The Official Selection, running from the 22nd until the 29th of November, will have five members, headed by the Italian-US director and scriptwriter Andrea Pallaoro, whose film Hannah (2017) won two awards at Venice IFF last year, including the Best Actress award for Charlotte Rampling. He also attended Black Nights last year, presenting his film and taking part in the script development programme Script Pool. Lithuanian composer Martynas Bialobžeskis has written music for film for the last five years. His works include the soundtrack for the Estonian film The Manlsayer / The Virgin / The Shadow (2017) that brought him the Best Music awards in the Official Selection of last year’s Black Nights, and 100 Years Together, which is screening in the festival’s Baltic Competition programme this year.

Timo Salminen is a Finnish cinematographer who shot all of Aki Kaurismäki’s films and some made by his brother Mika Kaurismäki. He has received numerous awards during his career, including 5 Jussis (Finnish “Oscar”) and the Camerimage Director-Cinematographer award he won jointly with Aki Kaurismäki in 2004. His artistic work, consisting of more than 40 films,  includes titles such as Calamari Union (1985), Juha (1999), Le Havre (2011) and The Other Side of Hope (2017). Guðrún Ragnarsdóttir is an Icelandic director and screenwriter whose first feature film Summer Children featured in the First Feature Competition of Black Nights in 2017. Gilles De Schryver is a Belgian film and theatre actor, writer and producer whose performances include Come as You Are (2011), the Karlovy Vary audience award winning film that was also screened at Black Nights. He was the producer of Cargo (2017), another programme entry at Black Nights last year.

First Feature Competition
The jury of the First Feature Competition, running from the 22nd until the 29th of November, is headed by director Mike van Diem whose film Character won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998 and whose short film Alaska brought him the Student Academy Award in 1989. His film Tulipani: Love, Honour and a Bicycle was awarded with the Audience Award at Black Nights last year. He is joined by another award winner from the festival’s last edition, Kosovar director and screenwriter Blerta Zeqiri whose debut The Marriage won the Special Jury Prize and the FIPRESCI Award in the First Feature Competition, and has been selected as Kosovo’s entry for the Academy Awards.

Also returning is Ukrainian producer Igor Savychenko, who participated in the Official Selection of Black Nights last with the film Gateway, and whose productions have won three awards at A-category film festivals. His latest film When the Trees Fall will feature in the Black Nights’ programme this year, following screenings in Berlinale’s Panorama section and Warsaw IFF. Portuguese director and artist João Pedro Rodrigues has been featured in the competitions of several high-ranking film festivals with his films To Die Like A Man, O Fantasma and The Ornithologist, which also screened at Black Nights in 2016. Estonian theatre, series and film actress Karin Rask has featured in several popular Estonian TV series and box office hit films such as The Class Reunion (2016) and Secret Society of Souptown (2015)

Baltic Competition
The jury of the Baltic Competition programme, running from the 23rd until the 29th of November, will be headed by director, screenwriter and cinematographer Steven Bernstein whose film Dominion won the Best Actor award for its star Rhys Ifans in the Black Nights’ Official Selection in 2016. He will be joined by another award winner of the festival, Turkish director and screenwriter Pelin Esmer, who won the Best Script award last year with his film Something Useful, also in the Official Selection of the festival, and award winning Russian film and theatre critic Sergey Sholokhov.

Other juries of the festival

NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema)
Evaluates a selection of Asian films that are selected from several programmes of the festival.

Wong Tuck Cheong (Malaysia), editor, honorary secretary of NETPAC
Olga Khlasheva (Kazakhstan), film critic and producer (Owners, The Gentle Indifference of the World)
Maarja Hindoalla (Estonia), film critic, radio show editor, curator of the Film Archives of the National Archives of Estonia


FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics)
Evaluates the films in the First Feature Competition programme.

Alexandra Pütter, Germany
Suncica Unevska, Macedonia
Annika Koppel, Estonia


Jury for the Rebels With A Cause competition programme

Andrei Liimets (Estonia), film and culture critic, civic activist
Joonas Kiik (Estonia), film critic
Tõnu Karjatse (Estonia), film critic and culture journalist


Ecumenical Jury
Evaluates the Official Selection of the festival.

Rainer Sarnet (Estonia), stage and film director (November)
Regina Hansen (Estonia), public relations specialist at the Consistory of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church
Erki Tamm (Estonia), reverend, president of the Union of Free Evangelical and Baptist Churches of Estonia
Madis Kolk (Estonia), editor-in-chief of the culture magazine Theatre. Music. Cinema
Marge-Marie Paas (Estonia), public relations specialist, Roman Catholic Church in Estonia