Romuald Karmakar will join Jonathan Littell and Xuan Liu on the Jury for the Competition for Mid-Length Documentary 2019 at IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam), which runs November 20 to December 1, 2019.

Jonathan Littell

Born in New York City in 1967, Jonathan Littell grew up in France. For many years he led emergency operations for French NGO Action contre la Faim in Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, D.R. Congo and Russia. His first literary novel, Les Bienveillantes, was published in August 2006, winning the Prix Goncourt and the Académie Française’s Grand Prix de Littérature awards, among others. He has since published feature articles on conflicts around the world for publications including Le Monde, XXI, The Guardian and The London Review of Books, a critical essay on Francis Bacon and several other fiction and non-fiction books. His first feature documentary, Wrong Elements, was presented at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2016.

Xuan Liu

Xuan Liu studied Economics and Finance before spending six years as a film editor and critic. In 2005 she co-founded Kaila Pictures with actress-director Xu Jinglei, in 2006 producing Dreams May Come True. She directed and produced her documentary debut A Journey in Summer in 2010. In 2013, she began collaborating with awarding-winning director Wang Xiaoshuai and founded Dongchun Films Company in 2015. In 2017, she founded the non-profit organization World Organization of Video Culture Development, dedicated to supporting young video artists. Her latest production credit, So Long, My Son, won Silver Bears for Best Actor and Best Actress at the 69th Berlinale. Liu was recognized as Best Producer of the Decade at the Youth Film Handbook Awards in 2019. Films she has produced have competed at many festivals including Venice, San Sebastian, Busan, the Berlinale, Tokyo International Film Festival and IDFA (Chinese Portrait by Wang Xiaoshuai, 2018).

Romuald Karmakar

Born 1965, Romuald Karmakar works in both fiction film (Der Totmacher/The Deathmaker, Die Nacht singt ihre Lieder/Nightsongs) and documentary (Warheads, Das Himmler-Projekt/The Himmler Project, If I Think of Germany at Night). His work has been recognized at the festivals in Venice, Berlin, Locarno, Toronto and presented in retrospectives at the Austrian Film Museum; BAFICI, Buenos Aires; Jeonju IFF, South Korea and Cinéma du Réel, Paris.

In 2008, MoMA New York selected his Das Himmler-Projekt as one of "250 important works acquired by the Museum since 1980." In 2013 Karmakar was invited – with Ai Weiwei, Santu Mofokeng and Dayanita Singh – to represent Germany at the 55th Venice Art Biennale. In 2014 he received the DEFA-Foundation Award for outstanding achievement in German cinema. In 2017 he participated in the documenta 14 art event. His latest work Zoo (working title) is a feature-length documentary on the zoo in Zurich.

Within the Festival’s Focus Program “It still hurts” Romuald Karmakar’s film WARHEADS (1989-1992) will be screened on November 21 and 29, 2019 at EYE CInema 2, Amsterdam.