The Sundance Film Festival has announced that Latin American filmmakers Ciro Guerra from Colombia and Maite Alberdi will be in this year’s jury. Guerra will be part of the three-member jury in the World Cinema Dramatic Jury along with director Jane Campion and producer Charles Gillibert, and Alberdi will serve in the World Cinema Documentary Jury with director Véréna Paravel and film programmer Nico Marzano.
Guerra is a writer and director, whose first two feature films, La sombra del caminante / The Wandering Shadows in 2004 and Los viajes del viento / The Wind Journeys in 2009, have screened in many international film festivals, including the Cannes Film Festival (in the Un Certain Regard section), Toronto International Film Festival, San Sebastián International Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Festival del film Locarno, and Tribeca Film Festival.
His third feature, El abrazo de la serpiente / Embrace of the Serpent, won the Art Cinema Award at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival Directors’ Fortnight and became the first Colombian film nominated for the best foreign language film at the Academy Awards. His 2018 film Pájaros de verano / Birds of Passage, co-directed with Cristina Gallego premiered in the Directors' Fortnight section at the Cannes Film Festival and has been shortlisted for Best Foreign Language Film in this year’s Oscar race. He’s currently working on the film adaptation of J. M. Coetzee’s acclaimed novel Waiting for the Barbarians.
Director Alberdi is known for her documentaries that offer intimate portraits of everyday life. Her films, which include the features The Lifeguard, The Grown-Ups, and Tea Time, have received dozens of international awards, plus nominations for the 2016 Goya Award for Best Ibero-American Film (Tea Time) and European Short Film 2016 (I’m Not From Here). She also produced Sex Life of Plants, Los Reyes, and They All Come Back. An active educator, Alberdi regularly offers documentary-production and project-development workshops to students and professionals, both in Chile and abroad. In 2012 Alberdi was selected as a “Global Shaper” by the World Economic Forum, and in 2018 she became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The 2019 edition of the Sundance Film Festival will take place January 24-February 3 in Park City, Utah.
