29/08/2024 - The jurors at this year’s event will be Heino Deckert, Priscila Miranda, Urte Fink, Sophie Stejskal and Paul Ridd

(top row, l-r) Jury members Heino Deckert, Priscila Miranda, Sophie Stejskal, (bottom row, l-r) Urte Fink and Paul Ridd

This week, European Work in Progress (EWIP) announced the members of the international jury for its seventh edition, set to run in Cologne from 14-16 October. During the event dedicated to projects nearing completion, 30 European co-productions will be taking part in the awards race. The prizes are worth €50,000 and will be handed out by some of the gathering’s key partners: K13 Studios, MMC Film & TV Studios, LAVAlabs Moving Images, Gruvi, Usheru, Way Film, mm filmpresse and the TorinoFilmLab. This year’s jury will consist of Heino Deckert, Priscila Miranda, Urte Fink, Sophie Stejskal and Paul Ridd.

Deckert founded Ma.ja.de. Filmproduktions GmbH in 1991. Since 2003, he has also been managing director of his own world distribution company for documentaries, Deckert Distribution. Deckert has produced over 130 films with helmers such as Sergei Loznitsa, Viktor Kossakovsky, Ai Weiwei, Thomas Heise and Feras Fayyad. He is a member of the German and European Film Academy, and a member of AMPAS.

Miranda is a film producer and the CEO of independent distributor Fenix. In 2011, she founded the movie distributor Tucuman, specialised in the distribution of foreign films in Brazil. In 2016, she founded Fenix. Currently, she’s also part of the programming team of BIFF – Brasilia International Film Festival. Some of her credits include Ivan, O TerriVel by Mario Abbade and Arte da Memória by Rodrigo Areias.

Stejskal has been working at Austrian film distributor Filmladen since 2020. Specialising in the project management of Austrian films, she has increasingly focused on acquiring international arthouse flicks. Stejskal is a regular presence at film festivals around the world, with a particular emphasis on European gatherings, where she is dedicated to discovering emerging talents. 

Fink joined ZDF/ARTE in 2024 as a commissioning editor for international co-productions and acquisitions. Before taking on this role, she worked as a line producer on titles such as Seven Days [+see also:
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interview: Alexandros Avranas
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interview: Ali Abbasi
interview: Ali Abbasi
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film profile] by Ali Abbasi and Home [+see also:
interview: Franka Potente
film profile] by Franka Potente. Fink also served as head of Production at Detailfilm and Zentropa Hamburg, after gaining extensive experience in France, including with Coproduction Office through the Atelier Ludwigsburg-Paris programme.

Ridd was appointed CEO and festival director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival at the end of 2023. His first edition in this position recently took place in August 2024. Prior to this, he was head of Acquisitions for UK distributor Picturehouse Entertainment, and served as an international consultant for the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and a programme advisor for the BFI London Film Festival.

EWIP is backed by the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, the European Union’s Creative Europe – MEDIA programme and the city of Cologne. It is held in co-operation with the Film Festival Cologne, KölnBusiness and the International Film Distribution Summit (IFDS). At EWIP, buyers, industry delegates and journalists will have the opportunity to get an overview of some of the latest and most highly anticipated projects. The teams behind the 30 handpicked European co-productions will reveal their current state of development, show their first scenes, and pitch their plans in order to attract more partners and strengthen their distribution.