Mario Kovač
Mario Kovač is a Croatian stage and film director, actor, set designer, dramaturge and composer. He graduated from the Department of Theatre Directing, Academy of Dramatic Arts, Zagreb. At the Zagreb Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences he obtained a PhD with a thesis Methodology of Theatre Work with Blind and Visually Impaired Persons. Aside from theatre shows and fiction and documentary films, he directs radio dramas and organises different events – from performances to plays, from concerts to literary events, to film screenings and DJing. Active in drama teaching, he hosts various workshops and is included in many art projects. The founder of theatrical companies Schmrtz Teatar and Nova Grupa, as well as theatre festivals and events FAKI, TEST! and K.R.A.D.U.
David Kross
David Kross is a German actor born in 1990. He starred in many German and British films, gaining global recognition with his role in The Reader by the award-winning British director Stephen Daldry, opposite Kate Winslet. This role earned him an EFA nomination, the most significant film honour in Europe. He also starred in the American-British war drama War Horse, directed by famous Steven Spielberg.
Milan Trenc
Milan Trenc was born in Zagreb and graduated with a degree in film directing from the Academy of Dramatic Arts. Since the early 1980s he has been publishing comics in print newspapers and magazines. The leading illustrator for the Start magazine from 1985 to the end of its existence. In the 1980s Trenc began working in animation, first at Zagreb Film as a phaser, then as an animator, only to make his own animated film in 1990., The Big Time, today considered one of the classic of the Zagreb School of Animation. The following year he moves to New York and publishes illustrations in The New York Times, Time, New Yorker etc. His illustrated book A Night at the Museum served as a basis for the namesake film by Shawn Levy, the American box office winner in January 2007. A professor at the Department of Animation, Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts.
Children's Jury
Ana Bagović
Ana Bagović was born in 2002 in Zagreb and is an eighth grader at Lovro Matačić Elementary School. She attended a riding school on a ranch in Manjadvorci in Istria and the hiking school of the Zagreb-Matica Hiking Society. Her wish is to do alpine hiking training and meanwhile she is learning to play the acoustic guitar. Ana loves music, especially rock. She is learning English and German, loves nature, travel and taking photographs. Her literature favourites are crime novels and psychological thrillers that give her a dose of suspense and unpredictability. She enjoys watching films, especially those she will remember and those that might teach her something. In life she aspires to creative professions – a chance to explore people and the world surrounding her.
Tamara Iveković
Tamara Iveković was born in 2004 in Zagreb and is a sixth grader at Dr Ivan Merz Elementary School. She trains fencing and attends a school of music (playing the flute) and is learning German and Russian. A member of Kaooosss association. Tamara has sung in a children's opera choir and performed in operas The Shoemaker from Delft and Tosca. Her art work won the 2016 state-level competition on the subject Verse and Note, and she also took part in two Bib for Kids workshops helping to make the films Alone in the Cinema and Fearless. The latter won the best children's film award at the Universal Kids Film Festival in Turkey. Also, she took part in the making of the film Ubuntu, which won the competition Colour the World of the European Forum for Freedom in Education.
Anuška Priska Klapan
Anuška Priska Klapan was born in 2004 in Zadar. After a long debate, her parents gave her two names, Anuška and Priska, neither of which she liked, but with time she realised how this unique name becomes her unique character. Her presence graces the Šime Budinić Elementary School in Zadar and beyond, and her travel and acting inspire all the participants and jury members at LiDraNo.
Gabriel Roller
Gabriel Roller is a 12-year-old who likes to play tennis and handball and recently began fencing. His older brother Vilim and sister Morana love the cinema and have played an important role in Gabriel's film life. He feels best when he is with his friends, playing board games or going to the movies. When he is all alone, his best friend is a book. He often goes to the nature, on walks in the forest, or hikes, and his summer passion is fishing with his grandfather. He is part of a film crew, sometimes he takes the role of an actor, but always the one of an editor. Besides popular films, he also likes the more demanding ones, while his favourite genres are drama, sci-fi and comedies.
Leda Ujević
Leda Ujević was born in 2006 in Zagreb. A fourth grader at the Izidor Kršnjavi Elementary School. Leda went to the Alliance Francaise kindergarten and now also attends the Pavao Markovac School of Music where she is learning to play the cello. For the last six years she has been taking dance lessons at the Zagreb Youth Theatre.