The Jurors of the Festival

Here are the Jurors of “The 4th Noche de Los Cortos”:

ELIAS WEINSTOCK

Elias started his career as a production assistant in Televisa (Mexico) working in several “telenovelas” (soap operas).  Then he made the move to advertising, where he started as a copywriter. Presently, he is the chief creative officer at Casanova Pendrill (a McCann Worldgroup company) and has won, almost won, lost and judged several prestigious national and international awards, like Fiap in Buenos Aires and San Sebastian in Spain. He has a degree in Film and TV and a masters in advertising.

JUAN IGNACIO AVELLA

Juan is a writer, producer, and director with experience in both film and television. Born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, Juan earned a BA in Business Administration even though film had always been his true passion. Upon graduation, Juan worked as the director’s assistant on one of the most successful films in Venezuelan history, THE ZERO HOUR. After such experience, he remained in the filmmaking world forever. Since then, Juan has worked as a content producer for the Discovery Latin America Channels’ TLC and Investigation Discovery as well as a senior producer for E! Entertainment Latin America, where he wrote and produced over 50 episodes of various shows, including the Latino version of E! NEWS. Juan relocated to Los Angeles to pursue a MFA in Screenwriting from the AFI Conservatory, where his thesis script, BOLICHICOS, was awarded the 2014 William J. Fadiman award for best screenplay. In between, Juan directed short films and music videos. His short film EITHER/OR was an official selection at LALIFF 2010, and his screenplay THE TURKEY SHOOT won a one-year screenwriting fellowship from the CNAC Venezuelan film commission. Juan is currently repped by the Summit Literary Agency, and is in pre-production for his crime thriller feature: BOLICHICOS.

OREN STAMBOULI

Oren is a Venezuelan filmmaker who won The Best Corto at “The 3rd Noche de Los Cortos” with his short film: “Liminality”. Previously he worked at Microsoft in the Xbox Division, producing the successful show “1 vs 100”. He also has a great documentary, “Trust 22“, that won the Best Documentary in the Tenerife International Film Festival. He is currently working on his first feature film.

CRISTOBAL SOBERA

Film Director and Producer, Candidate to a Master in Documentaries in the Universidad de Chile. With degrees of Cine and Pedagogía en Artes Visuales – UAHC, Diplomado en Gestión Cultural – Universidad de Chile and Direction at the Escuela de Cine de Chile.

He works in short films, music videos and audio-visual projects for TV and film. He works in fiction, documentaries and animation. Founder of the Laboratorio de Cortometrajes Latinoamericano and juror of short film festivals in Argentina and Brazil. He is also a teacher of audio-visual production in elementary and high school.

He directed “Brazaletes” and Opuestos. Brazaletes was selected in festivals in Spain, Greece, Brasil, Cuba and in “The 1st Noche de Los Cortos”. “Brazaletes” has been shown in the US, France, Italy, Germany, Mexico and Turkey. In 2011 was part of the best short films of 2012 at the Festival Internacional de Cortometraje de Clermont Ferrand (France).

Soon he will be releasing his new short film “OSO” and he is working on his first feature called: EL CHIRIGUA, DON FROILAN Y OTRAS YERBAS.

YANIV WAISMAN

Yaniv Waisman, a Venezuelan living in Los Angeles is the creator of www.LosCortos.com. During the time he is not watching cortos, he works at Crexels as a producer and director of infomercials and TV Commercials for the hispanic market.  Yaniv has a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and an MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA.

He created Los Cortos after asking a few friends: Where can I see your short films? Now, those friends have a better answer than a DVD in some drawer at home.

This post will be changing constantly since we are still talking with some of the jurors.