Film Jury
Maria Coffey
Maria Coffey is an internationally published author of thirteen books, including three on the theme of mountaineering. Following the death of her partner Joe Tasker on Everest, Maria wrote her first book Fragile Edge which won two prizes in Italy, the 2002 Premio Letterario Nazionale “Leggimontagna”, and a Special Jury Prize at the 2002 Premio ITAS del Libro de Montagne. Where the Mountain Casts its Shadow won both the Jon Whyte Literature Prize at the 2003 Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival and a 2004 National Outdoor Book Award. Following the publication of Explorers of the Infinite, Maria was awarded the 2009 American Alpine Club Literary Prize. Her most recent book, Instead, won the Adventure Travel Prize at the 2023 Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival. She is now working on a novel.
Maria has been on the film juries of Trento Mountain Festival, BKK Mendi Film Bilbao Bizkaia, Kendal Mountain FilmFestival and Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival.
Originally from the UK, Maria and her husband Dag are based in British Columbia, Canada and in Catalonia.
Ivan Hughes
Ivan Hughes is an award-winning filmmaker, editor, and mentor whose work explores the intersection of place, memory, and adventure. His documentaries, including In the Shadow of the Chief, Spindrift, and Soul of the Sea, have screened at festivals around the world, earning recognition such as the People’s Choice Award at the Whistler Film Festival, the Grand Prize at the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival, and the Golden Sheaf Award for Best History and Biography Documentary at the Yorkton Film Festival.
As a longtime contributor to Canada’s mountain and adventure film community, Ivan currently serves as Director of Programming and Partnerships for the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival. In this role, he helps champion diverse voices and emerging talent through new initiatives such as the New Lines: Emerging Filmmaker Grant and the VIMFF Indigenous Film Tour.
Beyond his filmmaking practice, Ivan is deeply committed to mentorship and community engagement. He has guided and taught Indigenous youth through the National Screen Institute and the Winnipeg Film Group, helping the next generation of storytellers find their creative voice and technical grounding. His work consistently reflects his belief that storytelling, especially through film, is a powerful tool for connection, understanding, and change.
Monika Benešová
Monika comes from Nové Město na Moravě. She studied journalism and works as a journalist. In 2016, she was diagnosed with severe food allergies. Later that same year, she completed the Camino de Santiago on her own. A few months later, she went on to conquer one of the world’s most challenging long-distance hiking routes, the Pacific Crest Trail, a 4,280-kilometre trail.
She became the fourth Czech woman in history to climb Mount Everest. She has written two books, My Pacific Crest Trail and My Mount Everest.
Natália Bokníková
Natália studied Slovak language and aesthetics at the Faculty of Arts of Comenius University. She has collaborated with several film festivals, two theatre festivals, and one music festival. From 2005 to 2019, she was a member of the team of the Hory a mesto Festival, with which she maintains a friendly professional relationship to this day.
Since 2014, she has been living in the High Tatras. In Starý Smokovec, together with her colleagues, she runs the café and teahouse U Vlka, where, alongside enjoying tea, they also organize regular cultural events. Out of a love for film, they founded the Festival of Good Film in 2024. She commutes to work depending on the weather — on foot, by bicycle, on cross-country skis, by car, or by tram. In her free time, she enjoys wandering through the Tatra landscape.
Ľudo Hičár
Ľudo has spent most of his life behind the camera, observing the world — as he says, “to show what it was like.” For more than 15 years, he worked as a cameraman for Czech Television on projects focusing on avalanche prevention, glacier melt in the Alps, and nature travel documentaries from around the world. He is currently a long-standing cameraman for TV JOJ, working on various television projects, after which he escapes into nature.
He strives to observe nature with minimal ecological impact, and on every hike he makes a personal commitment to pick up any litter he comes across. For a documentary from Japan about the impact and consequences of a nuclear accident, he and Mišo Rybanský were awarded the President of the Slovak Republic Award.