Jury for the IDFA Competition for Kids & Docs 2020
Martijn Blekendaal
Martijn Blekendaal is a documentary maker based in Amsterdam. His documentary debut The Man in Black, based on a scenario that won him the prestigious Mediafonds Award in 2009, premiered at IDFA in 2011. For his youth documentary The Man Who Looked Beyond the Horizon he won the Special Jury Award at IDFA 2018.
After his studies in Art History and History at the University of Amsterdam, Blekendaal became a researcher and reporter for a range of television programs in the Netherlands, a journalist for Belgian newspaper De Morgen and history magazine Historisch Nieuwsblad, and a moderator. He co-founded production company DOCters in 2007 and since has directed several documentaries. Apart from his work for film and television, Blekendaal also runs non-profit exhibition space BOEF and recently founded beer brewery Cinema Brewers.
Franziska Ferdinand
Franziska Ferdinand is in charge of the Children's and Youth Cinema at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen since 2013, and head of the KinderKinoFest Düsseldorf since 2017. KinderKinoFest is an annual film festival for children, which takes place in several venues all over Düsseldorf.
Ferdinand studied cultural sciences in Hildesheim and Bologna. She started to work for the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in 2011. In the last few years she has been involved in different film events and projects for kids and youngsters in the Ruhr area.
Bregt Van Wijnendaele
Bregt Van Wijnendaele is Artistic Director of the Youth Film Festival in Antwerp, Belgium since 2012 and Head of Film at youth film organization JEF since 2017. JEF is the Belgian contact for all matters involving youth, film and new media, at school or in leisure time. Van Wijnendaele is also one of the initiators of the Belgian youth documentary support initiative Ket & Doc.
Van Wijnendaele studied Art History at the University of Ghent and Cultural Management at the University of Antwerp. He worked in theatre as a dramaturge and assistant director and wrote for various magazines as an art critic. In 2013, Van Wijnendaele created De Zendelingen, a collective for multimedia- and dialogue-based art criticism and audience development.
