JURY - SCREENWRITING

We are proud to introduce the esteemed jury panel in charge of selecting the four screenwriters who will participate in the upcoming second edition of CASA CINE. The residency will be held at the Château de La Napoule from May 10th to May 29th, 2024.

The jury comprises professionals from diverse backgrounds: from seasoned screenwriters and directors of varied genres to professionals representing the world of production and distribution.

Its members are experts whose open-mindedness and quality of vision enable them to appreciate screenwriting projects in all of their diversity. This international, inter-generational jury echoes the diversity of our candidates.

A big THANK YOU for your involvement in the CASA CINE 2024 Jury!

Abdelkrim Bahloul

Abdelkrim Bahloul is a French-Algerian screenwriter, director and actor.

Born in Algeria, he studied at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in Algiers, at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art in Paris and later at the University of Paris, where he obtained a master's degree in modern literature. He entered IDHEC (now FÉMIS) to study cinema, working as a cameraman and assistant director before becoming a director.

After two acclaimed short films, his first feature, Le Thé à la Menthe, was selected and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1984. He has written and directed 7 feature films, including Un Vampire au Paradis (1991), Les Sœurs Hamlet (1996), La Nuit du Destin (1997), Le Soleil Assassiné (2004), Le Voyage à Alger (2009) and Jennia (2019).

In addition to his activities as a filmmaker, Abdelkrim Bahloul has been a member of the CNC's Commission d'aide à l'écriture and a speaker at screenwriting workshops in Morocco, Madagascar and Jordan.

He is currently working on his next feature film, Djawhar (“gemstone”), in preparation in Algeria.

Pedro Borges

Pedro Borges is a Portuguese distributor, exhibitor and producer. He began his career as a teacher, then a film critic and journalist, before dedicating himself to distribution with Atalanta Films. Between 1990 and 2005, he was involved in programming an independent network of more than 30 cinemas.

In 2006, he founded the production and distribution company Midas Filmes, with which he has worked on the release of hundreds of national and international films. Ten years ago, he reopened a landmark cinema in central Lisbon, Cinema Ideal. He has been a long time member of Europa Cinemas and also serves currently as part of its Administration Board.

As a producer, he has produced dozens of films, including features, shorts and documentaries, the most recent being Alma Viva, by Cristèle Alves Meira (Critics' Week, Cannes 2022) and Mal Viver, by João Canijo (Silver Bear Jury Prize, Berlin 2023).

Melody Cooper

Melody Cooper is an American writer, director and producer who lives and works in Los Angeles. She began her career as an actor and award-winning playwright in New York.

In 2018, she won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Screenplay for her feature film Northern Cross at the Urbanworld Film Festival. In 2021, she was selected for the Sundance Episodic Lab and received an Adobe Women at Sundance Fellowship. Melody Cooper has directed two short films, including Detained, which won the IndieFest Award of Recognition in 2018. She was also executive producer of the short film Hide Your Crazy (2023), which won awards at the Rhode Island International Film Festival and the Aesthetica Film Festival.

At the same time, she often works for television, writing for series such as Law&Order: SUV and Two Sentence Horror Stories for HBO in 2019. As a producer, she co-produced the Starz series Power Book IV: Force and also produced the micro-short film program 13 Minutes of Horror which ran on the Shudder Channel. Melody is also a comic book writer and co-founder of the Nyx Horror Collective, which supports the work of women who write and direct horror films.

She has completed the screenplay for Beasts of Prey for Netflix and producer Bryan Unkeless (Clubhouse Pictures), a feature film adaptation of Ayana Gray's African fantasy novel.

Anna Glogowski

Born in Brazil, Anna Glogowski began her career in research and teaching in sociology.
Later, in France, she worked as documentary director at Canal+, then program advisor at France Télévisions. She has programmed for several film festivals, such as Paris Cinéma, La Cita and Doclisboa.

She later became an international consultant for the development of documentary projects, including Cannes Docs, ADDOC and Agora Docs Thessaloniki. She has been a member of various funding committees of the the French National Centre of Cinema (CNC), such as Aide au Court-Métrage, Fonds bilatéral d’aide à la coproduction d’œuvres cinématographiques franco-portugaises and Aide aux Cinémas du Monde.

As a jury, she has been a member of several festivals, including Visions du Réel, IDFA, DOK LEIPZIG, CPH:Dox, Rome Film Festival, CINEMED and the Trieste Film Festival. Anna Glogowski is currently a member of the selection committee of theIt's All True festival in Brazil, since 2003 and the FIPADOC festival in France, since 2019.

Mathieu Sapin

Mathieu Sapin is a French cartoonist and film director. His career began in 2002, when he worked in studio and in collaboration with Christophe Blain, Joann Sfar and Riad Sattouf. He has produced a wide range of works and won numerous awards as a comic book artist and author.

In the course of his career as an author, Mathieu Sapin made his first foray into the world of cinema with a book - Feuille de chou : Journal d'un tournage - based on the original idea of a comic book making off of the film Gainsbourg, vie héroïque, directed by his colleague and friend Joann Sfar.
In his subsequent books, he explores the world of cinema and politics (Gérard, Comédie française, Carnets de campagne).

In 2014, he directed Vengeance et Terre Battue, a short film starring Charlotte Le Bon. In 2018, he wrote and directed his first feature film for cinema, Le Poulain, which brought to the screen, with humor and finesse, his behind-the-scenes knowledge of the French political world.

He then published Le Ministère Secret, with a story by Joann Sfar, and has just released his latest comic book, Edgar.