2027 Selection Committees

A member of the Visions du Réel selection committee since 2010, Emmanuel Chicon began his career as a journalist-reporter for the international section and film critic for the daily newspaper L’Humanité. Between 2003 and 2009, he produced and directed around twenty radio documentaries for France Culture, Radio France International and the programme “Par Ouïe Dire”, broadcast on French-speaking Belgian public radio (RTBF). He worked on sound writing for the Cinéma/Cinéma du réel department at HEAD-Geneva (2011-2017), and was also active in the Sans Canal Fixe film-makers’ collective based in Tours (2009-2021) and La Fabrique documentaire (Paris), before recently taking part as a reader of fiction and documentary projects submitted to Visions Sud Est Swiss fund and the Doha Film Institute.

Sergio Fant is an Italian film programmer based in Germany. After graduating in film studies and working as a film archivist and researcher at the Cineteca di Bologna, he conceived and curated programmes for among others Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, the Pesaro Film Festival, the Rome Film Fest and the Mostra del Cinema in Venice, where he was in charge of the short film selection in 2010 and 2011. From 2012 to 2023 he was the Head of Program at the Trento Film Festival in Italy, and in the same year he joined the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, first as a short film programmer, then as a member of the selection committee from 2013 to 2018. In 2019, he is co-artistic director of the 18th DocPoint – Helsinki Documentary Film Festival and becomes a member of the Berlinale selection committee, a position he holds until 2024. From 2022 he is the programmer of the ARCA International Film Festival on Visual Arts of Punta del Este, Uruguay, and in June 2024 he joins the selection committee of the BFI London Film Festival. He has served on several international festival juries and funding committees, and as an expert and tutor in various training and industry initiatives. He contributes a documentary column to the Italian weekly Internazionale and is the founder of the Italian documentary programming and distribution platform CineAgenzia.

Born in Chile, Francisca Lucero is based in France and works for film festivals since 2008. Since 2012, she works at FIDMarseille as coordinator and currently manager of FIDLab, the international coproduction platform. She was also program coordinator for the festival Cinélatino, Rencontres de Toulouse until 2021. As a programmer, she is currently a member of Visions du Réel selection committee as well as Cinélatino’s documentary selection committee. She is also part of the programming team for the online documentary platform Tënk.

Mourad-Anis Moussa joined the Visions du Réel team during his studies in Literature and History of Art, which were followed by an M.A. in Film studies (Filmwissenschaft) at the Freie Universität – Berlin. Over the years, he has held various positions at the Festival, including publications manager and Co-Head of the programming office. He is currently Member of the selection committee for a sixth year.

At the same time, Mourad-Anis Moussa has worked for a number of institutions, including the GIFF (Geneva International Film Festival) and the FIFF (Festival International de Films de Fribourg) as press officer, the FdS (Festival artistique des affects, des genres et des sexualités – Lausanne) as film programmer, Cinémas du Grütli – Geneva as programme advisor and Sundance as film reviewer.

He has also worked in the music industry, notably as a programmer for the live club La Gravière (Geneva) and organising show cases for RTS (Radio Télévision Suisse).

Depuis 2022, Juliette Canon est en charge du département courts métrages de la Semaine de la Critique, section parallèle du Festival de Cannes consacrée à la découverte de talents émergents. Elle y coordonne également le programme Next Step, qui propose trois ateliers de développement de longs métrages destinés aux cinéastes ayant été sélectionnés avec un court métrage à la Semaine de la Critique.

Elle a débuté sa carrière dans la programmation au Ciné Lumière à Londres et au Festival Premiers Plans en France. De 2014 à 2016, elle a rejoint l’équipe de programmation du Festival de Locarno. Elle a également collaboré avec plusieurs festivals internationaux, parmi lesquels Doclisboa, IndieLisboa, et FIDADOC.

Depuis 2024, elle est membre du comité de sélection des courts métrages documentaires de l’Académie des César et, depuis 2026, du comité de programmation de Tënk, plateforme en ligne dédiée aux films documentaires

Elahe Esmaili is an Iranian filmmaker working across documentary and fiction. She holds a BA in Film from Tehran University of Art and an MA in Directing from the National Film and Television School, in the UK.
Her films have screened and awarded at major festivals including IDFA, Telluride, Visions du Réel, BFI London Film Festival, Sheffield DocFest, DOK Leipzig, Clermont-Ferrand, DOC NYC and Hot Docs, and received nominations from organisations including the IDA, BIFA, Cinema Eye Honors and Critics Choice Documentary Awards. Her work explores gender, family and social change in contemporary Iran.

Qila Gill, an independent programmer. Currently programming at London Film Festival (Experimenta) and on the selection committee for Berlinale (Generation). Previous posting includes programming for Singapore International Film Festival, and selection committee member for the Berlinale (Shorts) and Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg. She has served as the Head of Programme and International Programming Lead for London Short Film Festival, and as a Distribution Director at LUX.

Filmmaker and producer based between Brussels and Dakar, Katy Léna Ndiaye develops a documentary body of work grounded in listening, where her connection to literature and journalistim intersect. Her landmark films (Waiting for Men, Money, Freedom, a Story of the CFA Franc) map the complex geometries of contemporary Africa and its diaspora, turning memory and archive into a political space.

Katy Lena’s work has been honored at major festivals (FESPACO, Carthage, FIFA Montreal…) and screened across international venues (IDFA, IFFR, Hot Docs, Cinéma du Réel), as well as leading art institutions including the MET, Villa Medici, HKW Berlin, and the Lubumbashi Biennale. Extending her vision into production, she founded IndigoMood Films in 2013, dedicated to first and second feature projects across independent cinema and the visual arts (Rosine Mbakam, Moïse Togo, Alassane Diago, Hamedine Kane, Samira Hmouda).

Jasmin started to work at Visions du Réel while studying Film History and Aesthetics at the Lausanne University, where she obtained a Master in Arts. Since then, she has also been collaborating as programmer and Industry consultant with several festivals: Ambulante Mexico, FIFDH Geneva, Animafest Zagreb, NIFFF Neuchâtel, Solothurn Film Festival, Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur and Fantoche, among others. She has also worked with the Cinemathèque of Tangier-Morocco, the Centre for the Image La Virreina Barcelona, the Croatian Audiovisual Center, the French Cinémathèque, the Centre Pompidou and the Forum des Images in Paris. Co-founder and board member of Pro Short, the Swiss association for short films. She was an appointed expert for the Swiss Federal Office of Culture and a board member of the Geneva Film Commission. In 2017, she also started to work on different documentaries as associate producer. Currently, she’s in charge of the Master in Film Studies joint program of the ECAL Lausanne/HEAD Geneva.

Violeta Bava has worked at Visions du Réel’s Industry division since 2018 and continues her collaboration with the festival as a new member of the Selection Committee. The Argentinian producer worked at the Buenos Aires International Film Festival (BAFICI) for 20 years, both as a programmer and as Co-Director of the Buenos Aires Lab (BAL). She has been Guest Curator at the New Zealand International Film Festival, Programmer of International Film Festival & Awards Macao and is founder of Ruda Cine, which has produced films by Milagros Mumenthaler, Martín Rejtman, Dominga Sotomayor, and Eduardo Williams. 
Violeta Bava is the Latin American Consultant for the Venice International Film Festival and the Venice Market; currently she is also Head of Studies at the Torino FeatureLab and programme advisor at New York Film Festival.

Venice’s film and art practice focuses on personal and societal transformations that occur in everyday life. After graduating from the DocNomads Erasmus Mundus program, she co-founded Svemirko Film and Audiovisual Art Productions, based in Taiwan and the Philippines.

Her film “Last Days at Sea” premiered in Berlinale – Generation. She produced Fan Wu’s Film “XiXi” which is supported by the Sundance Documentary Fund and premiered in HotDocs winning the Emerging International Filmmaker Award. She is currently co-producing LAU Kek-Huat’s “Why Are We Here”. She worked as a co-director, cinematographer, and co-producer for “We Had a Plan”, a film by Suzanne Raes.

Her new work focuses on the connection between biology and social memory.

She serves as a jury and reader for film festivals and funds with Berlinale Generation 2023, and Hotdocs Crosscurrents Fund to name a few.

Madeline Robert is a French documentary producer and programmer. She has been part of Visions du Réel since 2014, where she has served on the Selection Committee, as a special advisor to the Artistic Director, and as Head of Industry (2021–2022). From 2023 to 2026, she managed the Swiss film fund Visions Sud Est. Previously, and among others, she took part in founding the space dedicated in documentary films (Cannes Docs) within the Cannes Festival Film Market and has been involved-with the SVOD platform Tënk since its creation. She produces documentary films through her France based company, Les Films de la Caravane and regularly works as a tutor and serves on funding committees and international festival juries.