14 judges, TV professionals from 13 European countries, have been named for the Prix 2016 judging, which will take place in Novi Sad, Serbia, hosted by RTV Vojvodine,  from 4th till 9th April 2016. The winners will be announced in the week after the judging.

 

David Lowen, President of the Prix, said:
"The Prix demands the very best in programme judgement and I am delighted we have such experience and excellence to guide our discussions."

 

The Prix 2016 judges are:

Lout Donders
Omroep Brabant, The Netherlands

Since June 2008 Lout is the Head of Varia Television (infotainment) and Events at Omroep Brabant, public channel of the province Noord-Brabant in the south of Holland.The province has 2.4 million inhabitants. Omroep Brabant Television reaches an average of 500.000 viewers per day and online has Omroep Brabant 20 million visits per month.
Lout is responsible for the complete programming (news and current affairs excluded).
Next to the infotainment programs, he is also committed to Brabantse Beauties, very successful annual contest for young and experienced documentary makers.
Lout's previous functions include chief-editor news RTVi at Omroep Brabant, news chief and interim chief-editor, chief-editor for the regional Television channel TV8, various positions at newspapers, magazines and broadcasters.

 

Jane Birch
BBC, UK

Jane Birch is the TV editor responsible for news programmes in BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.  She joined the BBC almost twenty years ago as a local radio reporter and during her career she has been a reporter, a video journalist, a documentary producer and a current affairs editor.

 

 

Harald Füner
Hessischer Rundfunk – ARD, Germany

Harald started his TV career in 1998 at the Hessische Rundfunk in Frankfurt. He worked as a freelance reporter for the regional and national news and the ARD business programme “Plusminus”. In 2003 he moved to Amsterdam to work as a freelance correspondent for various German TV stations. He also worked for Dutch TV station AT5 in Amsterdam as a news reporter. In 2008 Harald became deputy head of the regional news programme back in Frankfurt. Since 2010 he is deputy head of the Hessenschau, the most important TV programme of the Hessische Rundfunk. 
He is also editor for special programmes and documentaries.

 

Vladimir Perović
RTV Vojvodine, Serbia

Vladimir Perović graduated in Film & TV Directing from Faculty of Drama Arts, Belgrade, Serbia. His creative documentaries won 92 awards and recognitions so far. He was jury member in Yugoslavia, Serbia, Montenegro, Germany, Russia, Iran, Romania… Employed as Editor in Documentary Dept. of RTV, Novi Sad, Serbia. Visiting professor of Documentary at Faculty of Drama Arts in Cetinje, Montenegro. Member of AFUN (Academy of Film Art and Science of Serbia) and of UFUS (Serbian Association of Film Artists). Selector for: Documentary section for Montenegro Film Festival, Herceg Novi, Montenegro, and Srem Film Festival, Vrdnik, Serbia. He lives in Belgrade, Serbia, and makes his films both in Serbia and in Montenegro...

 

Pól Ó Gallchóir
TG4, Ireland

Pól Ó Gallchóir has been Director General of TG4 since 2000. Pól started his broadcasting career as a TV and Radio journalist with RTÉ in 1980. In 1994, he was appointed Head of Raidió na Gaeltachta, the National Public Service Radio station broadcasting in the Irish language. In 1996, TG4 was established in Ireland. TG4 is a 24/7 television service, mainly broadcasting in the Irish language and available on all platforms in Ireland and worldwide on www.tg4.ie
Pól is a member of the WITBN executive, the World Indigenous Television Broadcasting Network comprising 13 indigenous television channels throughout the world. He is an active member of CIRCOM since 2001.

 

Valery Marinov, PhD
BNT, Bulgaria

Valery is journalist with 26 years of experience in television news both in public and commercial TV companies. He has taken almost every position in news – from reporter to editor and to presenter (at the public Bulgarian National TV and the bTV), producer (at BNT) and news editor-in-chief (at the commercial ProBG). Since 2013 he is online news producer. Valery is author of TV documentaries also.
He has a doctor’s degree in Public Communication and Information Science and is part-time teacher at the Sofia University Faculty of Journalism and at the New Bulgarian University.

 

Mattias Barsk
SVT, Sweden

Mattias is deputy manager of minority programs (Sami, Finnish, Jiddish, Romani chib, Meänkieli and Sign language) at SVT (Sveriges Television/Swedish Television). He also works as a programme developer and producer, and has produced documentary series, children’s programmes and science programmes and much more. Mattias works both online and in broadcast and uses social media as a part of his storytelling.

 

 

Svein Haaland
NRK, Norway

Svein Haaland is editor-in-chief, documentary department at NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) regional office Bergen, Hordaland.  Svein has been working in media since 1980. In NRK since 1991. Started as journalist with nature and science as main topics. From 1998 TV-producer, project manager and narrator. Produced mainly documentaries on human and nature relations. From 2009 editor-in-chief at the department of documentaries and factual entertainment, NRK Hordaland. Svein presented slow-TV, "Hurtigruten minute by minute" (world's longest live TV documentary), at the 30th Prix Circom Gala in Malmø 2012.

 

Christine Schwarz
RTBF, Belgium

Christine started working at RTBF 25 years ago. Graduated with an MA in electronic graphics at Coventry University, she worked at the graphic design department for 15 years and became the chief of the department. She than followed some training cycles and changed to the production of news magazines of several thematic events, like the national military parade, poverty, migrants... Lately she was in production charge of a cultural diversity show, especially made for the 10 years of the Unesco agreement. She works now for 5 years together with Alexander Pletser for European news programs on TV and Web and for the citizenship project together with CIRCOM. Therefore, she became Mojo judge in Budapest in October 2015. In Mai 2016 she will start a new job as coordinator and producer in buying and selling news reports between EBU, TV5MONDE and RTBF.

Marian Voicu
TVR, Romania

Marian worked for 20 years in TV and radio as host and producer of various awarded programs and innovative formats, but he is deeply passionate about documentary film. He filmed in more than 30 countries, with solid background in Eastern Europe and strong affinity for Africa. In 2015 he received the Gold Medal - Ricardo Ortega Memorial Prize from United Nations Correspondents Association for "an outstanding documentary on the biblical escape from Syria".
In 2011 he was project manager at Radio Chisinau, a new Romanian Public Radio station in Republic of Moldova.
He is also a publisher for an on-line platform for romanian journalists worlwide and manager for annual traineeships for journalists from Republic of Moldova.

 

Zsuzsanna Antala, PhD
MTVA, Hungary

Was born in Komárno, former Czechoslovakia. She has worked for the Hungarian Television for 24 years as an editor-director.
Zsuzsanna as a senior editor and editor in-chief runs MTVA's Slovak Minority Department for the past 15 years. She edits and directs a weekly magazine and documentaries mostly with topics of sociology, sociography, literature, religion, music and art history connected to the minority status. She likes to deal with topics of natural sciences, as well, specially genetics, vinology and enology. Jury member of film and TV festivals Visegrad Festival Ostrava – Czech Republic (2003), Academia Film Festival Olomouc - Czech Republic (2005), Prix Europa Berlin - Germany (2013).
She has doctor’s degree in Literature Science (1996 – József Attila University of Sciences Szeged, Hungary, Thesis: “Modern Hungarian metaphoric structures of novels, and power of creating metaphors in the literature of the national minorities”.
She is the winner of Prix CIRCOM 2015 in a Magazine and News Magazine category.

Jean-Marc Dubois
FTV, France

Jean-Marc Dubois is journalist. 
Since 1983 he has been working in several medias: regional newspapers, national press magazines, local, regional and national television. As journalist and editor in chief he did a lot of reportages and magazines.
He is now working for France 3, the regional network of France Televisions as Director of development. He is also the President of CIRCOM regional.

 

 

Michael Lally
RTÉ, Ireland

Michael Lally is the Chief  News Editor of RTÉ (Irish language). He has worked with Ireland's national broadcaster for almost thirty years, and now also leads the team who provides the Irish language News service to TG4 on behalf of RTÉ. His career in TV journalism includes being the national Editor at RTÉ for both Agricultural and Fisheries Affairs as well as Industry and Employment. He was Executive Producer of the Prix CIRCOM Magazine award winning programme Pobal  in 2009. He currently produces the magazine TV programme Feilte. Michael has worked on over twenty documentaries and specialised in “developing world issues”. He has special responsibility within RTÉ for Regional Projects.

 

Piotr Garbarczyk
TVP, Poland

Piotr Garbarczyk graduated (MSc) from the faculty of journalism at the University of Warsaw. He has been working in Warsaw Regional Television, a part of TVP, since 1985. He was reporter in news programs and also TVP correspondent in several northern regions of Poland. He prepared programs for national minorities (Lithuanian, Belorussian, Ukrainian). He is an author of several dozens documentaries. For the last few years he is responsible for the content for the nation-wide airing of 16 local stations of TVP. He was a jury member at many competitions journalism.