Jury Members
The international jury, with members from 24 different countries, selects 36 submissions whose authors are invited to the True Story Award ceremony and the festival. From these 36 nominated submissions, the main jury chooses the three winners in the categories “Research”, “Storytelling”, and “Impact”.
Jury for Arabic
Jury for French
Jury for Portuguese
Jury for Russian
Jury for World II
Former Jury Members
Rania Abouzeid Australia/Lebanon
Main Jury 2019–2026
Jake Adelstein USA/Japan
Jury for Japanese 2019–2021
Jacqui Banaszynski USA
Jury for English 2019–2023
Sergei Barseghian Iran
Jury for Persian 2019–2025
Rosa María Calaf Spain
Jury for Spanish 2019–2025
Patrick de Saint-Exupéry France
Main Jury 2019–2026
Nureddin Farah Somalia/South Africa
Main Jury 2019–2026
Cynthia Gorney USA
Jury for English 2021
Leila Guerriero Argentinia
Main Jury 2019–2026
Xiaolu Guo China/UK
Main Jury 2019–2026
Helon Habila Nigeria/USA
Jury for World I 2019–2024
Li Haipeng China
Jury for Chinese 2019–2026
Liang Hong China
Jury for Chinese 2019–2026
Shiori Itō Japan
Jury for Japanese 2019–2021
Helena Janeczek Italy
Jury for Italian 2019–2021
Maxim Kashulinsky Russia
Jury for Russian 2019–2024
Dmitry Kolezev Russia
Jury for Russian 2023
Jon Lee Anderson USA
Main Jury 2019–2026
Francesca Mannocchi Italy
Jury for Italian 2019–2021
Wu Qi China
Jury for Chinese 2019–2026
Antonia Rados Austria
Jury for German 2024–2025
Alberto Salcedo Ramos Colombia
Jury for Spanish 2019
Yury Saprykin Russia
Jury for Russian 2019–2021
Marino Sinibaldi Italy
Jury for Italian 2019–2021
Margrit Sprecher Switzerland
Main Jury 2019
Nicola Steiner Germany/Switzerland
Main Jury 2021–2026
Manjushree Thapa Nepal
Jury for Hindi 2019–2021, Jury for World II 2023–2025
Ingrid Turnherr Austria
Jury for German 2019–2023
Michaela Wrong United Kingdom
Jury for English 2019–2023
Mari Yamamoto Japan
Jury for Japanese 2019–2021
Suthichai Yoon Thailand
Main Jury 2019–2021