Golden Key

Marion Döring studied French and Portuguese at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz before she started her professional career as a trainee and later editor at the daily newspapers Fuldaer Zeitung and Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine. Between 1985 and 1988 she has worked as a press attaché for the "750 Years Anniversary Berlin 1987" and "Berlin - European Capital of Culture 1988". She has been connected to the European Film Academy since its foundation in 1988 - first as PR manager of the European Film Awards, later as project manager for the Academy’s activities and publications and, from 1996 until the end of 2020, as the Academy’s director and producer of the European Film Awards. Since January 2021 she is a member of the Board of Directors of the Wim Wenders Foundation.

Malte Hagener is Professor in Media and Film Studies at Philipps-Universität Marburg. He studied media, literature and philosophy in Hamburg, Norwich and Amsterdam where he received his PhD with a dissertation on the European film avant-garde (Moving Forward, Looking Back. The European Avant-garde and the Invention of Film Culture, 1919-1939, Amsterdam University Press 2007).

Julia Scheck, born 1984 in Kazakhstan, is festival director of Filmfest Osnabrück - Festival of Independent Film. After completing her Master's degree in Göttingen, she began to get involved in the Osnabrücker Filmforum e. V. in 2014. Since 2017, she has been a member of the board of the Film and Media Office in Lower Saxony. She is also active in the association of film festivals in Germany.

Photo: Julia Scheck

Dr. Sven Schoeller is Mayor of the City of Kassel since July 2023. With a doctorate in law, he previously worked as a specialist lawyer for criminal law and copyright and media law in Kassel. He was born in Göttingen in 1973 and grew up in northern Hesse. The canon of his cultural interests is broad: from art exhibitions to cinema via a long-standing opera premiere subscription to regular theater visits. As a member of the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen parliamentary group, he was a member of the Kassel City Council from 2021 to May 2023.

Marusya Syroechkovskaya is a Moscow-born award-winning filmmaker and visual artist. Her first feature-length film, How to Save a Dead Friend, was screened at over 60 film festivals and received over 20 awards, including Golden Key Award for Best Feature Film at Kasseler Dokfest 2022. The film was selected in a shortlist as the best documentary by European Film Awards 2022.