Meet the Neighbors+ Jury

The “Meet the Neighbors+” competition section, which was expanded so as to include first or second films from the 36 countries of South-Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East, is further upgraded this year with the awarding of more prizes. At the same time, the section’s Golden Alexander is renamed into “Golden Alexander - Michel Dimopoulos,” honoring the memory of the former Festival director (1991-2005) who led the institution to gain an international scope.

The films of the Meet the Neighbors+ competition are eligible for the following awards:


The Official Selection films are eligible for prizes awarded by Independent Juries.


The members of the jury are:
Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, actor; Xenia Kaldara, chairperson of the Board of Directors and General Manager of the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation; and Cédric Succivalli, programmer and film critic.

 

 

Cédric Succivalli is a programmer and film critic. He studied under Positif critic Michel Ciment and graduated from the University of Aix-Marseille with a Master’s thesis on My Own Private Idaho by Gus Van Sant. He went on to study at the University of Paris VII Denis Diderot, with a thesis on David Cronenberg’s Crash. He subsequently taught French and cinema at the University of Bath and UWE Bristol and worked for Arte France Cinéma as part of the film funding committee as a screenplay consultant. A former performer for Rosalind Crisp (No One Will Tell Us), Michel Abdoul (Swing, Galerie des Galeries, Galeries Lafayette), Atelier de Paris Carolyn Carlson, and a model for Margiela and Yohji Yamamoto, he has served as President of the International Cinephile Society for eighteen years, and during that time he has been regularly attending and writing about festivals around the world. He has served on juries at numerous festivals, whereas in 2018, he became a programmer for the Giornate degli Autori sidebar section of the Venice Film Festival, having as one of his main focuses to bring more queer cinema to Venice. He is the guest curator of the 22nd Ciclo Rosa LGBTI+ Film Festival at the Bogotá Cinemateca and a member of the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics.

 

Argentinian actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart joined the Buenos Aires School of Fine Arts before training in private drama workshops. He went on to perform in a series of plays and films both for cinema and television in Argentina. Aged only 21, he was chosen for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Initiative programme, which took him to New York where he joined Kate Valk's company, The Wooster Group. In 2008, back in Argentina, a part in Pablo Fendrik's La Sangre Brota (Semaine de la Critique, Cannes 2008) brought him to the public’s attention. During a trip to Paris, Benoît Jacquot got in touch to offer him the main part in Deep in the Woods, which premiered at the Locarno Festival in 2010. In 2014, he starred in Rebecca Zlotowski's Grand Central. The film was screened at the Cannes Film Festival as part of the Un Certain Regard competition. Nahuel Pérez Biscayart was then cast in David Lambert's All Yours in Belgium, a role that won him an award at the Karlovy Vary Festival. 2017 saw him return to the silver screen in France, starring in Albert Dupontel's See You Up There and Robin Campillo's 120 Beats Per Minute (2017 Cannes Grand Prize), in which he played the role of Sean, a charismatic member of Act-Up Paris in the early 90s. The role won him Best Male Newcomer at the 2018 César awards among other awards. For his performance in film Persian Lessons in which he co-stars with Lars Eidinger (2020 Berlinale) he received a Golden Panda Award (Chengdu, China). After Isaki Lacuesta’s One Year, One Night (Berlinale 2022) and El empleado y el Patrón by Manuel Nieto Saz (Quizaine des cinéastes, Cannes 2022), the film La fille de son père by Erwan Leduc closed the Semaine de la Critique 2023 in Cannes. Les gens d’à côté by André Téchiné, alongside Isabelle Huppert, and El Jockey by Luis Ortega alongside Ursula Corberó will be released in 2024.

  

Xenia Kaldara (Metaxia Tsirtavi) was born in Kavala. She has been involved in the fields of journalism, as well as marketing/communication and advertising. She serves as the Chairperson of the Board of Directors and General Manager of the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation and is the founder and Director of the production company “Teoxenia” Among her various roles, she has been responsible for organizing and executing the production of the Cultural Year of Greece in China, which featured the participation of 58 prominent Greek producers. She has also organized and managed the production of significant performances from abroad, including those by Fura Dels Baus, Piccolo Teatro (Giorgio Strehler), Nuria Espert, and more. She has worked as a documentary producer for educational content at the Educational Department of the State Television, as a music producer and journalist at Athens 9.84 radio station, and at Channel 1 Piraeus. Additionally, she has served as a program director, music producer, and journalist at SKAI 100.4 radio station, a music producer at Melodia FM 99.2 radio station, and an editor to the Epsilon magazine of the Eleftherotypia newspaper. Xenia Kaldara was a close collaborator of Michael Cacoyannis and Irini Papa for an extended period of time.