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BHFF JURY AWARDS
Since 2012, BHFF™ awards BHFF™ Jury Awards to the most outstanding films screened at the BHFF™ and selected by jury members as most outstanding in its categories. Members of the BHFF™ Jury are accomplished and recognized members from Bosnian and American cultural, film and art community who have significantly contributed to the Bosnian-Herzegovinian film industry and culture in general.
BHFF™ jury awards following honors to the most outstanding films:
BHFF™ Jury Award for Best Documentary Film
BHFF™ Jury Award for Best Short Narrative Film
BHFF™ Jury Award for Best Feature Narrative Film
BHFF™ Jury Award for Best Acting Performance
BHFF™ Jury Award for Best Picture
JURY MEMBERS 2023

Meta Mazaj
Senior Lecturer in Cinema Studies at the University of Pennsylvania
Meta Mazaj is a Senior Lecturer in Cinema Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches courses on film history, theory, analysis, and contemporary world cinema. Her writings on critical theory, new European cinema, Eastern European cinema, Slovenian cinema, and contemporary world cinema, have appeared in edited volumes and journals such as Cineaste, Studies in Eastern European Cinema, Transnational Cinemas, and Situations. She is the author of National and Cynicism in the Post 1990s Balkan Cinema (VDM Verlag, 2008), co-author of Critical Visions in Film Theory: Classic and Contemporary Readings (with Timothy Corrigan and Patricia White; Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010), and co-author of World Cinema: A Critical Introduction (with Shekhar Deshpande; Routledge, 2018).

Vera Mijojlić
A cultural producer
Vera Mijojlić is a cultural producer who founded the South East European Film Festival, SEEfest (seefilmla.org) in Los Angeles in 2006. She has curated major film retrospectives for the UCLA Film Archive and Austin Film Society, and initiated a national tour of landmark short films with the Los Angeles Filmforum, which was presented at the Pacific Film Archive, Harvard Film Archive, National Gallery of Art, and MoMA. In addition to the 2018 Women in Leadership Award from the City of West Hollywood, she has received multiple recognitions from the State of California, as well as the County and City of Los Angeles. Vera began as a cultural reporter and film critic in Sarajevo, where she was also the location manager for the N.Y.-based Jalbert Productions documentary of the historic 1984 Winter Olympic Games. She holds a degree in journalism from the University of Belgrade, and has a distinguished record in humanitarian work.
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Joseph Pierson
A producer and director
Joseph Pierson is a New York based producer and director. He is the president of Cypress Films Inc, a production company he founded in 1987. His most recent film is What’s This Country Called Now?, a short about the Siege of Sarajevo filmed on location in Bosnia and Herzegovina, starring Zrinka Cvitešić and Rade Šerbedžija. The film won the awards for Best Actress, Best Short, and Best of the Festival at the 2020 East Europe International Film Festival; Best Featurette at the 2021 Gold Movie Awards; and Best Short and Best Acting Performance at the 2022 Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival. Joseph’s other producing and directing credits include Pocantico: David Rockefeller Remembers, a short film about Mr. Rockefeller’s ancestral home, and EvenHand, a dramatic feature film shot on location in San Antonio, Texas (Sundance Channel/Arts Alliance).
PREVIOUS JURY MEMBERS





Tanya Domi
Adjunct Professor
BHFF 2022 Jury Member
Damir Šehanović
TV and radio reporter
BHFF 2022 Jury Member
Kamila Kuc
Polish filmmaker
BHFF 2022 Jury Member
Bojan Hadžihalilović
graphic designer & creative director
Aleksandar Hemon
writer
BHFF 2020 Jury Member
BHFF 2020 Jury Member



Aleksandra Odić
filmmaker
Ademir Kenović
producer & film director
BHFF 2020 Jury Member
BHFF 2019 Jury Member
Aleksandar Bošković
Lecturer in Bosnian/ Croatian/Serbian in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Columbia University
BHFF 2019 Jury Member


Tatjana Krstevski
cinematographer and professor at NYU, Tisch School of the Arts
Ana Janevski
Curator in the Department of Media and Performance Art at the Museum of Modern Art
BHFF 2019 Jury Member
BHFF 2018 Jury Member



Jasmina Husanović
Associate Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and chair of Cultural Studies
Mirko Ilić
graphic designer
BHFF 2018 Jury Member
Amela Bakšić
costume designer
BHFF 2017 Jury Member
BHFF 2018 Jury Member


Ron Haviv
an Emmy-nominated, award-winning photojournalist
Zlata Filipović
writer
BHFF 2017 Jury Member
BHFF 2017 Jury Member




Annette Danto
filmmaker, educator & author
BHFF 2016 Jury Member
Elma Tataragić
scriptwriter, professor & Sarajevo film festival programmer
BHFF 2016 Jury Member
Almin Karamehmedović
Executive Producer of ABC World News Tonight with David Muir
BHFF 2015 Jury Member
Dijana Jelača
PhD is a scholar of cultural and cinema studies
BHFF 2015 Jury Member

Pamela Hogan
Series Creator & Executive Producer
BHFF 2015 Jury Member

Amir Husak
filmmaker & multimedia artist
BHFF 2014 Jury Member


Harun Mehmedinović
filmmaker
Bill Carter
filmmaker & author
BHFF 2014 Jury Member
BHFF 2013 Jury Member

Goran Rušinović
film director & screenwriter
BHFF 2013 Jury Member

Sara Terry
former staff correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor & magazine freelance writer
BHFF 2013 Jury Member

Refik Hodžić
journalist, filmmaker & communications specialist
BHFF 2012 Jury Member

Steve Nemsick
filmmaker
BHFF 2012 Jury Member