By Azernews

By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijani film director Hilal Baydarov will serve on the jury of the competition program "Documentary film" at the 28th Sarajevo Film Festival, Azernews reports, citing the festival's website.

Baydarov's debut feature film "Hills Without Names" was screened at Montreal Film Festival in 2018.

The same year, he won the Docu Talent Award at the Sarajevo Film Festival for his second documentary "Birthday".

His third, fourth and fifth documentary films " When the Persimmons Grew", "Mother and Son" and " Nails in My Brain" won several awards at acclaimed festivals, such as Vision du Reel, Sarajevo Film Festival, and IDFA.

His second feature film "In Between Dying" was premiered in the main competition of the 2020 Venice Biennale Film Festival.

Moreover, his feature film "Crane Lantern" was premiered at the Tokyo Film Festival and won the Best Artistic Contribution award.

Founded in 1995, Sarajevo Film Festival brings international and local celebrities to Sarajevo every year. The festival is held each August and showcases an extensive variety of feature and short films from around the world.

This year, the film festival will be held in Bosnia and Herzegovina from August 12 to 19.

Along with Hilal Baydarov, the jury will also include film director Salome Jashi and artistic director of Movies that Matter Film Festival Margje de Koning.

Salome Jashi is a Georgian documentary filmmaker and producer. Her film "Taming The Garden" (2021) premiered at Sundance Film Festival's World Cinema Documentary Competition and Berlinale Forum. The film was nominated for the European Film Awards.

The filmmaker's work "The Dazzling Light of Sunset'' (2016) was awarded the Main Prize at Visions du Reel's Regard Neuf Competition and other festivals.

Her earlier work BAKHMARO (2011) was nominated for the Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

She was a fellow of the Nipkow Scholarship in 2017 and the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program in 2020. Salome Jashi is a member of the European Film Academy.

For more than a decade, Margje de Koning has made all sorts of documentaries for many different broadcasting companies.

In 2004, she became a part-time teacher in the Culture and Media studies department (of the University of Amsterdam).

In August 2004, Margje de Koning became Commissioning Editor for a documentary slot of 52' docs.

In 2012, Margje de Koning was responsible for Television 2012 she became Head of TV, Radio, and New Media programming at IKON.

Since 2016, IKON has been incorporated within EO with Margje de Koning as Commissioning Editor Documentaries for EO, JDocs, and IKONdocs. Since 2019, Margje has been the artistic director of the Movies that Matter Film Festival.