International Award

The International Newcomer Award, the main award of the IFFMH, is endowed with 30,000 euros, donated by the Manfred Lautenschläger Foundation. With this award, the international jury honours the best directorial work of the respective year, recognizing what they consider to be the strongest work and the directorial talent that is evident in it.

The International Jury consists of three outstanding personalities from the international film industry, artists, designers and thinkers of cinema. These personalities change from year to year and are newly appointed by us for each season.

This is our International Jury 2024!

Angela Bundalovic

Angela Bundalovic is a Danish actress. She became known in 2018 as Beatrice in the Netflix series 'The Rain'. In 2022, she was cast by Nicolas Winding Refn in the lead role of the neo-noir series 'Copenhagen Cowboy'. When Refn was honored with the Grand IFFMH Award in 2023, Bundalovic held the laudatory speech. She was last seen in the psychological drama 'Copenhagen Doesn't Exist' (2023) by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Eskil Vogt and directed by Martin Skovbjerg. In her roles, she embodies mysterious, independent characters with a playful seriousness and represents a new generation of character actresses.

Graham Foy

Graham Foy is an author, photographer and one of the most promising filmmakers in North American independent film. His work often deals with themes of connection, nature and loss. His characters almost merge with the landscapes that surround them. Foy's poignant feature film debut 'The Maiden', shot on 16-millimeter film - a 'stand by me' of our time - was already awarded as a work in progress in Karlovy Vary in 2022 and received the Cinema of The Future Prize in Venice. It screened in competition at the 71st IFFMH, where it won two prizes: the Award of the Student Jury and the FIPRESCI Award. Graham Foy lives in Toronto.

Johanna Süß

Johanna Süß, born 1979 in Frankfurt, is festival director of the LICHTER Filmfest Frankfurt International and initiator of the congress Zukunft Deutscher Film. She studied politics, art history and theater, film and media studies in Mainz and Frankfurt. In addition to independent cultural projects such as Freiluftkino Frankfurt and High Rise Cinema, she is active in the fields of film production and media education and has been a member of the board of the Hessian Film and Cinema Office, the HessenFilm initiative since 2014 and has been part of the board of the AG Filmfestival since 2024.