Each year, Indy Film Library is faced with the near-impossible task of selecting the best of the best, at our annual festival. Ahead of our two-day showcase in Amsterdam, meet the jury who are helping to pick the winning films.
The filmmakers, programmers, critics and academics have spent the last four weeks voting for their picks across 14 categories.
Among the jury for 2026, there are also a number of IFL alumni. One of the filmmakers-turned-judges is Xousha Eisenhardt, a multimedia artist and filmmaker, born and raised in Amsterdam, with a Russian-Ukrainian background. A former winner of IFL’s Best Experimental Film for her movie Laaggedij, in her work, she explores themes such as the unconscious, origin and time, folklore and mythology, the cyclical nature of life, and the interconnectedness between humans and their environment. Identity, and the ways in which it is shaped, also forms a recurring thread throughout her practice.
In 2023, Xousha graduated from HKU, where she worked across disciplinary boundaries with costume, installation, light, painting, soundscapes, and performance. She also trained at the Amsterdam Youth Theatre School and a Russian theatre school in Amsterdam, and interned with artists and Theatergroep De Warme Winkel. Alongside her own artistic practice, she organizes and produces exhibitions, as well as film and music evenings, including events with musicians from Central Asia.
Reflecting on her jury-duty this year, Xousha said, “Reviewing films was especially interesting to me because of the complex, layered nature of filmmaking. Breaking a film down in this way (seeing the layers and at the same time trying to see them as a whole) brings you both closer to, and further away from, its core, and from the director behind it. It was not only a fascinating way for me to look at films, but also something that, as a filmmaker myself, introduced me to new perspectives on making film.”
Another former winner now participating in their selection is Andreas van Riet, a Dutch-Argentinian filmmaker, also born in Amsterdam. Having followed a bachelor in filmmaking at the London Film Academy, he has written/directed/edited seven short films and one feature film since 2020. His work, at times characterised as experimental, touches upon themes including mortality, the self and the other, and the inner versus the outer world – often within family dynamics. Screened at festivals in Amsterdam, London, Paris, Madrid, Atlanta, and Trujillo, his films have received multiple awards; including a mention in the renowned Deadline.com, and Best Cinematograpy with IFL for The Metamorphosis. His movies have been.
Andreas noted, “It’s been a real pleasure to be on the jury for the Benelux & International Film categories at IFL. As a filmmaker I realise the important hand a festival like the IFL showcase can offer, and how daunting it can be to be on the other side, and hand over your own work to an often unknown, faceless judge. I’m thankful to have been given the trust and responsibility to examine the wide ranging selection, which has become a staple at IFL; a festival that looks beyond big names and a high production value, towards quality and ambition. Where the next Oscar winning short is right at home screening besides a young filmmaker’s bedroom production.”
Also joining the jury as a member of Cinemercator’s programming group is Elisabeth van Vliet. A lifelong cinema enthusiast, she holds a BA in philosophy and history.
Speaking on her experiences in the jury, Elisabeth said, “I have been a fan of the Indy Film Library (IFL) and its efforts to showcase and celebrate original and independent cinema since I watched the IFL’s Halloween Horror Showcase in 2025. Therefore, it was truly an honour to watch and evaluate this year’s submissions. I enjoyed watching all the films and experiencing art forms that I would not normally encounter. I hope this year’s selection does justice to the intelligence and creativity of all the filmmakers, and that you enjoy the programme as much as I did.”
Elsewhere, returning to the jury is Federico Petrini. He also sat on the 2025 jury, drawing on an extensive cinematic knowledge, which he says began developing “before even learning to read”. Federico has been in an endless search looking for the best (and not-so-best) in the depths of obscure cult cinema, spelunking in rabbit-holes (like in Neil Marshall’s The Descent) of very specific sub-genres, sharing his knowledge and findings thru the monthly Neo Kino A.D. screenings, happening in and around Amsterdam.
Occasionally, he also appears in front of the camera (under a stage name: Vernon Madano) and he’s currently working on the pre-production of his screenwriting debut, with details kept under a strict, Area 51-style secrecy.
Speaking about the 2026 deliberation process, Federico noted, “This year’s edition felt different than the last, the films I watched didn’t only catch my interest for their technical, artistic or narrative merits, but the majority of them I could identify on a grounded, human level, which is something that is mostly absent from cinema coming from bigger circles.”
Kino Lee is another returning judge. The London-based multi-artist and composer is originally from Taipei, Taiwan, with a background in Classical Piano Performance from Fujen University and a degree in Film Scoring from Berklee College of Music. Kino’s versatile career spans music, film, and technology. She has composed scores classical to modern, from Saxophone sonata Athena 2020 to award-winning film scores like The Key and Huo Zhe. She has also released several piano solo albums including Free Spirit, Kino in wonderland and Solo Dance. Kino’s current projects moved on to larger productions. She founded Zenphony, an innovative VR app that enables users to create music in a mixed-reality environment, and You, Me, Eternity, an upcoming musical written with American writer Ian Rice.
Thisen Umagiliya is an award winning filmmaker based in Sri Lanka. He likes to explore unconventional themes and ideas through his work.
Thisen has been working with Indy Film Library since he submitted his debut short film Catharsis to the festival in 2020. This includes sitting on the 2025 jury.
Finally, another of the new faces in this year’s jury is Katalin Fikkert, a Dutch filmmaker and film programmer. A graduate of University of Amsterdam (Media Studies) and Utrecht School of the Arts (Film), she has been working as a programmer for Filmtheater Kriterion for the last six years. She has also written and directed a few short films such as Greater Things (2020), In My Time (2024) and Nachtvlinder: The Deadly Act of Survival (2026). In My Time was selected in the debut competition at the Netherlands Film Festival. As a director, Katalin says she focuses “mostly on the intersection of climate change and the human-nature relationship”, a subject she believes is “curiously underrepresented in fiction films despite its daily impact on our lives”. This “fascination with hypocrisy, activism, and idealism” is the driving force behind her work combined with love for analog film, animals, and (rock) music.
IFL’s 2026 Jury:
Federico Petrini
Cult Cinema Expert, Netherlands
Katalin Fikkert
Filmmaker, Filmtheater Kriterion Programmer, Netherlands
Elisabeth van Vliet
Cinemercator Programmer, Netherlands
Maaike Hasselaar
Cinemercator Programmer, Netherlands
Andreas van Riet
Cinemercator Programmer, Filmmaker and Previous IFL Winner, Netherlands
Xousha Eisenhardt
Filmmaker and Previous IFL Winner, Netherlands
Kino Lee
Musician and Previous IFL Winner, UK
Thisen Umagiliya
Filmmaker, Sri Lanka
Yara Helgenberger
Cinema Expert, Netherlands