Festival jury
JO BLAIR
Jo Blair has worked in cinema exhibition for over ten years, initially at Oasis Cinemas and Zoo Cinemas. In her current position as Senior Programmer at City Screen, Jo programmes the Cameo in Edinburgh, David Lean in Croydon, Duke of Yorks Picturehouse in Brighton, Electric Birmingham, Forum Hexham, Harbour Lights Picturehouse Southampton, Hyde Park Picturehouse Leeds and The Rex in Berkhamsted. Over the years she has been involved in programming or working with various film festivals and in expanding the range of cinema programmes. This has included working with Art Angel at Ritzy Brixton on Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle installation and screenings, and a current collaboration with the Serpentine Gallery on Serpentine Cinema, a monthly artist film slot at the Gate cinema in Notting Hill.
HÜLYA KOÇYİĞİT
Hülya KOÇYİĞİT is the Turkish actress who today still holds the record for the highest number of awards received from national and international film festivals. Her work has been honoured with countless awards from a wide range of press, public and national bodies and institutions.
Hülya KOÇYİĞİT was born in Istanbul on 12th December 1947. She completed her primary education in Istanbul and Ankara and started her arts education in the Department of Ballet at Ankara State Conservatory. She graduated from the junior high school department of Atatürk Girls High School and continued her education in Istanbul City Theatres. And she continued her high school education at the Department of Theatre at the Ankara State Conservatory.
Hülya KOÇYİĞİT’s career as an actress began in 1963. SUSUZ YAZ, her first movie, was awarded the ALTIN AYI (GOLDEN BEAR), the grand prize at the Berlin International Film Festival and the first major award to be given to a Turkish film. She subsequently acted in some 180 films, starred in four TV series and has represented the country at Turkish Film Weeks in Hungary, Poland, China, Germany, Syria, Italy, Japan and India. In 1991 Hülya KOÇYİĞİT was recognised as a STATE ARTIST OF THE TURKISH REPUBLIC.
DAVID PARKINSON
David Parkinson has been a film critic for 25 years, specialising in foreign-language films and British and American classics from the silent era to the mid-1970s. A contributing editor on Empire magazine since 1998, he also reviews for the Radio Times, the Oxford Times and MovieMail, while also contributing articles and blog items to the Guardian Film website and the US site, Film In Focus. He also writes the Festivals & Seasons page on Empire Online, which provides the UK’s most comprehensive coverage of film festivals and retrospectives (http://www.empireonline.com/festivalsandseasons/). A regular broadcaster on BBC national and local radio, he has also written and edited a number of books, including The Bloomsbury Good Movie Guide, A History of Film, The Young Oxford Book of Cinema, Mornings in the Dark: The Graham Greene Film Reader, Oxford at the Movies and The Rough Guide to Film Musicals. He is currently working on Liverpool at the Movies and 100 Ideas That Changed Film.
JASON WOOD
The Director of programming for Curzon Cinemas (whose cinemas include Curzon Soho, Curzon Mayfair, The Renoir and Richmond Filmhouse), Jason Wood is also the author of several published film books. Titles include: 100 American Independent Films, Nick Broomfield: Documenting Icons, The Faber Book of Mexican Cinema and 100 Road Movies. His writing also appears in Little White Lies, Electric Sheep and Sight and Sound. A former board member of the Cine City Film Festival and a member of the advisory group for Abandon Normal Devices, Wood also served on the Sutherland Jury at the 2007 Times BFI London Film Festival.
