Jury VFF Documentary Film Production Award 2023

Thomas Frickel

Author, Director and Producer

After studying German language and literature, journalism and sociology in Mainz, Frickel worked as a freelance journalist for several years, focusing on cultural reporting and historical reportage. Since 1968 he has been working in the film industry. Since 1986, Frickel has been chairman and managing director of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Dokumentarfilm (the largest association for independent film in Germany) in various film and cultural policy functions – for example, on the administrative board and executive committee of the FFA, the administrative board of the VG Bild-Kunst, as delegate of the beneficiaries in the VG Wort, on the advisory board of the VFF and the Künstlersozialkasse, etc. For several years he was spokesman for the Film/Media section of the "German Cultural Council". Frickel was also co-founder and until 1999 member of the board of directors of the European Documentary Film Network EDN. He is author, director and producer of numerous short and feature-length documentaries.

Nicola Jones

Location Manager Schleswig-Holstein at MOIN Filmförderung

Nicola Jones began her career as a consultant in the field of film funding at the auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers in Munich and Leipzig. In 2004 she moved to the German Federal Film Board (FFA) in Berlin, where she initially worked as a funding officer in the production funding department. In 2006, she was appointed as an advisor to the FFA board and in this function was also responsible for international film relations as well as EU film policy issues. In 2016, Nicola Jones took over the management of the German Children's Media Festival Goldener Spatz. In her double function as managing director of the children's media foundation of the same name, she was also responsible for other projects such as the network initiative KIDS Regio and the school cinema weeks in Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. In February 2023, she took over as location manager for MOIN Filmförderung in Schleswig-Holstein.

Thomas Riedelsheimer

Freelance filmmaker, cameraman and project developer

Thomas Riedelsheimer studied at the HFF Munich and works as a freelance filmmaker and cameraman as well as in project development. His films cover a wide range of topics and he focuses on feature-length films that are also suitable for the cinema. He has received many national and international awards for his directing and cinematography; including the German Film Award Lola three times and the Grimme Award twice. Together with Stefan Tolz and Thomas Wartmann, he was a partner in the production platform Filmquadrat until 2008. In 2008 he founded the production company Filmpunkt Gmbh with Tolz. Riedelsheimer is a member of the German and European Film Academies and has been a permanent lecturer at the Film Academy Ludwigsburg since 2006. In 2009/10 he taught for a year in Vancouver at the Emily Carr Art School. Since 2018 he has been running a free material development programme for debut documentaries, which he developed himself and is now a permanent part of the Drehbuchwerkstatt München as dok.art.