Festival jury

Nick Sawyer started his directing career in the 90’s in music videos whilst living in the United States; he worked with the likes of Cypress Hill, Gwen McCrea, Alice in Chains, building up a sizable music video catalogue as a director. During this period Nick paralleled his career as a director with of a director of photography, shooting projects for REM , Diana Ross, Anastasia, Simply Red, Radio Head to name but very few.
On returning to the UK in the mid 90’s Nick prioritized the development his commercials career and become synonymous with many of the big directing names at that time: Nick Jones, Mike Lipscombe, Roger Lunn, Patricia Murphy, Chris Hartwill and of late has been one of the new wave of 3D (stereoscopic) cinematographers working with Gerald Mc Morrow.
In 1994 Nick won the Earst and Young Cinematographer of the year award for the Lynx commercial ‘Caravan’ and has since been nominated for several CAD and D&AD awards. Over the past years Nick has gained a reputation as one of the front-runners in the new wave of life style, food, liquids and special effects directors incorporating many of the techniques learnt from his music video days, refined with the quality demanded by the commercials world. His current clients include McDonalds, O2, Philips, KFC…

Olaf Van Gerwen
Olaf is a film director by trade. He entered the ad business as off line editor and moved into directing soon after. He developed an international career as director for visual storytelling.
In 2012, he founded Chuck Studios, the world’s first global food-specialist creative production company. Within 7 years, Chuck Studios expanded not only into four countries, but also into strategic and creative work for food brands.
Olaf has directed, shot and created over 500 commercials in 30+ countries. His client list includes McDonald’s, KFC, Burger King, Heineken, ABInbev, Asahi, Unilever, Mondelez, KraftHeinz, Nestle, Coca Cola, Pepsico and many more.

Jerzy Dytkiewicz used to work also as a cinematographer, but right now his main focus is on directing. He specializes in tabletop commercials and food films. He has got a head full of great ideas and is a perfectionist when dealing with details. He uses computer visual effects as little as possible basing his work on live recordings.

Niels La Croix Niels’ life is devoted to food. Whether it’s Peruvian street food, ‘whole hog’ on a wood fire, helping his brother out with his food truck or savor an exquisite three star Michelin dinner. He just can’t get enough. As a former agency art director he’s trained to see communication from the brand as well as the consumer point of view. He believes a good idea can only become valuable if the execution is spot on. That’s why Niels is keen in creating films which feel as an exhilarating experience that reveals the true beauty of a product or brand. Niels brings food films to the next level. As he likes to say: ‘visual storytelling, out of the box and in your face!’ Niels lives in the frisky city of Rotterdam, The Netherlands and is used to working abroad. He runs Micro-Brewery ‘Drift Brouwers’ as a fun side project with of his best mates and travels a lot with his love and daughter to explore nature and local cuisine. 

Matthias Lebeer is a multi-award-winning film director, shortlisted for an Oscar in 2008 for his short film Brod ludaka and winner of two Golden Lions at Cannes for his work on GT Academy Europe.
After graduating from Prague’s prestigious FAMU (Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts) and achieving his Masters from Brussels’ RITCS, Matthias is now based in London.
As well as narrative films, Matthias specialises in TV commercials for premium brands, for which he has won two EVCOM Awards for his work with Nespresso. His first foray into directing music videos, for Wherever I Go by Mark Knopfler, won a Talenthouse Award and a The Smalls Music Video Award.

Daphne van der Berg the first five years of her career worked as an in-house director extensively on all kinds of productions. Since then, Daphne has polished her craft and is able to adapt herself to any brief you put in front of her. Daphne’s strength lies in conjuring up unexpected moments from the everyday. She developed a loose style for capturing intimate details.

Irina Gusinskaya, deputy editor-in-chief of Alpina Publisher, editor of the books “Chef Yourself: How to Learn to Cook Without Recipes” and “Food Without Borders. The rules of delicious travel ”, Master of Gastronomy of the Basque Culinary Center, Sommelier of the Chamber of Commerce of Madrid.

Marina Mironova, gastronomic journalist, blogger, author of a guide for gastronomic tourists “Food without borders. The rules of tasty trips”, teaches and conducts master classes at Travelogia School, organizes field study practices in journalism. I traveled to 50+ countries and wrote hundreds of thousands of words about them for magazines: National Geographic Traveler, Big City, Poster, flight magazines of the airlines Russia, Pulkovo, UTAir, etc.

Alena Fabiani, founder of “99 Francs – Communication Group“, PR, event-, smm-promotion of restaurants and clubs.