Competitions: Green Warsaw Award

This year PLANETE+ DOC FILM FESTIVAL will again hand out the Green Warsaw Award to the best ecology-theme movie. The winner will receive 3,000 euros. A jury consisting of: Jacek Bożek, Katarzyna Guzek, Adam Wajrak and Monika Walencka will select the winning film. The Green Warsaw Award is accompanied by the “Climate for Change” section of the festival.

Jury

Jacek Bożek

Founder, chairman and leader of Gaja Club, social entrepreneur by profession. Attendee of the number of courses on environmentalism and social activism, both in Poland and abroad. Holder of a federal grant from the government of New South Wales, Australia as well as fellowship recipient and member of the international association Ashoka Innovators for the Public. Member of Polish State Council for Nature Conservation and Voivodeship Council for Nature Conservation in Katowice. Creator of the social education program “The Way of a Gaia Warrior” and co-author of books “Save the River”, “Człowiek i pies” (“Man and Dog’), “Antologia praw zwierząt”(“Anthology of Animal Rights”). Editor-in-chief of “Współodczuwanie” (“Fellow-feeling”) and “Wisła Fax” (“The Vistula Fax”) bulletins. Motor behind “Sztuka dla Ziemi” (“Art for the Earth”) project, director of various performances and plays.
Recipient of individual and collective awards, including the 2000 Polcul Award from an independent foundation supporting Polish culture for his involvement in culture and environmental protection, and the honorary title of 2001 Polish Ecology Movement's Man of the Year in 2002. In 2008, he received the Polish Forester's Cutlass, the highest order of State Forests, a Polish government organization, for Gaja's Club environmental protection activities and for introducing the “Tree Day” environmental education program. In 2009, he received a badge of honor from the Polish Minister of Environment for his “Contributions to Environmental Protection and Water Management”. Recipient of the 2010 Shining World Hero Award”. In June 2011, he was honored with Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta by Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski.



Katarzyna Guzek

Press officer for Greenpeace Poland „Climate and Energy” campaign. Previously, she coordinated Greenpeace „Ocean Defenders” campaign. Affiliated with Greenpeace since 2005, she started out as an activist, participating in all of the campaigns run by the organization. Also involved in the Solidarity with Palestine Campaign, for which she co-organized a documentary film festival – Palestine Cinema: Pictures of Occupation and Resistance („Kino Palestyna: obrazy okupacji i oporu”). Participant in a number of direct actions in Palestine. In her free time, she climbs rocks and dives.



Adam Wajrak

Journalist for the “Gazeta Wyborcza” daily, contributor to Animal Planet, Polish Public Television and RMF FM radio. He writes mainly about nature conservation and animals, which have fascinated him since childhood. For the past 14 years, he has lived in Teremiski in Bialowieza Forest. When not writing, Wajrak and his wife Nuria are quite often nurturing a number of wild orphaned animals successively brought to their house by Wajrak's readers. They have already brought up owls, a host of storks, swallows, ravens, robins, swifts, hedgehogs, martens, as well as an otter and a bat. A cross-country skiing enthusiast, he has participated in expeditions to Spitsbergen and Greenland. In 2005, “Time” magazine named Wajrak its European Hero. He has received the Andrzej Woyciechowski Award for his involvement in the campaign to save the unique Rospuda Valley, while the Brussels daily European Voice included Wajrak in its list of 50 most influential people for 2007.



Monika Walencka

Born in Poland, raised and educated in various parts of France. Graduate of Sorbonne, SciencePo in Rennes and College of Europe in Natolin, she received her MA title in European Studies, specializing in the internal market of the EU. She has worked at European institutions, NGOs as well as in government administration. Currently she is involved with the Warsaw branch of Heinrich Böll Foundation, where she has coordinated projects connected with climate protection and energy policy. In her private life, enthusiast of inter-culturalism and „green” philosophy in life.