Jury

Liliana Komorowska, a graduate of the Theatre Academy in Warsaw with a Master's degree in Fine Arts, is an actress and director of documentaries. She worked with Masters of Polish Cinema, Kawalerowicz, Majewski, and Zanussi, and starred in American blockbusters "The Assignment" and "The Art of War," sharing the screen with esteemed actors including Aidan Quinn, Donald Sutherland, Sir Ben Kingsley, and Wesley Snipes.

Driven by her passion for filmmaking, she debuted with the documentary "Beauty and the Breast." People's Choice Award for Best Feature Documentary at the Montreal International Film Festival. Committed to preserving her Polish cultural heritage, she established the Liliana Komorowska for the Arts Foundation and was honored with the Silver Medal of Merit.

A member of the Canadian Film and Television Academy and the Polish Filmmakers Association, Liliana currently works on the documentary "WAJDA." Through her dedication to cultural advocacy, she is a board member of EKRAN TPFF.

Ron Henderson is the co-founder of the Denver Film Society and the Denver Film Festival, which is now in its 47th year. He also served as the artistic director of the Starz Film Center (now the Sie Film Center), the year-round home for Denver Film. Throughout his career, Ron has directed numerous film festivals, including the Nashville Film Festival, the National Student Film Festival in New York City, and the Breckenridge Film Festival. He has also been a program consultant for the Taos Talking Film Festival and the Mar del Plata Film Festival in Argentina.

Ron has traveled to major film festivals across the globe, including Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, Karlovy Vary, Shanghai, and Gdynia. A former book editor at The Macmillan Company, he is also the author of two books on film. Over the years, Ron has earned numerous accolades for his contributions to cinema, including the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the University of Colorado’s Distinguished Community Service Award, the Denver Film Festival’s John Cassavetes Award, and two prestigious honors from Poland: the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland and the Golden Ciupaga Award from the Polish Film Festival in America (Chicago), both in recognition of his efforts in promoting Polish cinema in North America.

Dr. Beata Lisowska is a film and culture expert, cultural anthropologist, and university lecturer. She currently serves as an assistant professor in Cultural Studies at the Academy of Humanities and Economics in Łódź and lectures in Graphic Design at WIT Academy in Warsaw.

In 2020-2021, she headed the Culture Center at the University of Łódź, and from 2011-2018, she was an assistant professor in the Department of Visual Culture at the Institute of Cultural Sciences at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin. Since 2024, she has been the academic coordinator for the University of the Third Age at AHE in Łódź. She also collaborates with various foundations as a coordinator of education programs in film and culture.

Dr. Beata Lisowska is an author of numerous publications in the fields of film and media and supervises diploma theses. Her teaching areas include film, photography, media, visual culture, anthropology, popular culture, and cultural promotion.

Piotr Gzowski is a passionate advocate for the arts, with a diverse background in theater, film, and education. He earned a BA in English Literature from Fordham University and went on to receive an M.F.A. in Theatre/Acting from NYU’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts. Piotr has held several academic positions, including Assistant Professor at Sacred Heart University and Adjunct Professor at Albertus Magnus College.

In addition to his teaching career, he is an accomplished writer, producer, and director. His staged epic, Grudka Ziemi: Song of a Beloved Country, explored Polish history and was performed in Bridgeport and New Haven, Connecticut. Piotr’s acting talents led him to work with the Donna Baldwin Agency in Denver, Colorado.

As the President and co-founder of The Humanities Touring Group, Piotr produced and co-authored "The Greeks: In the Beginning and The Renaissance", which earned a New Haven Award in 1993. He has also contributed his talents as a translator for the Denver Film Festival, translating Polish to English, and as a contributing author of film commentaries for "Życie Kolorado".

Piotr has been deeply involved with the Polish Club of Denver, having served as Secretary on the Board of Directors and as Vice President of the club. His love for film and storytelling remains a driving force in his life, as does his ongoing work as a cultural advocate within the Polish-American community.

Craig Volk holds an MFA in playwriting and screenwriting from the prestigious Yale School of Drama. His work as a playwright has been recognized three times by the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. Volk was also notably the first American playwright invited to the National Russian Conference in Schelykovo. His play, "Mayakovsky" takes the Stage, earned him the 2007 PEN-USA Award for Best Drama. With 12 years of experience in Hollywood, he contributed as a staff writer on the Emmy Award-Winning series "Northern Exposure". In addition, Volk has served as the screenplay head curator for the Denver Film Festival and documentary head curator for the Breckenridge Film Festival.

A Polish philologist and editor, Katarzyna Szczuka-Niezabitowska has been collaborating with Polish Television for over a decade as a journalist, publisher, and programme director. With a longstanding involvement in cultural programming at TVP Kultura, she has focused primarily on cinema. Katarzyna is the co-author of the documentary series "Monuments of History: Trail of Extraordinary Places" and contributed to segments of the "Wielki Test" series on TVP1. She originated and directed the "eMocje" programme on TVP ABC and has created numerous behind-the-scenes segments from various film sets.

In addition to serving as a juror for the "Zabytkomania" film awards, organized by the National Heritage Institute, Katarzyna has maintained a long-term collaboration with the Polish Film Institute and has been involved in launching the School Film Archive Workshops throughout Poland. She also partners with the National Film Archive - Audiovisual Institute, conducting original journalism and cinema workshops for young people, including events at the Polish Feature Film Festival in Gdynia.