VIFF 2025 Juries

Gillian is a Canadian filmmaker and co-founder of Kino Sum Productions. Two of her films are previous selections of VIFF: Lucky Star, developed through the CFC/Netflix Development Accelerator, which she wrote and directed; and the short film Conviction, which she produced. Her documentary projects include the CBC television specials Borrowed from Nature and Orphaned. She is an alumna of the Canadian Film Centre and was named one of 2024’s “10 To Watch” by Playback Magazine.

Melanie Miller is an Academy Award-winning producer and co-founder of Fishbowl Films. Her films include the Emmy-winning Blink, Inventing Tomorrow, Maestra, On the Divide, Stutz, and Navalny, which won Festival Favorite at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, was awarded by DuPont, PGA, and BAFTA, and received the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Other credits include Trial by Media, Equal, Marvel 616, and The Program: Cons, Cults and Kidnapping.

Amar Wala is an award-winning filmmaker and founder of Scarborough Pictures in Toronto. His debut feature The Secret Trial 5 won numerous awards and was named one of the Top 10 Docs of the Decade by RealScreen Magazine. His scripted feature debut, Shook, launched at TIFF and received significant critical acclaim upon its release by Elevation Pictures. Amar is a Vanguard Award winner, and most recently won the Breakthrough Award at IFSAA.

Anja Block is an Emmy-nominated executive producer of original documentaries and limited series at AMC Networks. Prior to AMC, she produced and acquired original documentaries and limited series for Warner Bros Discovery’s streaming platform, Discovery+, ultimately helming over fifty titles. She began her career developing impact docs at Paul Allen’s Vulcan Productions and is a TV Academy member and a WIF Executive Fellow. She has programmed, paneled, and juried with numerous film festivals across North America.

Igor Drljača is a film director whose early work includes several award-winning shorts and features such as Woman in Purple, Krivina, and The Waiting Room. His documentary, The Stone Speakers, premiered at TIFF and Berlinale in 2019. Drljaca’s latest feature, The White Fortress, premiered at the 2021 Berlinale and was Bosnia-Herzegovina’s official Oscar entry. Drljača is the co-founder of TimeLapse Pictures, alongside filmmaker Albert Shin, and serves as an associate professor at the University of British Columbia.

Asia Youngman is an award-winning Indigenous (Cree-Métis) filmmaker who has worked in scripted and documentary formats. She co-directed and executive produced ESPN’s 30 for 30 film I’m Just Here for the Riot. Her latest short, Delta Dawn, premiered at VIFF and won Best Canadian Documentary Short at Hot Docs. Previous short films include N’xaxaitkw and This Ink Runs Deep, both of which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Antoine Bourges is a Paris-born filmmaker whose work blends documentary and fiction, often examining human relationships within institutional settings. His short films, along with his mid-length East Hastings Pharmacy (2012), and subsequent features Fail to Appear (2017) and Concrete Valley (2022), have screened Canada-wide and internationally, including the Berlinale, Viennale, TIFF and TIFF. In 2024, his work was the subject of a retrospective at NYC’s Metrograph Cinema. He lives in Vancouver and teaches film production at UBC.

Ryan Ermacora is a filmmaker based on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. His films investigate the visible and unseen mechanisms through which humans have engraved themselves onto the biosphere. Rooted in a structural approach to filmmaking, his work examines the convergence of labour and landscape. His films have screened at festivals and cinemas including Cinéma du réel, the Walker Art Center, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, DOXA, and VIFF.

Sanja Živković is a Canadian Serbian writer, director and producer. Her first feature Easy Land premiered at TIFF in 2019 and screened at VIFF, FNC Montreal, Palm Springs and Göteborg. Her second feature, Cat’s Cry, received Special Mention for the Horizon Award at VIFF 2024, and a Special Jury Award at the Sofia IFF. She is an alum of the SFU Film Program, CFC Director’s Lab, TIFF Writers Studio, Sarajevo Talents Writers Lab and holds an MFA in Directing from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Belgrade.