Sawandi Groskind
Sawandi Groskind was born in Memphis, TN, USA, and raised in Jakobstad (Pietarsaari), Finland. He began making films and experimental shorts in 2003 while attending art school and has since written and directed a number of award-winning shorts that have been shown at renowned festivals around the world. His work often features non-linear storytelling and frequently explores themes of loss, desire, and family history. Working outside Finland’s commercial film industry, Groskind has actively promoted experimental and hybrid narrative filmmaking both locally and internationally.
Tuija Halttunen
Tuija Halttunen is an award-winning documentarian whose work delves into societal themes and individual choices with a humane approach. Her latest documentary film, How to Kill a Cloud (2021), was awarded – among others – in the Critics’ Week series at Locarno Film Festival, and has reaped success around the world. Themes of community, power and the human struggle are often reflected in Halttunen’s work. She has also worked with fiction and script writing. Today Halttunen is working on a documentary film about the complicated work of development aid.
Halttunen’s career as a documentarian started 30 years ago at Tampere Film Festival, where her first short documentary Heaven and Earth (1995) was awarded the Risto Jarva prize, among others. Now she’s returning to the festival as a jury member.
Mara Marxsen
Mara Marxsen belongs to the distribution team of the Short Film Agency Hamburg. Since 2011, Mara has supported the Hamburg Short Film Festival in various functions, most recently as curator of a special programme on sex work. She studied Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image at the University of Amsterdam, was a trainee at ZKM Karlsruhe, a research associate at the University of Hamburg, and co-authored the monograph The Literariness of Media Art (Routledge, 2019). In 2024, she finished her doctorate with a thesis on Sadie Benning, Sarah Jacobson, and Jennifer Reeder.
