Oskar ima­gi­nes jury work at LUCAS to be cool and fun, becau­se he loves to speak his mind and dis­cuss with his peers. Most of the time he wat­ches films that are about fan­ta­sy and action — that’s why the works of Hayao Miyazaki are among his favou­rite films. For him to real­ly like a film, it must not only be exci­ting and visual­ly appe­aling, but also show diver­se cha­rac­ters, for examp­le with a disability.

Zoë app­lied for the jury becau­se she likes try­ing new things, watching films with others and exch­an­ging ide­as about them. She is also a fan­ta­sy fan, but for Zoë, humour should not be neglec­ted in a good film. Her favou­rite thing is to go to the cine­ma with her friends, the only thing that annoys her is the adver­ti­sing. She would like to see more sto­ries from South Korea on the big screen. It’s just as well that Zoë has alrea­dy lear­ned a litt­le Korean.

When Emma was asked by her mother if she wan­ted to be on the LUCAS jury, her first reac­tion was an exci­ted “Yaaa!”. She is a film fan becau­se she likes to put herself in the shoes of dif­fe­rent cha­rac­ters and alrea­dy dreams of beco­m­ing an actress one day. She pre­fers watching films in the cine­ma to sit­ting on the sofa at home, becau­se the halls and pro­jec­tors are big­ger the­re — and of cour­se becau­se the­re is pop­corn. But it must only be salty.

Lisa Haußmann stu­di­ed film and media stu­dies in Germany, France and the Netherlands. As a free­lan­ce film edu­ca­tor, she mode­ra­tes film talks and work­shops for young and old cine­­ma-goe­­rs, cura­tes for film fes­ti­vals and con­fe­ren­ces and lec­tures on film edu­ca­ti­on topics. She is a mem­ber of the advi­so­ry board of the EZEF, an hono­ra­ry exami­ner for the FSK and has been the direc­tor of the SchulKinoWochen in Berlin sin­ce 2015.

Nicole Kellerhals has been a free­lan­ce dra­ma­tur­ge at X‑Filme for more than 25 years, whe­re she has alrea­dy super­vi­sed pro­jects by Tom Tykwer, Michael Haneke and Oskar Roehler. As a mem­ber of nume­rous com­mit­tees such as the board of trus­tees of the Förderverein Deutscher Kinderfilm (German Children’s Film Association), she is com­mit­ted to media offe­rings spe­ci­fi­cal­ly tailo­red to child­ren and the pro­mo­ti­on of media com­pe­tence. Since 2017 she has been tea­ching Practical Dramaturgy at the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF.

Christian Kosfeld first stu­di­ed clas­si­cal per­cus­sion in Leipzig, then German stu­dies, musi­co­lo­gy and medi­eval stu­dies in Bochum. In addi­ti­on to his work as a radio jour­na­list, aut­hor and pro­du­cer for ARD Kultur, he has been rea­li­sing media edu­ca­ti­on school pro­jects at secon­da­ry and com­pre­hen­si­ve schools sin­ce 2007. He is co-deve­­lo­­per of the inclu­si­ve audio descrip­ti­on and film edu­ca­ti­on pro­ject “Junge Filmbeschreiber:innen”.

When Lilly sits in the cine­ma seat, she gets goo­se­bumps on her arms and loo­ks for­ward to an exci­ting sto­ry full of emo­tio­nal moments. Her favou­rite film is MAMMA MIA! (US/GB/DE 2008. Director: Phyllida Lloyd), becau­se the good humour in it is sim­ply infec­tious. Successful came­ra work and con­vin­cing acting per­for­man­ces are espe­cial­ly important to her. In the LUCAS pro­gram­me, she loo­ks for­ward to films with a cur­rent relevance.

Jan-Ole takes the lon­gest way to meet other film enthu­si­asts for the LUCAS fes­ti­val week. He not only enjoys watching films, but also wri­tes scripts and makes short films hims­elf. His favou­rite film is Akira Kurosawa’s THE SEVEN SAMURAI (JP 1954), which he admi­res for its nar­ra­ti­ve struc­tu­re. In a good film, Jan-Ole belie­ves that the tra­des of came­ra, acting and script have to work well together.

When watching films, Vitalij pays atten­ti­on not only to acting and came­ra work, but also to the film music. He is fasci­na­ted by films that give a deep insight into the human psy­che and depict social pro­blems. This is why he also appre­cia­tes Bong Joon-ho’s PARASITE (SK 2019). He is loo­king for­ward to spen­ding a lot of time in the cine­ma during the fes­ti­val week, as film thea­tres exu­de a “cer­tain atmo­s­phe­re” for him.

After stu­dy­ing theat­re and film stu­dies and European cul­tu­ral poli­cy in Paris and Bologna, Ralitsa Assenova com­ple­ted her doc­to­ra­te in the field of film edu­ca­ti­on. She is one of the foun­ders of the Arte Urbana Collectif in Sofia, Bulgaria, is the initia­tor of the film edu­ca­ti­on pro­ject “Cinema in School” and has cura­ted nume­rous pro­gram­mes of Bulgarian films for fes­ti­vals in France, Portugal and Poland.

Julia Jarl has worked at BUFF, the International Children’s and Youth Film Festival in Malmö, Sweden, sin­ce 2007 and took over the posi­ti­on of fes­ti­val direc­tor the­re at the end of 2012. Before that, she was head of edu­ca­ti­on at the regio­nal film fund Film i Skåne and pro­ject mana­ger at Fonds Film Stockholm. She belie­ves that film expe­ri­en­ces can help young peop­le broa­den their view and bet­ter under­stand the world around them.

Michael Van Ostade star­ted his crea­ti­ve care­er in the music indus­try befo­re they stu­di­ed film and won the Wildcard Award of the Nederlands Film Festival. With the pri­ze money he made the short film DANCE MACABRE. In 2022, they pre­sen­ted their direc­to­ri­al debut THE GHASTLY BROTHERS at LUCAS. He is cur­r­ent­ly working on a video game for mil­le­ni­als and an antho­lo­gy of Flemish hor­ror stories.

Maria firm­ly belie­ves that films can chan­ge many people’s per­spec­ti­ves. She would love to meet Albus Dumbledore in real life, becau­se he is a sen­si­ti­ve, intel­li­gent and modest per­son and finds the right words for every moment. Maria will not meet the for­mer head­mas­ter of Hogwarts at LUCAS, but she will meet other young film fans. She is alrea­dy loo­king for­ward to the exchan­ge with them.

The fact that Aaron is an avid cine­­ma-goer is not only evi­dent from his room, who­se walls he has wall­pa­pe­red with film pos­ters: Often, the cha­rac­ters he recent­ly found gre­at even influ­ence his style of dress and man­ner of spea­king. He loves films for hel­ping him switch off and con­nect with the world at the same time. He recent­ly star­ted stu­dy­ing film in Tallinn.

Linus also wants to work in the film indus­try one day. For a film to stay in his memo­ry, it has to take him away from rea­li­ty for its dura­ti­on and show him some­thing com­ple­te­ly new and unusu­al. Linus is also a gre­at lover of tra­gi­co­me­di­es, becau­se they com­bi­ne two important ele­ments for him: Wit and a gre­at emo­tio­nal drop. He is alrea­dy very exci­ted about the films he will see at LUCAS.

Addicted to film? Franes par­ents at least have the impres­si­on that their son can’t get enough of good film mate­ri­al. Almost every day he wat­ches one or two movies. Whether it’s new or old, it does­n’t mat­ter. Much more important are the emo­ti­ons that the film con­veys. However, Frane thinks not only about what he has seen, but also makes short docu­men­ta­ries about peop­le from his home­town Pula.

When Ivan dis­co­ve­r­ed Ingmar Bergman’s PERSONA (SE 1966), it spar­ked his love for cine­ma­to­gra­phy. And yet he is not only inte­res­ted in a cer­tain kind of film. Every now and then he wat­ches films that he nor­mal­ly would not like, to get out of his com­fort zone out and broa­den his tas­te in movies. Ultimately, it’s about losing yourself in the film and almost for­get­ting that you’­re watching a movie.

The moving image also plays a major role in Ana’s life: in her film stu­dies she learns not only about histo­ry, but also about the tech­ni­cal side of the medi­um. One film that has remai­ned par­ti­cu­lar­ly memo­r­able for her is THE CLUB OF DEAD LIGHTS (US 1989. Director: Peter Weir) with Robin Williams, who as tea­cher John Keating has an important mes­sa­ge for his stu­dents: “Carpe Diem, sei­ze the day, guys, make your life extraordinary!”