bollati Boringhieri, 2006), is a mixture of today's working conditions and the memories of Italy in the 1970s: a portrait of the social upheaval and the strategy of tension.

Roberto Saviano

Born in 1979 in Naples, Roberto Saviano still lives and works there as a writer. Gomorra is Saviano's first book. Published by Mondadori in 2006, it was awarded with the Premio Viareggio as the Best First Work: a tart and biting novel in which the author describes the influence of the Camorra, its economic and financial power and its military force. The book presents a series of statements, myths and analyses collected by the author in the places where ambushes occurred, and in the shops and factories managed by criminal clans from Secondigliano to Aberdeen in Scotland, from Taiwan and Barcelona. Gomorra will soon be translated in the USA, France, Germany, England, The Netherlands, and Spain. His short stories and reports were published on Nuovi Argomenti, Lo Straniero and NazioneIndianda.com and collected in different anthologies, such as Best Off. Il meglio delle riviste letterarie italiane (Minimum fax, 2005) and Napoli comincia a Scampia (L'Ancora del mediterraneo, 2005).


Short Film Competition Jury

Les Inrockuptibles

Founded as a rock music monthly in 1986, Les Inrockuptibles soon became an influential guide on everything you should discover - "ceux qu'il fallait découvrir". Today, it also deals with the most interesting cultural news: with cinema, literature, contemporary art, television, music, as well as ideas, society and politics in general (their famous manifesto Appel contre la guerre contre l'intelligence was supported by many important cultural figures in France).
The editor and four collaborators will take part in the Milano Film Festival as members of the jury.

Philippe Azoury

Born in 1971, Philippe Azoury started out as a critic at Les Inrockuptibles in 1998. He has been writing principally for Libération since 1999. He wrote two books together with Jean Marc Lalanne: Fantomas, style moderne (Yellow Now, 2001) and Jean Cocteau, Désordres (Cahiers du cinéma, 2003). He also made a book with the photographer Antoine D'Agatta (Stigma, 2004). Azoury is now writing a monography on Philippe Garrel (forthcoming with the Cahiers du Cinéma in 2007).






Emily Barnett

Born in Paris in 1980. She is currently preparing her final thesis for the Paris 7 "Denis Diderot" university and writes as a journalist for the magazine Les Inrockuptibles. Barnett also shot a short film. She is the youngest jury member in Milano Film Festival history.

Patrice Blouin

Patrice Blouin is a film critic. After several years as a member of Les Cahiers du Cinéma, he is currently working for Les Inrockuptibles and ArtPress. He has co-directed a special issue of ArtPress: 'Le Burlesque, une aventure moderne', on slapstick movies and contemporary art. His texts have been published in various reviews and books (on Chaplin, Straub-Huillet, Pasolini).

Julien Gester

Movie critic at Les Inrockuptibles, Julien Gester has been contributing to various papers and magazines (especially to specialized press about Asian cinema) since 2002. He also founded and programmed several special events (cine-clubs, festivals…) dedicated to Japanese filmmaking.

Jean-Marc Lalanne

Jean-Marc Lalanne is chief editor of Les Inrockuptibles, after having worked as a journalist for Libération and as the chief editor of Les Cahiers du cinéma. He wrote three books, about Wong Kar-wai (with David Martinez, Dis Voir), Fantomas, style moderne (with Philippe Azoury, Yellow Now) and Jean Cocteau, Désordres (Cahiers du cinéma).