The FIPRESCI Prize is one of the most important recognitions in world cinema — awarded by film critics of the International Federation of Film Critics.
Its main goal is to value cinema as an art form and to encourage new voices and innovative styles.
The prize consists of a diploma which contains the title and name of the director of the winning film.
Barbara Lorey de Lacharrière is a cultural journalist and film critic who has written for leading German and Swiss newspapers and magazines for over two decades. Alongside her writing, she has curated photography exhibitions across Europe and the United States, served as artistic director of the East-West Film Festival, Russia, and worked as a programming consultant for international film festivals. As Head of Department at FIPRESCI, in charge of promoting the FIPRESCI Award, she has been curating film programs worldwide since 2010. In response to the challenges of the COVID pandemic, she founded the festival Terres d’Ici, Terres d’Ailleurs in 2021 through her company Alizarine, films, arts & events — bringing cinema to a small rural village in Southwest France. In 2023, she joined the programming teams of the Cinéma Héritage International Film Festival in Paris and the Festival du Cinéma Méditerranéen in Tetouan, Morocco. She has served on the juries of a great number of major international film festivals across Europe (including Cannes, Berlin, Karlovy Vary, and Venice), as well as in the Maghreb, the Middle East, the USA, Latin America, Australia, India, and Africa. With a strong academic background in Germany and France, she is also a certified clinical psychologist and holds a postgraduate diploma in sociology from the Sorbonne and EHESS (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales) in Paris.
Teresa Vena studied history, art history and Spanish philology in Geneva. She has worked in Switzerland and Berlin in various contemporary art galleries and art historical institutions. She works as a project manager in the cultural sector and as a curator for art and film. In Berlin, she founded several film festivals such as Film:Schweiz and Prachtige Films! and also works as a cultural journalist. Since the end of 2022, she has been co- editor-in-chief of the Swiss film magazine Cinébulletin, alongside being a freelance journalist. As a member of the international film critics’ association FIPRESCI, Vena has served on various festival juries, including the Berlinale, the Mar del Plata International Film Festival, Locarno Filmfestival, Toronto and the Istanbul Documentary Days. Her main interests are films from Asia, Latin America and Europe.
Marina Kostova is an award-winning journalist, one of the leading film critics and reporters in Republic of North Macedonia. She is a founding member and Deputy of Editor in Chief of SDK.MK digital newsroom. She is the president of the Macedonian Section of International Federation of Film Critics – FIPRESCI. She edited the books “Manchevski Monograph”, and “Rain - The World About Milcho Manchevski’s Before the Rain”, as well as the CD-ROM “Macedonia in the New York Times Archives”, and published a hybrid collection of short stories “Language is a Strange Beast”. She worked on research in films as well. She is a member of the team authoring the first online Media Literacy Dictionary in North Macedonia. She participated in FIPRESCI critic’s juries at number of film festivals (Venice, Sarajevo, Istanbul, Thessaloniki, Viennale, Oberhausen, Chemnitz, Mannheim, Cluj-Napoca, Luxembourg among others).
