ARRIVALS INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION AWARD

Gaia Furrer is a film curator and programmer whose work has focused on discovering and supporting independent filmmakers and distinctive voices in contemporary cinema. After studying Film History and Criticism at Sapienza University of Rome, she collaborated with Film Italia on international initiatives promoting Italian cinema. Since 2003, she has been Head of Programming of the Noir in Festival, an international Italian event dedicated to noir cinema, and has served as a programmer, consultant, and jury member at numerous international film festivals. Furrer has been part of Giornate degli Autori since its foundation. Created as an independent section of the Venice International Film Festival, Giornate degli Autori is dedicated to auteur cinema and to showcasing original and innovative filmmaking from around the world. Since 2020, Furrer has served as Artistic Director of Giornate degli Autori.

Achilleas Kyriakidis was born in Cairo in 1946. A prose writer, translator, film theorist, screenwriter, and short film director, he has written twelve collections of short stories, four novellas, a novel, and four collections of essays on literature and cinema. He has translated more than 150 works by authors including Jorge Luis Borges (complete short stories and selected essays), Luis Sepúlveda (complete prose works), Julio Cortázar, Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Raymond Queneau, Georges Perec, Jean Echenoz, William Faulkner, Graham Greene, Patrick Modiano, Alejandro Zambra, and Alfred Jarry. He has directed eleven short films from his own scripts, which have won awards in Greece and abroad, and written the screenplays for three Greek feature films. He has received the Greek State Prize for Short Story (2005) and has twice won the Greek State Prize for Literary Translation (2006, 2020). He is an Officier of the French Order of Arts and Letters and holds honorary doctorates from the Ionian University (Department of Foreign Languages, Translation, and Interpreting) and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (School of French Language and Literature). He is a member of the Hellenic Authors’ Society and the Greek Film Critics’ Association (PEKK).

Jack Tarling has produced five feature films, including: 2 X Oscar-shortlisted, 6 X BAFTA-nominated, 7 X BIFA-winning Kneecap, which premiered at Sundance; BAFTA-nominated, 4 X BIFA-winning God’s Own Country, which won awards at Sundance and Berlin; Learning to Breathe Under Water, which premiered at Karlovy Vary and won the Audience Award at Galway Film Fleadh; and Daughter of Eden, which will play festivals in 2027. Jack also line produced feature films for the BFI and BBC Films, including two which premiered at Venice, and he produced the short film Assessment, which was BAFTA-shortlisted in 2010.