Jury 2026 - The Magnificent
ERIKA ROSSI (Italy)
Born in Trieste in 1974, she graduated in Media Studies and than moved to Milan where she specialized in Audiovisual Languages at Università Cattolica, where she got also an MA in screenwriting. After a long experience as author in the italian national television RaiTre, since 2008 she devoted herself to cinema del reale, with particular interest in the topic of mental health and care. She has been selected for Eurodoc workshop and for Archidoc workshop, held in La Femis School of Cinema in Paris. She was finalist in 2014 for the screenwriting contest Premio Solinas, Documentary Award for documenatry Cinema, and in 2017 her project The caring city she won the Premio Solinas Development Grant Her documentaries have been selected in many international film festivals, including the Torino Film Festival, Vision du Reél, Document Glasgow, Bafici and screeened on Rtv-Slo, Hrt and Al Jazeera Balkans. In 2018 she is selected as director for the Berlinale Talent Campus and in 2019 she founded Ghirigori, a company focused in creative documentary. She has written and directed Trieste on Basaglia (Italy 2012) winner at Trieste Film Festival, Marco Cavallo’s trip (Italy 2014) presented at the Torino Film Festival 2014, winner of the Franco Rossano Prize as best social documentary and screened in the Italian Senate. Every soul of my body (Italy-Slovenia 2017) in competition at Visions du Rèel and in many other interantional film festival around the world; winner of the SNCCI Critics Award and Best Editing at the Golden Tree IFF in Frankfurt screened in Al Jazeera Blakans TV, RVT SLO and HRT. The Caring City, presented at TriesteFilmfestival was screened in more than 60 italian theathers. In 2021 she wrote - together with Peppe Dell'Acqua and Massimo Cirri- and directed, the show "Tra parentesi, the true story of an unthinkable liberation” which has been presented in teathres throughout Italy. Since 2021 she is selected as expert trainers of the project "Visual Education Operators at School" of the National Cinema Plan of MIM and MIC. Noi siamo gli errori che permettono la vostra intelligenza presented in 2025 at PerSo FF won the Public Award and the Best feature prize ai FF del Garda.
RONNIE RAMIREZ (Chile)
Ronnie Ramirez was born in 1971 in Chile, graduated in"image"in 1996 at INSAS, school of cinema located in Brussels. Today, he combines directing, filming operator and cinema pedagogy. The characters in his films are all confronted with changes in society, therefore disrupted lives... The work of Ronnie Ramirez is characterized by a humanist approach, of proximity and of social engagement. His films have received numerous awards and recognition at multiple international festivals. Member of the Selection Committee of films of the French Community of Belgium since 2011, member of the Belgian committee of SCAM and founder in 2009 of ZIN TV, an associative WebTV based in Brussels for which he works numerous reports and animates workshops of popular education. He teaches cinema in professional schools in Brussels, as well as in cinema schools in Bolivia, Cuba, Chile and Venezuela. Since 2021, he has been working with the Kinolatino Festival, while continuing his commitment to film education and developing his own film projects.
GINA ANNUNZIATA (Italy)
Gina Annunziata holds a PhD in Visual Representation Studies. History, Theory and Production of Arts and Images from the University of Siena and the SUM – School of Advanced Studies in Florence. She has taught Film History and Film Criticism as an adjunct lecturer at the University of Tuscia in Viterbo (2010–2013), the University of Naples "L'Orientale" (since 2011), the University of Naples "Federico II" (since 2018), and the Academy of Fine Arts of Naples (since 2015). She has published numerous essays in academic journals and edited volumes. Among her most recent publications are "The Loyal Askari: The Representation of the Colonial Soldier in Italian Cinema", in Wars in Italian Cinema from 1911 to the Present Day (edited by Alovisio, Faccioli and Mazzei, Quaderni del CSCI, 2016), and "The Arab Other: Representations of Alterity in Contemporary Italian Cinema", in Africa in Italy: Towards a Postcolonial Counter-History of Italian Cinema (edited by L. De Franceschi, Aracne Editrice, Rome, 2013). Since 2007, she has worked as an independent curator of film programmes and retrospectives, while collaborating with numerous national and international film festivals. She is also a member of the Scientific Committee of the book series Postcolonial Studies of Cinema and Media, published by Aracne Editrice.
ALEXANDRE LEVARAY (France)
Alexandre Levaray was born in northern France in 1991. A film enthusiast since childhood, he took his first steps with an internship at the cinema in his small hometown. He then decided to pursue film studies, earning a master's degree in theories and artistic practices. Around the same time, he became a regular attendee of the Amiens International Film Festival (FIFAM), a showcase dedicated to independent and marginal cinema. He joined the festival as a collaborator in 2016, initially as a press officer, learning on the job the many small cogs that keep a festival running. He later became a programmer alongside Marie-France Aubert, honing a keen eye for all forms of visual media and emerging filmmakers. His approach rejects elitism and aims to build bridges between the arts and between audiences. In 2025, he was appointed artistic director of the festival. In 2021, he published Le Cinéma, un pays sur la carte du monde (Cinema, a Country on the World Map), a book that weaves together the history of the Amiens Festival with French cultural policies and the birth, in the 1980s, of film festivals specialized in Asian, African, and South American cinema. Since 2023, he has been co-managing Le Drame, a nonprofit, community-based cinema with an alternative and activist vocation, dedicated to local filmmakers and experimentation. In his free time, he performs as a DJ under the pseudonym DJ La Belle Affaire.
ROCH TRAN (Belgium)
Trained at the ERG (École de Recherche Graphique) in Brussels, Roch Tran is a filmmaker, educator, and cultural promoter. He spent several years in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, where he participated in and developed film training projects in one of the symbolic capitals of African cinema. This experience strengthened his conviction that cinema is, above all, a tool for transmission, education, and intercultural dialogue. Today, he is responsible for the promotion of Belgian cinema within the socio-cultural sector of the Centre du Cinéma et de l’Audiovisuel of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. During the pandemic, he also created an online version of the “Filmmakers in the Classroom” programme, enabling the dialogue between filmmakers and students to continue despite distance and restrictions.
MICHEL KHLEIFI
Patron of our 17th Edition
Michel Khleifi, born in 1950 in Israel to an Arab-Palestinian family, left his country in 1970 to work at Volkswagen in Germany. Along the way, he settled in Belgium and studied theater directing, radio, and television at INSAS in Brussels, graduating in 1977. In 1980, he returned to his native region to make the documentary Al Dhakira al Khasba [Fertile Memory], the first feature film shot in Palestinian West Bank. In 1987, he made Urs al-Jalil [Wedding in Galilee], a film about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the first Palestinian film selected for the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the International Critics’ Prize. The Royal Film Archive of Belgium has restored several of his films, including Ma’loul Celebrates Its Destruction (1985) and Tale of the Three Jewels (1994). Khleifi’s films, blending documentary and fiction, explore life under occupation and Palestinian collective memory, marking a turning point in the history of Palestinian cinema.
Youth Jury
ROMAN IANNETTA (Belgium)
I was born and have always lived in Brussels, the city where I completed all my secondary studies. I then began a course in Art History at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), which I interrupted to pursue artistic studies that I am currently continuing at the ERG (École de Recherche Graphique), in the Photography department. Documentary is for me a constant source of questions, about myself and about the world. Being able to join you would certainly be an opportunity for new encounters and valuable exchanges.
FORTUNATA DI PAOLA (Italy)
I am a 24-year-old girl who lives at the foot of Monte Faito. I have just completed my Master's degree in French Language Teaching, which gave me the opportunity to live in Bordeaux for a year. I am interested in languages, cultures and literatures from around the world. My greatest passion is reading, which has been my companion since childhood. I am a curious person, I love meeting people, asking questions and engaging with new individuals. The Faito Doc Festival seems like an opportunity not to be missed.
FEDERICO DURANTE (Italy)
Holding a degree in European Studies from the University of Maastricht, I work in political communication, media relations and European electoral campaigns. I have collaborated with Volt Europa and Comin & Partners, while nurturing a strong interest in cinema, writing and community dynamics as tools for dialogue and collective participation. Cinema has always represented for me a form of conversation made accessible, intimate and open to everyone's interpretations. In this sense, I find myself today at a moment of strong desire — and perhaps even need — for community, such as the one that the Faito Doc Festival seems to succeed in creating.
LYLO JACQUEMIN (Belgium)
Cinema has accompanied my journey since childhood, from when I discovered the transformative power of images and editing. Through my studies in art schools I have developed a critical eye and a sensibility deeply connected to documentary as a tool for questioning reality and turning it into poetry. The encounter with the Faito Doc Festival opens doors for me towards a cinema experienced as a collective and human experience. The themes of community and memory run through my work and my way of looking at the world. I join the Faito Doc Jury Jeunes with a curious gaze and a deep passion for documentary cinema.
NOÉ PESTIAUX (Belgium)
A young photographer and football enthusiast, he lives and studies in Brussels at the ERG. Always drawn to languages, cultures and stories from around the world, he firmly believes that documentary is a political and social art form, capable of making the invisible visible. He dreams of making a film that explores the political and social side of football: the suburbs, migrations, class struggles and identities that come together around a ball. Curious, restless and deeply humanist, he pursues his research with his gaze always turned towards the football pitch and the world.
MAÏLYS FINOCCHIARO (Belgium / Italy)
I am a 19-year-old student, trained in theatre since 2013 through courses, workshops and internships, with the ambition of entering a Conservatory or a prestigious drama school. Raised in an artistic and international environment, I am developing my path between acting, stage presence and public speaking, alongside experiences in animation and event organisation. Open to experiences in the performing arts and other fields, I consider the Youth Jury experience a precious opportunity for exchange and discovery, one capable of enriching my human and artistic journey.
ALBERTO CUGINI (Italy)
A young sound designer who seeks to transform listening into a form of seeing. After studying at IED and now pursuing a Master's in Sound Design at the University of Tor Vergata, he has discovered in sound a sensitive space where silences and noises narrate reality. For him, cinema is not only watched: it is traversed with the ears, like an immersion into the world. Joining the Youth Jury of the Faito Doc Festival means encountering stories, people and sensibilities to be shared. Curious and deeply attentive to listening, he believes in a cinema of the real that is capable, above all, of feeling the world.
TADZIO BUFFARDIN (Belgium)
A young actor trained at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles, he develops his path between contemporary theatre, collective work and scenic research. Through acting he explores the body, presence and relationships with others as tools for questioning reality. Attentive to forms of shared creation, he sees in the Faito Doc Festival a space for listening, transformation and encounter. Documentary cinema interests him for its ability to bring to the surface fragilities, memories and humanity that are often invisible. The Youth Jury is for him a way of traversing new perspectives and artistic communities.
LEONARDO COCUZZA (Italia)
Seventeen years old, Leonardo is in his fourth year at the Cultura e Spettacolo secondary school in Turin, where cinema has become the centre of his outlook on the world. Drawn to both technical crafts and screenwriting, he has developed a strong sensitivity for images and audiovisual storytelling, also nurtured by his grandfather, a former RAI executive and film club organiser. His theatre training has sharpened his sense of body, mime and improvisation — elements he recognises in documentary cinema and its ability to tell stories about reality. Motivated and eager to learn, he sees the Youth Jury as an opportunity for growth and discovery.
Jury Il Camino
Composed of 7 residents from the Il Camino Therapeutic and Rehabilitation Center, the jury will select the best film from the two international short film competitions.
The collaboration between the Faito Doc Festival and Il Camino, active since 2008, has grown richer over the years. The therapists have consistently supported the festival’s cultural initiatives, while the residents participate with great enthusiasm: they present works, contribute to set designs, manage the spaces of the House of Cinema, and take part in dance, writing, and theater workshops, also bringing to life sensory performances.
They have been featured in short films, documentary portraits, and two feature-length films dedicated to their community experience. This year, they also take on the creation and performance of video letters presented at the festival.
Jury Faito Doc Camp
Composed of members of the Amici della Filangieri Association and guests of the campsite—faithful participants in the festival’s daily events, and active promoters of concerts and activities in collaboration with the Festival—this group meets to discuss the short films in competition, expressing a preference for the documentary they loved most that day.
At the end of the festival, the film that receives the highest number of positive reviews will be awarded the Faito Doc Camp Prize.
AWARDS
PRIZES awarded by the I Magnifici Jury and the Young Jury are works by Cricou
Christian Courtois, a creator of unusual objects, at each edition Cricou creates an original work in connection with the Festival theme. A passionate inventor, he loves to share his vision of things with humour and imagination. He transforms and revives any object that is broken, abandoned or thrown away. He is the inventor of the Faggio Doc Awards. The prizes will go to the Best Feature Film, the Best Short Film voted by the International Jury and the Best Short and Best Long Film voted by the Young Jury.
The ProFaito Onlus Association, which works for the ecological and environmental protection of Monte Faito as well as a landscape heritage and cultural asset, will offer a plaque for the Audience Award.
The Centro Terapeutico il Camino through their Jury will award the best short films one or two prizes.
The Faito Doc Camp through their Jury awards a prize to their best-loved film of the entire Festival.
The Ottica Sacco Prize is awarded by the Jury of the Magnificent and will go to the sharpest look.
In this edition for the first time it will be awarded :
The Prize of the Municipality of Vico Equense to the best Italian film of the Festival attributed by Chiara Guida of cinefilos.it with the collaboration of the Vico Equense Youth Forum