YOUKI Jury & Awards

Six lucky winners will arise from the international film competition of the 25th edition of the festival. Our five jury members will award films, including three main awards in the respective age categories (13–17, 18–22 and 23–27 years), the Austrian Award for the best Austrian film as well as <3 Award [Heart-ward]. The latter was newly introduced on the occasion of the festival's anniversary edition and will be given by each year's jury to a film that captured their hearts. It is up for the jury to decide what they want to reward and highlight - whether it is for the film's form or content, an important or current topic, a special storytelling approach, or a particularly funny or courageous film. The audience will also present an award and choose their film highlight of the year 2023 by their votes in the cinema.

Olga Kosanović completed her film studies at HFBK Hamburg under Angela Schanelec in 2020. Her short film Genosse Tito, ich erbe received awards at the Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen and the Austrian Film Prize. In 2023, she was awarded the Best Young Talent Film at the Diagonale for Land der Berge. Olga lives in Vienna where alongside her projects as a director, she also works as a freelance writer, cinematographer, and teacher.

Sallar Othman founded the theater group Koma Ararat in Al-Hasaka, Rojava Kurdistan, Northern Syria. As an actor and director, he staged critical plays against the Syrian government. Due to the war, he fled to Europe, where he started filmmaking, got involved in larger film productions and directed six short films. He is a member of the Austrian Screenwriters' Association and is currently working on the feature films Die Reise and Koma Ararat.

Zoe Borzì is a filmmaker and works for various Austrian film and art festivals, such as Diagonale and Steirischer Herbst. She is a co-founder and co-director of the Cinema Talks Festival in Graz and works for Cinema Next as a Local Scout in the Steiermark region. Her film Kunst und Überleben has been screened at several international film festivals. In 2019, Zoe won the YOUKI main prize with the film Meine Welt, Deine Welt.

Monica Koshka-Stein started at interfilm Berlin in 1998 and became Artistic Director of KUKI Young Short Film Festival in 2011. Intersectional feminist and pop culture partisan from Melbourne, Australia, she celebrates the radical, empathetic and creative potential of the cinematic short form. Monica leads film curation workshops for teenagers, to find out what they want to see and also joined the selection committee for shorts at Berlinale Generation in 2021.

Valentina Duelli is a cultural worker and curator. She designs film series and events for the Votiv Kino, works as an independent curator for frameout - Open Air Cinema, and co-curates artistic outreach programs for Kaleidoskop - Film & Freiluft. For several years, she has been involved with the Porn Film Festival Vienna as a curator for film and accompanying programs. Questions regarding political participation, representation, and social transformation processes are at the core of her work.