The Lorenzo Vecchio Award, devoted to the first artistic director of the festival, goes to the German short film Ballet story by Daria Belova, in competition in the Narrative section.

The President of the Jury is the Iranian-born actor and film editor Babak Karimi, winner of the Silver Bear for Best Actor in the film A Separation (2011) by Asghar Farhadi, which was awarded the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and the Golden Bear in Berlin.

As an editor, he has worked with Abbas Kiarostami, Babak Payami, Vera Belmont, Pasquale Scimeca, Maurizio Zaccaro and Gianfranco Pannone, among others. He has also taught editing at Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome and Accademia dell’Immagine in L’Aquila. Karimi serves as a promoter and intermediary between the Italian and Iranian film industries, writing the Italian dialogues for films by Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Jafar Panahi, Abolfazi Jalili, and Asghar Farhadi, and working as a consultant for a variety of film festivals and other events.

The other members of the Jury panel are Matt Lloyd, director of Glasgow Short Film Festival in Scotland, and the Italian actress Irene Ferri.