GARDEN ROUTE NEWS - Once again multi-talented local and international judges will decide who will take home this year's Garden Route International Film Festival winning trophies.
The five judges will award feature-length and short films and documentaries, shown both on the online virtual platform and at drive-in locations throughout the Garden Route.
Over 60 films will be competing in this year’s competition.
Meet the judges:
Nicci Topping
Topping has been a professional casting director for over 20 years across multiple commercial, film and TV projects and her feature film work includes the award-winning Northern Soul, Dusty and Me, The Black Prince, and The Hand of the Creator along with multiple TV commercial projects.
Nicci Topping
Jochen Alexander Freydank
Freydank is an Academy Award-winning director from Germany. He also founded production company Mephisto Film, producing short films which have won multiple international film awards. In 2007 Freydank directed, co-wrote and produced Toyland, set in Nazi Germany. The film received 130 nominations and won 40 awards at global film festivals, including an Oscar in 2009.
Jochen Alexander Freydank
Karen Cifarelli
Cifarelli worked in the casting department at Francis Ford Coppola’s film company American Zoetrope and then in development and script analysis for the Jacobsen Company, a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios. Some of the projects she supported during this time were Mission to Mars and My Friend Joe. Cifarelli is also an official juror of the 47th International Emmy Awards.
Karen Cifarelli
Sean Cameron Michael
With a professional career spanning over three decades, multiple award-winning veteran SA actor Sean Cameron Michael has performed leading and supporting roles in over 100 TV and film productions. Highlights include Fox's multi-Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated 24: Redemption; working opposite Oscar-winner William Hurt in The Challenger Disaster; and also alongside Mads Mikkelsen in The Salvation. Sean was a series regular on two seasons of Black Sails and received an Emmy nomination, as well as a Screen Actors Guild award, two years in a row. Credits since moving to the USA in 2015 include Criminal Minds, Scorpion and The Mummy. Sean has also been a member and judge for the International Emmy Awards since 2012.
Sean Cameron Michael
Ian Perryman
As supportive partner and judge in the Knysna International Film Festival of 2019, Perryman is also a local entrepreneur in the tourism and hospitality industry and served as a Knysna Tourism board director for five years until 2011. Over the years his time has been split between various business interests and supporting local community charities, schools, businesses and local community projects. SedgeRise, Sedgefield Primary School and Freshstart Recycling Programme are part of his current projects.
Ian Perryman
The virtual film festival is scheduled for 21 September to 11 October. The drive-in segment of the film festival runs from 25 September to 11 October.
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