2024 VR Works Jury

David DOUTEL

Director & Producer
BAP – Animation Studios 
Portugal

For over 15 years now, David Doutel has worked in partnership with Vasco Sá with whom he has co-directed four internationally awarded animated short films – The Shoemaker (2011), Soot (2014), Augur (2018) and Garrano (2022).

He developed his career in auteur animation cinema, working as a producer, director and animator. Both part of artistic and production teams, he has contributed to the creation of animated short films from numerous authors, awarded and selected at some of the most important international film festivals such as Cannes, Sundance, Locarno, and Annecy.

David is one of the founders of BAP – Animation Studios, where he currently works as a director and producer. Alongside Vasco Sá he is currently co-directing their first animated feature film.

Vanja KALUDJERCIC

Festival Director
International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)
Netherlands

Vanja Kaludjercic was appointed Festival Director of International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) as of February 2020. In this role, she represents the artistic voice of IFFR, championing great cinema and actively supporting independent filmmaking talent. Kaludjercic drives IFFR’s curatorial line and its industry developments to futureproof the festival.

She brings a wealth of 20 years of industry experience, both internationally and within the Dutch film landscape. She was previously the director of acquisitions at global streaming service MUBI, and worked at Les Arcs European Film Festival, Sarajevo Film Festival and Netherlands Film Festival.

Kaludjercic has served as a jury member at Berlinale, IDFA, CPH:DOX and many more festivals around the globe.

Maria Grazia MATTEI

Founder & President
MEET Digital Culture Center 
Italy, Milan

Humanist and art critic, Maria Grazia Mattei has been exploring digital territories for more than thirty years, in a journey that, in 2005, merged into Meet the Media Guru, a platform for discussion and public debate on innovation issues. There are over one hundred pioneers of contemporary and digital culture that Mattei has invited to Milan for Meet the Media Guru, among them Zygmunt Bauman, Paola Antonelli, Edgar Morin, Joi Ito, Lawrence Lessig, Don Norman, Manuel Castells and many others.

With the support of Fondazione Cariplo in 2018, Mattei launched MEET Digital Culture Center, the first International Centre for Digital Art and Culture based in Milan. Opened in 2020, MEET is a place for encounters and experimentation, in the belief that innovation is a cultural fact, even before it is technological.