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Veteran actor Peter Riegert, who has been in Animal House, Local Hero, Crossing Delancey, The Mask and Traffic, is this year’s Bermuda International Film Festival Jury Chairman.

He is joined by actress Laura Elena Harring (Mulholland Drive), Sundance-award-winning documentarian Stanley Nelson, Daily Variety film critic Robert Koehler, festival directors Roger Durling (Santa Barbara) and Lia Rinaldo (Atlantic Film Festival, Halifax) and Elmore Warren, the owner of film production and cable television company, Fresh Creations Ltd.

The jury determine the winners of the Mary-Jean Green Mitchell Award for Best Narrative Feature, the M3 Wireless Bermuda Shorts Award and the award for Best Documentary Feature.

“We are pleased to welcome such a distinguished jury to the festival,” Festival Director Aideen Ratteray-Pryse said. “They have a difficult task because this year’s film line-up is our strongest ever.”

The ninth Bermuda International Film Festival, takes place from March 17-25. For tickets visit www.biff.bm.

The members of the jury are:

Peter Riegert

Film, stage and television actor Peter Riegert makes a return to BIFF, having screened his Academy Award-nominated short film, By Courier, here in 2001. His film career includes appearances in Animal House, Local Hero, A Man in Love, Crossing Delancey, Object of Beauty, Oscar, Utz, The Mask, Cold Blooded, Infinity, A Shock to the System, How to Kill Your Neighbour’s Dog, Jerry and Tom, and Traffic. His feature film directorial debut was King of the Corner, released in 2005.

Laura Elena Harring

Actress Laura Elena Harring drew critical acclaim for her breakthrough performance in David Lynch’s film, Mulholland Drive, the performance earning her an American Latino Media Arts (ALMA) Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture. She has also appeared in John Q, and The Alamo: Thirteen Days to Glory, and can currently be seen in FX’s critically acclaimed hit series, The Shield. She was also seen in the independent feature, The King, with Gael Garcia Bernal and William Hurt, and in the HBO original movie, Walkout, directed by Edward James Olmos. She was the first Latina to win the Miss USA crown.

Stanley Nelson

Award-winning documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson is executive producer of Firelight Media, a not-for-profit documentary production company dedicated to giving a voice to people and issues that are marginalised in popular culture. His 2003 film, The Murder of Emmett Till, earned him a Special Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, a coveted award from the International Documentary Association and the highest honour in broadcast journalism, the George Foster Peabody award, among many others. His films include A Place of Our Own (2004), Sweet Honey in the Rock: Raise Your Voice (2005) and his most recent production, Jonestown: The Life and Death of People’s Temple.

Robert Koehler

Robert Koehler writes film criticism for Variety and for the cinema journals Cinema Scope and Cineaste. He has contributed writing on film, theatre and culture to the L.A. Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, Die Tageszeitung, Cahiers du Cinema and New Times. A member of FIPRESCI (the International Film Critics Association) and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Robert is also a programmer for the Los Angeles Film Critics' film series, "The Films That Got Away.”

Lia Rinaldo

Lia Rinaldo began in the film industry by slinging popcorn and cleaning toilets at the tender age of 16 at Halifax’s only repertory theatre, Wormwood’s Dog & Monkey Cinema. She eventually managed and programmed the theatre while simultaneously climbing up through the ranks of the Atlantic Film Festival over the past 15 years. Lia has served as Festival Director at the Atlantic Film Festival Association for the past five years and has seen the event grow from a small annual regional festival to four year-round programmes each with a growing international reputation. This past September, the Atlantic Film Festival celebrated its landmark 25th anniversary with 30,000 people in attendance.

Roger Durling

Roger Durling has been the director of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival for the past three years. While continuing to hold that post, he proudly teaches as an adjunct professor at the Film Studies department of the Santa Barbara City College and will be teaching at University of California at Santa Barbara a class on film directors next Spring. He also writes a column about film in the Santa Barbara Independent. Roger received the 2004 the Citizen of the Year Award from the Santa Barbara Downtown Organisation. He was born in Panama and has a Bachelor's degree from Syracuse University and a Master's degree from Columbia University.

Elmore Warren

Career television producer Elmore Warren co-founded Bermuda’s Fresh Creations Ltd. in 1993. Today, he is the sole owner of the company, which is involved in commercial video production and operates a cable television channel. He is the creator of Al & Chrif’s Original Video Show, which was launched on Bermudian television in the mid-1990s and became a showcase for local artists. He and his company have had extensive experience in the filming of live concerts, both in Bermuda and overseas, and the packaging of them for broadcast. He has also successfully distributed shows to Channel Four in the United Kingdom, Channel E in South Africa, and to 13 territories in the Caribbean. Elmore, a Media Arts graduate from Greenfield College (Massachusetts, U.S.) is a regular attendee at the world’s major international television markets.[[In-content Ad]]

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