30th Film Festival of Lessinia Bosco Chiesanuova 22 - 31 August 2025

Helene Christanell studied mathematics and worked in the education sector as a teacher, as well as a lecturer and author in the field of mathematics education. Driven by her passion for cinema, she took over the direction of the Filmtreff in Kaltern, overseeing its activities and programming. Since 2003, she has been involved with the Bolzano Film Festival, which she directed from 2014 to 2022. From 2005 to 2011, she served on the board of directors of the Trento Film Festival and was a jury member at festivals such as the Innsbruck International Film Festival, the Hamburg Filmfest, the Lessinia Film Festival, and the Fünf Seen Filmfestival. From 2019 to 2023, she served as a member of the expert committee of the IDM Film Commission Südtirol Alto Adige.

A film professional with over fifteen years of experience, Azza Hourani studied at the Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts in Aqaba, Jordan. She directed and produced the feature film My Sweet Land (2024), Jordan’s official submission for the 2025 Oscars. The film received three nominations at the IDA Awards in Los Angeles, as well as international recognition. She has worked as an assistant director on films including Inshallah A Boy (2023), Holy Spider (2022), and All That’s Left of You (2025). More recently, she has focused on training programs aimed at honing the skills of young filmmakers.

Vanina Lappa is an Italian-French director, editor, and cinematographer. She earned a degree in painting from the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan, beginning her career in the visual arts. She achieved her first cinematic success with the documentary Sopra il fiume (2016), a feature-length film that won First Prize at the Filmmaker Festival in Milan. After moving to Brussels to further her film studies at the Institut Supérieur des Arts, she attended the Atelier Varan in Paris, where she developed the film Nessun posto al mondo (2023), winning the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Festival dei Popoli and the Jury Prize at the 2024 Lessinia Film Festival.

A Portuguese director and producer, Diego Silva Varela was born in Lisbon in 1971 where he studied film and production at the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema. He directed the first musical about fado music, titled Alfama em Si (2017). His documentary Zé Pedro Rock ’n’ Roll won awards in 2019 at the Los Angeles Punk Film Festival and Doclisboa. In 2023, he received a prize at the Sophia Awards of the Portuguese Film Academy for his short film João Ayres, Pintor Independente. With O Diabo do Entrudo (2024), he participated in the 31st Lessinia Film Festival. The documentary Soco a Soco (2025) won the TVCINE Channels Audience Award at Doclisboa.

Born in 1991, Matthäus Wörle is a freelance filmmaker and journalist. He studied journalism at the University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt and at Mediaschool Bayern. He later specialized in documentary filmmaking at the University of Television and Film Munich. He has worked for Süddeutsche Zeitung, Bayerischer Rundfunk, and Nautilusfilm. He directed, among other works, Geamăna (2021) and Where We Used to Sleep (2024), his first feature film, which was selected for the Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival and, in 2024, won the Lessinia d’Oro for Best Film at the Lessinia Film Festival.