SEPTEMBER 8-12, 2025
Jury 2023
The team of judges behind NIFF has been carefully selected based on their passion, experience, and dedication to film.
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Alberto Cañada
Programming Director of the Filmoteca de Navarra. He holds a PhD in Communication from the University of Navarra. He is the author of the books Arrival and Implementation of the Cinematography in Navarre (1896-1930), Simón Blasco Salas: A Doctor from Estella in the World of Cinema (1885-1968), and Cinema in Pamplona During the Second Republic and the Civil War (1931-1939). A member of the translation team for the Larousse Dictionnaire du Cinéma, he has worked as a film critic for various media outlets and has served on a jury at several film festivals and competitions. He also worked in the Communications and Programming Department of the film exhibition company SAIDE from 1991 to 2011.
Álvaro González
He holds a Diploma in Film Directing from ECAM (the School of Cinematography and Audiovisuals of the Community of Madrid), where he was tutored by Ana Díez, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, and Gracia Querejeta, and directed actors by Mariano Barroso and Jaime Chávarri. He has been working as a director in advertising and on TV series and programs for twenty years. He is a professor at the Faculty of Communication of the University of Navarra in the Bachelor's Degree in Audiovisual Communication, where he teaches Directing, Screenwriting, Film and TV Production, and Directing Actors and Acting. He is also a tutor for Final Degree Projects in Fiction, Animation, and TV Programs. He has directed three short films: El Cinéfilo, Casa Fouce, and Titan.
Belén Galindo
A journalist for three decades, she is the Communications Manager for the La Información Group, where she also works as a reporter, host, and event organizer. She also provides the voice and soul of the Diario de Navarra podcast "Con voz propia" (With Her Own Voice) and was the driving force behind the newspaper's Reading Club, which celebrates its 15th anniversary this year. She worked as an editor at the Chattanooga Times Free Press in Tennessee. Her writing career has led her to publish "People of Chattanooga," "Gente Op," and "Un blog para cruza el Océano." She participates in numerous cultural, social, and journalistic events, such as the NIFF, where she has collaborated since its first edition.
Idoia Saralegui
Idoia Saralegui San Sebastián. Born in Pamplona. She holds a degree in Social Work, a degree in Social Psychology, and a research qualification in Sociology.
Councilor and spokesperson for Pamplona City Council from 1999 to 2007
High Exclusion Officer for Pamplona City Council from 2007 to 2018
Director of the Social Services Department of Pamplona City Council from 2018 to 2019
Head of the Inclusion Section of the Department of Education from 2019 to 2021
Director of Intercultural Coexistence and the Fight against Racism for the Government of Navarre from 2021 to present
Writer. Member of the Navarre Writers Association (ANE/NIE). She has published five novels ("Carola's Proposal," "Absurd Fantasies," "Dragonfly Effect," "A Vampire with Braces," and "Celia's Journey." She has participated in various anthologies ("24. Navarrese Stories," "The Soul of Wine," etc.).
She won the Romance Writers Association Award for Absurd Fantasies.
She was a finalist in Pandora Magazine's love story competition.
She won the "Wanted a Writer" short story award (Mujer de Hoy magazine and the Mexican Tourism Consortium).
Javier Gruñeiro
Javier Gruñeiro is a filmmaker and one of the founders of the collective "Dispongo de Barcos." In his pieces, he explores the impact of the individual on the collective, and how the collective's reality is the result of its confrontation with the past. Javier has served as a jury member for DOCUMENTAMADRID 2018 (Best Photography Award - National Feature Film), among others. He is currently working on a collective feature film with Javier Rebollo and Noemi García Díaz, in which the introduction or application of obstructions conceptualizes a different view of The Night.
Javier Tolentino
A graduate in Information Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid, he studied Law at the University of Salamanca. He has directed some of the most charismatic news programs on radio (Siete días, Informe Abierto, La Jornada, El Ciempiés). He is the creator, founder, and director of El Otro Cine Posible (Radio 5), El Árbol de las Palabras (Radio Exterior de España), and El Séptimo Vicio (Radio 3); the latter, with seventeen years of presence on the cultural network of public radio, has earned him awards such as the Critics' Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the San Sebastian Film Festival, among others.
Joaquín Calderón
He co-produced "The Longest Night Dawns," which was nominated for Best Animated Short Film at the 2023 Goya Awards, in addition to numerous selections and other awards. He is currently the director of LRN - La Residencia Navarra www.laresidencianavarra.com and the NIFF - Navarra International Film Festival www.navarrafestival.com
He organizes immersive film workshops such as "Filming in Navarra with..." with Asghar Farhadi, Oliver Laxe, and Isabel Coixet.
He directed and produced the feature-length documentary "Sahara Is Not for Sale," which won the Audience Award at Documenta Madrid 08, the Golden Galvano at the Valparaíso Film Festival in Chile, and the Silver Camel at Fisahara 08.
In 2013, he founded the production company Arquetipo Comunicación S.L. -with whom he continues to work- and with whom he directed the documentaries "Sarasate, The King of the Violin," "Basque Selfie," which premiered at the San Sebastián Film Festival, and "Flamenco On Fire," which premiered at the Montreal World Film Festival and the Latino Seattle Film Festival.
He previously studied at the ECAM (National Academy of Dramatic Arts), the Navarra School of Theatre, and the Arts Educational School in London. He also received training from directors such as Abbas Kiarostami, Asghar Farhadi, Oliver Laxe, Isabel Coixet, Montxo Armendáriz, Mariano Barroso, and Benito Zambrano.
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José Félix Collazos
Silver Horse at the Larissa New Filmmakers Festival (Greece). He has collaborated with the San Sebastián International Film Festival as a radio scriptwriter and is a film critic for various media outlets and specialized magazines.
Lola Mayo
Screenwriter, producer, and film professor. She has directed documentaries for the Spanish National Television (TVE) program Documentos TV and has won the Queen Sofía Journalism Award. She teaches narrative at film schools and universities in Spain and Latin America, including the Carlos III University of Madrid, the ECAM (National Institute of Film Studies), the Madrid Film Institute, the Lusofona University of Lisbon, and Hamilton College in the United States. She directs the Feminist Documentary Creation Lab at the Francesca Bonnemaison Center in Barcelona. She is a programmer for the DocumentaMadrid and Alcine festivals. For three years, she coordinated the Documentary Film Chair at the San Antonio de los Baños Film School in Cuba and founded the Master's Program in Documentary Project Creation there. She is a producer and co-writer of many of director Javier Rebollo's works.
María Manero Muro
María Manero Muro combines her career as an animator with animation production and is the author of her own projects. Her most recent feature-length work includes on-camera cut-out animation for Isabel Herguera's El sueño de la Sultana, animation production for one of the teams behind Alberto Vázquez's Unicorn Wars, and European animation production for Disney Studios' Disenchanted. Her latest short film, Patchwork (2018), was selected more than 200 times at national and international festivals, garnering around thirty awards and nominations. She has been co-coordinator and co-founder of the "Grafitarras" Rural and Collaborative Art Project in Azagra, Navarra, since 2019. This event aims to provide opportunities for meeting, reflection, and dynamization for individuals and organizations interested in nurturing collective processes of creative experimentation in rural areas.
Manuel Palenzuela
Manuel Palenzuela, born in Caracas, Venezuela, 29-09-1999. He holds a degree in Audiovisual Communication from the Carlos III University of Madrid and a joint diploma course at the ECAM. He is the director of short films such as "No estás solo" (You Are Not Alone), winner of the Villanueva Showing Festival and Suroscopia Festival; "Madrid Para dos" (Madrid for Two), winner of the Eurostars hotel chain competition; and music videos such as "Por Hoy" (For Today) by Anakena, among others. In 2022, he was selected as a representative of Spain for the 27 Times Cinema program and a jury member for the Giornate degli autori section at the Venice Film Festival. That same year, he worked as a youth ambassador for the European Parliament's LUX Prize, and the following year he joined the selection and programming team for Giornate degli autori at the Venice Film Festival. He is currently the coordinator of the New Generation section at the Navarra International Film Festival (NIFF).
Mercedes Aranguren
Actress, director, and audiovisual producer. In 2021, she directed and produced "El Camino de Nerea," nominated for the 2022 Granada International Film Festival. In 2023, she received several awards for Best Documentary, in New York, Berlin, Madrid, and Barcelona. She was recognized in Rochester for her merit and cinematic excellence. She is currently promoting a social improvement and integration project within one of the associations with which she collaborates.
Her next documentary precisely reflects this reality.
Mintxo Díaz
He began working as a producer in 2009 and has since produced various short and feature films, both fiction, documentary, and animation, with a clear international audience.
He has been selected for prestigious workshops such as Berlinale Talents 2017, IDFA Academy 2018, Torino Feature Lab 2019, EAVE Marketing Workshop 2020, and Cannes Focus Copro 2021.
Some of the titles he has produced include the short film "Safari," which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for a Goya Award; the short film "Picnic," which was selected for the Tribeca IFF and won the Biznaga Award for Best Short Film at the Malaga Film Festival; the feature film "Maus," which premiered at the Fantastic Fest in Austin and the Sitges Film Festival; and the feature film "Letters to Paul Morrissey," which premiered at the Seville Film Festival and PÖFF-Tallinn Black Nights, among others.
In addition to producing film projects, he is participating in several R&D projects that use Audiovisual Intelligence techniques for creative processes focused on animation, such as "Emotional Films," a new audiovisual format that varies based on the viewer's emotions.
Teresa Morales
In 2010, she joined Telecinco Cinema as Marketing Director, until she returned to her homeland in 2018 to take over as Executive Director of the Punto de Vista Festival and join the Navarra Film Commission team.
Pilar Rodríguez
Pilar Rodríguez began her career in audiovisual production in the Fiction Production Department at Globomedia, working on series such as "Los hombres de Paco" and "El Internado."
Later, working with Sandra Hermida, she ventured into the world of production; she coordinated the set, post-production, and marketing for Paco León's "Arde Madrid," the post-production for the series "Caminantes," directed by Koldo Serra, and field production for Jaume Balagueró's "Way Down."
In 2022, she worked on both the development and post-production of "Rainbow," the Netflix production directed by Paco León, and "Fácil," the series created by Anna Costa for Movistar+. Both were presented at the San Sebastián Film Festival.
As a production manager, Pilar has directed the short films "Tres Veces" and "Desviación típica" (Typical Deviation) directed by Paco Ruiz, "Hipocampo" by Fernando Pérez, and "En la noche caminamos solos" (We Walk Alone in the Night) by Rafael Alberola.
She currently has three feature films in development and is in the process of opening her own production company. With the feature film "Los animalitos" by Paco Ruiz, she participated in the first edition of La Residencia de Navarra.
Sara Sevilla
She holds a degree in Audiovisual Communication from the University of Navarra and a Master of Business Administration from the Chamber of Commerce of Navarra. She has worked at the INAAC Foundation (Institute of Audiovisual Arts and Cinematography) since 2011. Since 2014, she has been the Director of the Navarra Film Commission, an office for the development of the audiovisual sector in the region and attracting filming to the territory belonging to NICDO (Navarra Infrastructure for Culture, Sport and Leisure of the Government of Navarra). She has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Spain Film Commission since 2018 and has participated as a jury in several film festivals and competitions. Since 2017, she has been a jury member for the Generazinema Grants (Department of Culture of the Government of Navarra).
Sofia Rodríguez
Audiovisual Communication student at the University of Navarra. She is part of the NIFF team as an assistant director and production coordinator. She is also part of the La Residencia de Navarra team as a technical and production team, performing tasks such as general coordination, content creation, and creative proposals.