This award makes the perspective of students at the IFFMH visible and goes to the film in the competition ON THE RISE with which the jurors make the most passionate connections.
The award is presented by the Student Jury, which consists of three film-enthusiastic students from the region.
Award of the Student Jury
This is our Student Jury 2026!
Ada Albayrak
Ada Albayrak is from Istanbul, Turkey, and moves between Turkish, English, Italian, and 'ein bisschen' German. She studied Comparative Literature for her Bachelor's, and is now pursuing a Master's in Transcultural Studies at Heidelberg University with a focus on Visual, Media and Material Culture. Her path has run through film festivals and production coordination alike, and what stays with her from both is an eye for the cultural codes tucked inside a film: a gesture, a silence, a choice that lands differently depending on who's watching.
Anna Jaeschke
Anne Jaeschke is studying for an MA in Literature, Media and Modern Culture at the University of Mannheim. Prior to this, she also studied for a BA in Romance Languages, Literatures and Media at the same university, where she developed a passion for film analysis. Shaped by this academic background in Romance studies, she is particularly interested in films that re-examine social realities and also offer a view from marginalised perspectives. Her personal interest lies in queer cinema, for the same reason. As part of her involvement with the queer student group at the University of Mannheim, she also regularly organises collaborations with the university cinema.
Soo Jeon
Soo Jeon (born 1998, Republic of Korea) is a media artist and film director based in Germany. He is currently completing his diploma degree at the HfG Karlsruhe. Using film, video, sound, painting and experimental media, he explores the politics of subjectivity, liminality, autonomy and transcendence, thereby deconstructing the boundaries of a fixed subject in order to open up new possibilities of perception. He recently took part in the Freiburg Biennale and is currently working in parallel on the screenplay, direction and production of short films.