Mark Haslam Award Winner

Nechako: It Will Be A Big River Again directed by Lyana Patrick.

People’s Choice Award Winner

Snow Leopard Sisters directed by Ben Ayers, Sonam Choekyi Lama and Andrew Lynch

Green Pitch Winner

Jenin & The Nakba Between Us director: Serene Husni, Producers: Rula Nasser, Marc Serpa Francoeur

Best Canadian Feature Jury 

Jen Muranitz

Jen Muranetz is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and visual storyteller living on unceded Coast Salish territories. Her films are character-driven and impact-focused, centered around environmental justice and human resilience. She directed and produced ‘Fairy Creek’, Read More

Myrna Moretti

Myrna Moretti, PhD is a Postdoctoral Associate and instructor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at Western University. Her research specializes in gender, technology, labour, and cultural history and she has previously worked on histories of film and social movements. Read More

Juliana Paniagua

Juliana Paniagua is cultural producer, university lecturer, translator (English, Italian, French, German) and subtitle artist. She is the co-founder and former director of Festival de Cine Verde de Barichara – Festiver in Colombia and serves on the board of the international Green Film Network (GFN).

Best International Feature Film Jury

Lara Bulger

Lara Bulger has a deep-rooted commitment to the arts. With a Bachelor’s degree in Music with minors in Film and English, plus a Master’s Degree in Arts Leadership, she is passionate about the capacity of art to bring about social change. Lara is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University, focusing on documentary film and its social, political and cultural impacts. Lara has extensive work in film festivals, including TIFF, Hot Docs, the Toronto Jewish Film Festival and the Kingston Read More

Glynnis Ritter

Glynnis Ritter is an Impact Producer, Festival Programmer, and Program Director committed to using documentary film as a catalyst for social change. She has led impact and programming initiatives across the United States, Europe, the UK, and Latin America, and recently joined The Video Consortium as Director of Programs. Her previous experience includes roles at WG Film, Together Films, and Picture Motion, as well as programming for environmental film festivals Cinema Planeta and Patagonia Eco Fest.

Max Duncan

Max Duncan is an award-winning filmmaker, cinematographer and journalist whose work has appeared on platforms including PBS, The Guardian, The New York Times and Al Jazeera and screened at dozens of major international festivals. He lived for a decade in China, and now makes films across Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America. Max has received recognition including a World Press Photo Award, is a Pulitzer Center grantee and an alumnus of Yaddo and Logan Nonfiction fellowships. Read More

Best Canadian Short Film Jury

Sadetło Scott

As a Tłı̨chǫ Dene writer, director, producer from Yellowknife, NT, Sadetło Scott aims to help share the Indigenous experience through storytelling that centers land, language, culture, and way of life. Her educational background is a mix of culture and film, including a BA in Indigenous Governance, Certificates in Heritage and Culture, Motion Picture Production and Cinematography. Her short climate documentary “Edaxàdets’eetè / We Save Ourselves” premiered at imagineNATIVE, won Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival 2024 Best Canadian Short Film Award and has gone on to screen across the circumpolar north.

Ali Kazimi

Ali Kazimi is a filmmaker, author and media artist whose work deals with race, social justice migration, history and memory. He is the recipient of the 2019 Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts and the same year he received a Doctor of Letters, honoris causa from the University of British Columbia. His award winning and critically acclaimed documentaries include Narmada: A Valley Rises (’94), Shooting Indians: A Journey with Jeffrey Thomas (’97), Documenting Dissent (’01), Continuous Journey (’04), Runaway Grooms (’06), Rex versus Singh (’09), Random Acts of Legacy (’16), and Beyond Extinction: Sinixt Resurgence (’22).

Leanne Allison

Leanne Allison is the director of Losing Blue and lives in Canmore, Alberta. She is known for her award-winning feature length National Film Board documentaries Being Caribou and Finding Farley. Both these films are based on long wilderness journeys in remote parts of Canada that continue to shape her work today. She is the co-creator of the National Film Board interactive documentary Bear 71, which is considered a seminal piece in the world of interactive media. Leanne recently co-directed and co-produced Iniskim-Return of the Buffalo, an intercultural artistic response to the return of bison to Western North America.

Best International Short Film Jury

Luca Paulli

Luca Paulli is an Italian animation writer and director based in London. He began his career at Slinky Pictures, where he co-directed Breaking the Mould, winner of the DepicT! Audience Award at Encounters Film Festival. Since then, he has collaborated on high-profile campaigns for clients such as BBC, Channel 4, Volvo, and Honda, and contributed to major projects including Sony PSP’s Little Big Planet, visuals for Rihanna’s Last Girl on Earth world tour, and Channel 4’s Luxury Comedy. In 2014, he joined Picasso Pictures as a director, developing pitches, storyboards, and designs for brands including Channel 4, Ford, and Datsu. Read More

Gustavo Ballesté

In March 2009, Gustavo Martínez Ballesté founded Cinema Planeta, the International Environmental Film Festival of Mexico. The festival features ten distinct film sections and attracts approximately 65,000 participants each year through its main program, student screenings, and national film tours.
In 2010, Cinema Planeta received the National Nature Conservation Award in the media category, presented by the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP), in recognition of its outstanding contribution to environmental awareness. Read More

Fern Ling Chettle

Fern Ling Chettle is a British-Singaporean cultural programmer, editor and researcher raised in Indonesia. Since 2022, she has worked for CinemAsia Film Festival in the Netherlands, as a festival producer and now film programmer. Based between Amsterdam and Bali, Fern has programming and editorial experience within various cultural organisations including the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, Mediamatic, VOX-POP, Soapbox Journal and Sleepy Press. She is passionate about storytelling that explores diverse histories, future ecologies, and what it means to find community.

Mark Haslam Award Jury

Lesley Johnson

Planet in Focus Programmer

Lesley Johnson is a director, producer and programmer, based in Toronto and Yellowknife. She studied Film Production in York University’s MFA program, and holds degrees in wildlife and environmental sciences. Before becoming a filmmaker, she worked in community-based research in the Northwest Territories, and on studies chasing after the likes of terns and wolverines. She is the former director and programmer of the Yellowknife International Film Festival, and of a Cinema Politica chapter.

Simone Estrin

Planet in Focus Programmer

Simone Estrin is a Toronto-based programmer, curator, and filmmaker whose work looks at the experience of art from a social and environmental perspective. In addition to her role as Senior Programmer at Planet in Focus, she is an International Features Programmer at Hot Docs, and also contributes to film programming at TIFF Docs and Le Festival International du Film sur l’Art. Simone holds an MFA in Documentary Media Studies from Toronto Metropolitan University.