Fiction Jury President

After studying at the École des Arts Décoratifs in Nice, where he directed his first short films, Jan Kounen began to work as an assistant operator and director of music videos and documentaries. In 1989, he made the short film Gisele Kerosene and won the Grand Prix in the short film category of the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival.

In the early 90s, Kounen worked in advertising and made two highly acclaimed short films, Vibroboy (Research award at the Clermont-Ferrand film festival) and Little Red Riding Hood. In 1997, he made his first feature film, Dobermann, starring actors Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel.

Jan Kounen then travelled across Mexico and Peru, immersing himself in shamanic culture. He came back in 2004 with the western Blueberry, an adaptation of the famous comic book by Jean-Michel Charlier and Jean Giraud (Moebius), in which he gave the title character to his friend Vincent Cassel. During the same year, he went on with his study of shamanism with the documentary Other Worlds, which got the Grand prix in the documentary category of the Manaus film festival in Brazil. After making his film Darshan – The Embrace (2005), Kounen switched universes in 2007 and directed the film 99 Francs, a wild satire of the world of advertising adapted from the bestseller by Frédéric Beigbeder, starring Jean Dujardin and Jocelyn Quivrin.

In 2009, he directed Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, in which he depicted the passionate love affair between the famous designer and the Russian composer, starring Anna Mouglalis and Mads Mikkelsen. Recently, he directed the documentaries The Journey – Mother Ocean and Vape Wave on e-cigarettes, a documentary about the world of “vaping” and many of its aspects that are still little known from the public.

Permanent jury member

Belgian actor Pascal Duquenne was born on August 8, 1970 in Vilvorde. He has Down syndrome and is famous for having played the role of a young man afflicted with that same disability in the film The Eighth Day by Jaco Van Dormael, for which he was awarded the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and the Joseph-Plateau Prize of the Flanders International Film Festival Ghent in 1996. In 2004, Albert II of Belgium named him Commander of the Order of the Crown.

Abel Jafri is a French actor who grew up in the Bourgogne region and then in Aubervilliers in a family of 9 children. He started theatre in Aubervilliers and then at the Gerard Philipe Theatre in Saint-Denis. He performed in many plays by Brecht, Nathalie Sarraute and Harold Pinter.

He’s one of the main actors in the film Timbuktu by Abderrahmane Sissako, where he plays Abdelkrim. The film was presented in the official selection of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, awarded 7 Césars and nominated at the Oscars.

We’ve seen Abel Jafri starring in many French and international films: The Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson, L’autre moitié by Rolando Colla (Best actor award at the Amiens film festival and the New York Film Festival), Einspruch by Rolando Colla (Special jury award at the Clermont-Ferrand film festival) and Road to Istanbul by Rachid Bouchareb (presented at the Berlin film festival).

He will soon be starring in Valerian by Luc Besson, The extraordinary Journey of the Fakir by Ken Scott and Voyoucratie by FGKO, which was recently awarded 4 prizes at the Manchester Film Festival.

He participates in cultural and voluntary activities and is the author of the book Les Dattes d’Aoulef (Aoulef’s dates - PC editions).

Églantine Éméyé spent part of her childhood in New Caledonia with her seven brothers and sisters. Back in mainland France, she started studying economics and finance before starting modelling with the Ford Agency for five years.

She became a weather anchor on Canal+ in 1999. She then joined Alexandre Devoise’s Nulle Part Ailleurs team for a cultural segment.

She anchors and hosts numerous programmes on various channels (France 2, France 3, France 5, Arte, TF1, Canal +, Planète…) and on the radio (RTL, Europe 1…). She co-hosted many prime time shows with famous French hosts Benjamin Castaldi, Jean-Pierre Pernaud and Julien Courbet and joined paediatric psychiatrist Marcel Rufo on his show Allô Rufo on France 5 until 2014. Between 2012 and 2014, she was the official stand-in of Alessandra Sublet in C à vous on France 5 for the holidays as well as of Anne-Sophie Lapix in her daily show. Since 2016, she hosts a game on general knowledge produced by Nagui called Trouvez l’intrus (The odd one out) every Saturday at 17.15 on France 3 and works on new projects.

Églantine Éméyé is the mother of two children: Marco, who was born in 2003, and Samy, born in 2005 with multiple disabilities and severe autism. That’s why she founded the organisation “Un pas vers la vie” (One step towards life) that helps the families of autistic people. She also talked about her fight for her son in her documentary Mon fils, un si long combat (My son, such a long battle), broadcasted in 2014 on France 5. A few years later, she published the book Le voleur de brosses à dents (The toothbrush thief), in which she talked about her son’s autism and his evolution.

After a literary preparatory class and a MASt in Philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris, Valérie Fadini continued her learning process as an editor for various TV channels, including the Canal + group. She simultaneously became a scriptwriter for television. Since then she’s been working in different genres, formats and media. She worked on various series or units (L’instit’, Hubert et le chien, Mes amis, mes amours, mes emmerdes, Section de Recherches, etc.) as well as on web series (including the “On habite au 65” collective).

She also worked with Joël Houssin, novelist and creator of multiple TV series, including David Nolande, for which she co-wrote two episodes. At the moment, she’s team-writing for an upcoming daily fiction and is starting a project in cinema.

Bernard Le Coq was born on September 25, 1950. His film career started in 1967 in the film Les Grandes Vacances by Jean Girault. He made an impression and was offered a bigger role in Michel Boisrond’s film La leçon particulière in 1968. Bernard Le Coq’s acting career was launched and the next decades were filled with film roles, first in César and Rosalie by Claude Sautet in 1971, then in Three Men to Kill by Jacques Deray in 1980, starring Alain Delon.

Among others, Bernard Le Coq worked with film directors such as Bertrand Tavernier, Pierre Granier-Deferre, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rochant, Maurice Pialat (Van Gogh, for which he was nominated at the 2003 Césars for Supporting Actor), Zabou Breitman (Beautiful Memories with Isabelle Carré, for which he won the 2012 César award for Supporting Actor), Gérard Jugnot, Miguel Courtois, Xavier Durringer (The Conquest, in which he plays former French president Jacques Chirac, a role for which he was nominated for a César in 2012). He recently starred in Daddy Cool by Maxime Govare and just finished the filming of Christ(off) by Pierre Dudan.

Bernard Le Coq participated in many films and series for television, working with directors like Edouard Molinaro, Peter Kassovitz, Serge Korber, Jean Sagols, Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe, Jacques Renard, Philippe Le Guay, François Marthouret, Charlotte Brandstrom, Joël Santoni. He won many awards: a golden award in Biarritz for his personifying Jacques Chirac in The last Campaign by Bernard Stora. Since 1992, he’s been playing Jacques alongside Anny Duperey in the TV series Une famille formidable (A wonderful family).

Dorian Le Clech was born on September 2, 2004. He has two sisters (aged 18 and 15) and a 10-year-old brother. As a cinema fan, he played in Oriane Polack’s short film Pastorale in 2013. He made an appearance in Bruno Ballouard’s Lili Rose and in the short film 15km3 by Stéphane Mercurio in 2014. His biggest film adventure was Un Sac de billes by Christian Duguay, a feature film in which he plays the main character. As a sport enthusiast, he plays basketball in a club and does other activities such as diving, swimming, biking…

Documentary Jury President

Alexandre Amiel is a 43-year-old journalist, producer and director.

After spending 10 years as an international correspondent for the editorial board of the encrypted channel Canal+, then at the Capa agency and for the show Le vrai journal, he created Caméra Subjective, a press agency and production company that claims a certain vision, a deliberate subjectivity on all the projects it carries out.

For 13 years, Caméra Subjective has produced noteworthy political programmes (N’ayons pas peur des mots, Bonsoir monsieur le président…) or cultural programmes (Esprits libres, 300 millions de critiques) but mostly, many documentaries (Made in France, Dans le secret du conseil des ministres, Pour en arriver là…).

This year, he went back to directing in the framework of a very personal documentary: Pourquoi nous détestent-ils ? (Why do they hate us?). It was broadcasted on television before being released in theatres.

Permanent jury member

Belgian actor Pascal Duquenne was born on August 8, 1970 in Vilvorde. He has Down syndrome and is famous for having played the role of a young man afflicted with that same disability in the film The Eighth Day by Jaco Van Dormael, for which he was awarded the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and the Joseph-Plateau Prize of the Flanders International Film Festival Ghent in 1996. In 2004, Albert II of Belgium named him Commander of the Order of the Crown.

Jonathan Allouche is married and the father of two children. He comes from Montpellier and lives between Paris and Tel Aviv.

He’s a creator, script director, scriptwriter and talented dialogue writer. At only 36 years old, Allouche already wrote for the web, the radio, theatre, television and cinema. After studying literature, he rapidly entered the professional world.

In 2001, when he was 21, he cut his teeth as an author and comedian on the Comedy channel. From 2002 to 2004, he developed editorial contents for the biggest entertainment programmes on the main French channels.

Simultaneously, he worked on famous French anchor Arthur’s first one man show on stage. In 2005, he was noticed by humorist Gad Elmaleh, who made him his co-author for that year’s ceremony of the Césars and gave him the opportunity to write for Philippe Noiret, Alain Chabat, Pedro Almodovar, Monica Bellucci...

He’s a talented television programme creator and developer: among others, he imagined the News Show broadcasted on Canal+, which was the first French political game show. François Hollande, Manuel Valls, Nathalie Kosciusco-Morizet and many other politicians participated.

In 2009 he founded the Writing collective, an eclectic writing group made up of the best crossover authors and scriptwriters who all work for Writing, his production and edition company. In the course of a few months and during multiple years, Writing and the writing collective have become one of the most creative units at Canal+.

In 2017, with a record-setting budget of 18 million euros, Jonathan Allouche signed his first feature film, the new adaptation of Joseph Joffo’s iconic biographic work Un Sac de billes (A bag of marbles), along with co-writer and director Christian Dugay. The film was a success as it gathers great French actors such as Patrick Bruel, Elsa Zylberstein, Christian Clavier, Bernard Campan and Kev Adams, with more than 1.3 million tickets sold in France. The 250 000 euros script continues its journey as it’s currently being released in over 20 countries.

Constantly developing writing for cinema, Jonathan Allouche pursues his audiovisual career by putting his talent at the service of the international news channel i24 News, for which he’s a programme advisor, show designer, journalist and producer.

Comedian – stage manager – director.

In Paris, he was a student of Pierre Reynal at the Athénée Théâtre Louis-Juvet. He then studied with Francis Huster and Peter Brook. In New York, he worked on Uta Hagen’s method at the HB studio and took on many interpretation and direction trainings at the Stella Adler Conservatory.

He’s the founder and director of the Oscar Sisto Academy and hosts Master Classes in France and in Morocco. Among others, he played and directed Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare, The Maids by Jean Genet, L’indien cherche le Bronx by Israël Horowitz and Mortadela by Alfredo Arias (which won a Molière in 1992).

He played in the films Shadow Girl by Steven Couchouron and Isabelle Lucakie, as well as in Les marées criminelles by Alexandre Messina.

Olivier Harland started his career in 1979 as an assistant on the editorial board of Antenne 2 for the show C’est la vie. Now, he’s a project manager for the mission “Differences”, in charge of people that are different (disabled people, elderly people, young people with difficulties…). He works for France Télévisions along with Hervé Brusini, deputy director in charge of diversity in the information department, Hélène Camouilly, deputy director in charge of diversity in the programmes department and Pascal Golomer, director of the sports department.

For many years she’s been dedicating her work to social issues, namely through her articles and publications: education, women, seniors, disabled people... in other words, humans! In these areas, her work and her activism often merge and fill her life with thrilling encounters and battles.

She’s currently committed to working with (and not “on”) year 9 pupils of a so-called “difficult” school with the idea of making a film about differences and resemblances.

In 2012 she wrote Lettre à Zohra D. (Letter to Zohra D. – published by Flammarion): in a letter to “her” bomber, she tells her story and how it’s linked to the history of the Algerian War, and how she dealt with the disability that ensued. Once and for all, in her work and her life, she chose to only see the glass half full... In a very full life!

Jean-Marie Gigon is an author, director and producer.

“Dysorthographic, dyslexic… Failing at school… I stopped my studies when I was around 14. In 1981, I came into television through the backdoor. My goal was to become a director and a producer. In 1984, I directed and produced my first film. I was 22. Years later, in 2005, I created my feature film production company, SaNoSi Productions. The name is a blend of my three kids’ names. Since 2012, I’ve been fully committed to the production of independent documentaries and fictions for television and cinema. In five years, the company has produced around forty films, including three collections.”

Three cinema feature films are currently in production, including Le Grand Bal, broadcasted by the company Pyramide, which will be released in spring 2018.

Jury President

Doctor by training, Jean-Baptiste Richardier launched the foundation of Handicap International with his friend and colleague Dr. Claude Simonnot in 1982. As they were outraged by the fate of thousands of Cambodian refugees that were amputated due to the explosion of anti-personnel landmines, the two doctors decided to rally by building prostheses for the victims.

For over 30 years, Jean-Baptiste Richardier spread the action of Handicap International worldwide. He notably highly contributed to the commitment of the organisation against anti-personnel landmines, a battle for which the NGO received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997.

Successively holding the position of communication and development manager as well as landmines department manager before becoming the director general of Handicap International in 2003, he went into retirement in 2016 but keeps a role on the board of directors.

Pascal Plisson is a film director, scriptwriter and author, but first and foremost, he’s passionate about travels and adventures. He directed his first feature film Massaï, les guerriers de la pluie (Maasai, the rainwarriors) in Africa in 2003.

Sur le chemin de l’école (On the way to school), his second feature film, won the César award for Best Documentary in 2014. This story about four children from India, Kenya, Morocco and Argentina facing many obstacles on their long and tiring way to school moved the entire world.

Adda Abdelli is an author and comedian born in Algeria in 1967. He contracted a disability on both legs after catching polio when he was only one year old.

He’s the co-creator and co-writer of the successful French series Vestiaires (Locker rooms), which breaks taboos by showing disabled and uninhibited actors in a municipal swimming pool.

In 2017 he wrote Comme sur des roulettes as a way to talk about his disability, always humorously.

Actor Anthomy Lemke has been an ambassador of Handicap International in Canada since November 2015. He participates in raising awareness amongst Canadians towards the goals, the work and the impact of the organisation worldwide.

In over 15 years, Lemke has done one role after another as a forefront actor in the Canadian film and TV industry and, more recently, as one of the main characters in the internationally successful show Dark Matter. Very much awaited, the third season was recently launched in Canada, in the USA and in more than 150 territories around the world, including France, Italy, the UK and Germany.

He played very important roles in many TV series such as The Listener, the awarded series 19-2, Lost Girl and Blue Mountain State. As a bilingual actor, he’s also one of the rare Canadian actors who found success as much in English speaking productions as in French ones. Les Hauts et les bas de Sophie Paquin, Mirador, Mémoires Vives and 30 Vies are all productions that have been praised by the public. Lemke has a degree in civil law and common law from the McGill University and currently lives with his family in Prince Edward County.

After studying engineering and getting a degree from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA) in Lyon, Gabion turned to comedy and started training as an actor.

The public mostly knows him for his numerous roles on television (he can be seen in over 20 films and series, including French TV series Kaamelott by Alexandre Astier, in which he plays Knight Bohort, one of the main recurring characters), his artistic activities expanded towards many fronts.

In theatre, he plays under the guidance of many directors and was led to participate in many plays by great authors from the past (Chekhov, Shakespeare, Sophocles, Seneca the Younger, Choderlos de Laclos, Schnitzler, Brecht, Gogol, Corneille…) but also contemporary authors such as Englishman Jezz Butterworth or the American Ira Levin.

He’s also a scriptwriter (he collaborated in the writing of Kaamelott’s season 2 and is the author of The Fabulous, a feature film still in development) and a stage director (Le Sas by Michel Azama, Epopée Lubrique co-directed with Marion Aubert at the Centre Dramatique National of Montpellier).

Nick Spark is a writer and documentary-maker based in Los Angeles. He’s passionate about unconventional characters as well as the too often neglected woman characters.

His film Right Footed about Jessica Cox, disability rights advocate, was projected in over 50 film festivals over the world and won 17 major awards, including Best Documentary in the Mirabile Dictu film festival of the Vatican, and Best Social Action film in the prestigious Hollywood Film Festival. Right Footed is now available on the National Geographic Channel in 83 countries and has been translated in many languages.

Nick also made apparitions in many TV and radio programmes to talk about his research. He has a Masters of Fine Arts degree from the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television as well as a degree in creative writing from the University of Arizona. As a student, he won two Emmy Awards for his documentaries, respectively while attending each of these two colleges.