The 51st Chicago International Film Festival announced its Competition Juries, with Director/Producer/Writer Andrew Davis serving as President of this year’s International Features Competition Jury. Davis directed the Academy Award®-nominated box-office hit The Fugitive (1993), Under Siege (1992), Collateral Damage (2002), Holes (2003), and The Guardian (2006). The Golden Globe®-nominated director was raised in Chicago and graduated from the University of Illinois.
The International Features Competition Jury includes Iván Trujillo, Director General of the Guadalajara International Film Festival; Writer/Director Laura Astorga whose film Red Princess (2013) was Costa Rica’s official selection for the 87th Academy Awards; Actor/Director Nawaf Al-Janahi (The Circle, Sea Shadow); and Actor/Producer Jossie Harris, who was awarded the Best Supporting Actress award at the 45th Chicago International Film Festival for her role in Mississippi Damned. The Jury will present the Gold Hugo to the best of the 16 films in competition from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, Chile, Croatia, France, Israel, Iran, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, UK, and Uruguay.
The Festival’s New Directors Competition Jury consists of Matt Fagerholm (Film Critic & Assistant Editor at Ebert Publishing), Claudia Landsberger (Senior Partner at BaseWorx for Film), and Diego Lerer (Film Critic, Acting President of FIPRESCI Argentina, the film critics’association).
The Festival’s Documentary Competition Jury includes Eric Hynes (Columnist for Film Comment), Michelle Puetz (Curator of Media Arts at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art), and J.P. Sniadecki (director of the award-winning film The Iron Ministry).
The 51st Chicago International Film Festival’s OUT-Look/Q Hugo Award Jury features Mihai Chirilov* (Film Critic, Director of Transylvania International Film Festival), Richard Knight, Jr. (Film Critic, Founder of the Queer Film Society and Programming Director for the Reeling Film Festival), and John Russell Taylor (critic and author whose books include “Hitch: The Life and Times of Alfred Hitchcock” and “Strangers in Paradise: The Hollywood Emigrés, 1933-1950”).