2023 Film Jury

On 9 and 10 September 2023, this year’s film jury – comprising Tomas Kaan, Lena Lapschina and Bob Schelfhout Aubertijn – gathered to select the Award-winning films for the 13th Dutch Mountain film. The jury – which had to spend a blisteringly hot weekend in Zuid-Limburg indoors – had to choose from more than 20 mountain films submitted for the festival.

The winners will be announced at the Awards Show on Sunday 5 November, after which the winning film (winner of the Crossborder DMFF Award) will be screened.

Tomas Kaan

Tomas Kaan (b. Mkwajuni, 1979) is a director of both documentaries and fiction films. He has experience managing large creative teams and works exclusively for the Amsterdam-based production company Scenery. Tomas was recently the showrunner for the Netflix documentary series Human Playground. The series revolves around the question as to why people play. Covering 30 locations worldwide, the documentary is narrated by Idris Elba. Tomas also directed two episodes of the Netflix Original drama series Dirty Lines, which takes place in Amsterdam at the end of the 1980s. His earlier work has been broadcast and screened at different festivals across the world and earned Tomas a number of awards.

Tomas lives in an old farmhouse in Zuid-Limburg, together with his wife and three children.

Lena Lapschina

Lena Lapschina is a visual artist and filmmaker and makes large-scale multi-channel video installations which are displayed in museums and film festivals. She has had exhibitions in leading art institutions such as Kunsthal KAdE, Kunsthaus Zürich, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Landesgalerie Niederösterreich, Kunsthalle Wien, Kulturens Hus Luleå, Museo Municipal Tecleño, and the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art in Richmond. She was awarded the Austrian government grant for video and media art.

In addition to transforming Alpine matters into film, sculptures and murals, above all Lena loves sunbathing and long cross-country ski touring in the mountains. She has even developed a new discipline which she calles rooftop skiing: the steeper the slope, the better the enjoyment.

Bob A. Schelfhout Aubertijn

After a long list of ascents of mountains 5, 6, and 7000 metres in height and an expedition to an 8000-metre summit, Bob Schelfhout Aubertijn (b. 1961) – for the time being – has shifted his focus from active mountaineering to tabletop mountaineering with books, articles, magazines, fact-checking, proofreading, translation, research projects, documentaries, reporting, statistics, promotion of tales of adventure to keep them alive. As such, Bob is in close contact with Eberhard Jurgalski’s Eight-thousander research group and the Himalayan Database team. His collaboration with Bernadette McDonald and others resulted in two Boardman Tasker Awards and a whole host of others.

Bob is the father of three children, grandfather of three grandchildren and Pater Familias of a Dutch-Australian family.

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