International Jury
Hayet Benkara
Hayet Benkara is a French-born film industry advisor based in Toronto and Europe. For over 15 years, she worked with outstanding professionals at TIFF, the Toronto International Film Festival, under the leadership of Piers Handling and Cameron Bailey. She served as Manager of the Unofficial Market and as Manager of TIFF Studio, the first year-round training programme for film professionals (producers, directors, and screenwriters). She also produced the TIFF Talent Lab, which takes place during the festival.
Benkara has worked for prestigious international film festivals such as Cannes, Berlinale, Rotterdam (CineMart), Locarno (Open Doors), Marrakech (Ateliers de l’Atlas), the Doha Film Institute—where she launched the co-production market Qumra—as well as Abu Dhabi, Dubai—where she launched the Industry department—and Guanajuato (Mexico), among others.
In 2021, she launched the Nouveau Marché at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma in Montreal, a new co-production market presenting Canadian and international projects in development to the North American market. Thanks to her extensive international network and holistic approach, she is frequently invited to conduct workshops and moderate panels on topics related to the film industry.
Throughout the year, she advises emerging and established filmmakers and producers on strategies for development, production, co-production, distribution, marketing, and related areas.
Jay Weissberg
New-York born film historian and critic Jay Weissberg lives in Rome and has been the director of the Giornate del Cinema Muto/Pordenone Silent Film Festival since 2016, writing widely about multiple aspects of silent cinema. As a film critic he was attached to Variety for 18 years and has a specialty in contemporary Arab cinema. A frequent participant of festival juries, he regularly moderates Master Classes and has acted as mentor in international programs for young film critics.
Raquel Freire Zangrandi
Raquel Freire Zangrandi is the executive producer of piauí, a Brazilian monthly magazine based in Rio de Janeiro, dedicated to politics, cultural issues, and current affairs.
She worked as production coordinator at VideoFilmes in the documentary department. Among the documentary films she worked on as a producer are Notícias de uma guerra particular, Entreatos, and Santiago, directed by João Moreira Salles; and O fim e o princípio and Jogo de Cena, directed by Eduardo Coutinho.
Galicia Jury
Daniel Ribas
Daniel Ribas is a professor, researcher and programmer. He is an Assistant Professor at the School of Arts of the Portuguese Catholic University, where he coordinates the Master’s programme in Cinema. He is Director of CITAR – Research Center for Science and Technology of the Arts. He has curated various film programmes for Curtas Vila do Conde and Batalha Centro de Cinema. Between 2016 and 2018, he was a member of the Artistic Direction of Porto/Post/Doc, where he is currently a programmer for the international competition. He holds a PhD in Cultural Studies from the Universities of Aveiro and Minho, and writes on Portuguese cinema, contemporary and experimental cinema. His most recent publications are Seleção Nacional – Five Constellations (2025) and Reframing Portuguese Cinema in the 21st Century (2020). He is a regular contributor to PÚBLICO and an expert for the Portuguese Film Institute and the European Commission.
Eloy Enciso Cachafeiro
After graduating in documentary film directing from the International School of Film and Television in San Antonio de los Baños (Cuba), he directed the documentary Pic-nic (2007, Best Galician Documentary at the IV Play-Doc), followed by Arraianos (2012), which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival. Arraianos received the Best Film awards in Buenos Aires (BAFICI), Peru (Transcinema) and Seville (European Film Festival), and was also presented at the IX edition of Play-Doc.
In 2019 he returned with his first fiction feature, Longa noite, which screened at major international festivals (Locarno, Toronto, New York Film Festival, Viennale, Rotterdam and Jeonju), winning awards at festivals in Switzerland, Argentina, Peru, Russia, France, Portugal and Spain.
With his latest film, Todo es cárcel (2026), he continues to deepen the defining traits of his cinema: a carefully crafted work with non-professional actors inspired by literary texts, and the poetic intertwining of reality, fiction and History that links him to a current of contemporary European cinema represented by Straub-Huillet, Pedro Costa and Eugène Green. For Enciso, as for these filmmakers, true transformation does not lie in creating something radically new, but in rediscovering and revaluing the principles of film language that lie forgotten or subverted within established cinema.
Leire Apellaniz
Leire Apellaniz has developed an active career as a producer and director on numerous film projects through the production companies Señor & Señora and Apellaniz y de Sosa, which she founded with Ion de Sosa in 2017.
In 2016 she produced and directed her first feature film, El último verano (2016), which was selected at several international festivals including BAFICI and Karlovy Vary. Since then, she has produced the titles Mudar la piel (Ana Schulz and Cristóbal Fernández, 2018), Las letras de Jordi (Maider Fernández Iriarte, 2019), Ventajas de viajar en tren(Aritz Moreno, 2019), Espíritu sagrado (Chema García Ibarra, 2021), Canto Cósmico. Niño de Elche (Leire Apellaniz and Marc Sempere, 2021), La concha (Leire Apellaniz, 2022), Samsara (Lois Patiño, 2023), Mamántula (Ion de Sosa, 2023), Contadores (Irati Gorostidi, 2023), Una Ballena (Pablo Hernado, 2024), Balearic (Ion de Sosa, 2025) and Aro berria (Irati Gorostidi, 2025). All of them have screened at some of the most important festivals in the world such as San Sebastián, Cannes, Locarno, BAFICI, Berlinale and Rotterdam.
She is currently finishing Aritz Moreno’s next feature film, Karateka, while also developing her first narrative feature, Zuria. She has recently become a member of the European Film Academy.