Raymond Phathanavirangoon (Head of Jury)
Executive Director, Southeast Asia Fiction Film Lab
Raymond Phathanavirangoon is a film producer and film festival programmer. Most recently he co-founded and serves as Executive Director of Southeast Asia Fiction Film Lab (SEAFIC), an intensive script and development lab for Southeast Asian filmmakers.
Previously he was international programmer for Toronto International Film Festival as well as Programme Consultant for Hong Kong International Film Festival and Programme Delegate at Cannes Critics’ Week. Prior to that, he was Director of Marketing & Special Projects (Acquisitions) for sales agent Fortissimo Films. He acted as Reading Committee Member for Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) and was advisory member of the Asian Film Awards (AFA). He was jury member at festivals such as Berlinale, Sarajevo, Vladivostok, Seattle, Antalya, Jecheon and others.
His producing credits include Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s SAMUI SONG and HEADSHOT, Boo Junfeng’s APPRENTICE, Josh Kim’s HOW TO WIN AT CHECKERS (EVERY TIME), Pang Ho-Cheung’s DREAM HOME, the upcoming 13 LIVES by Ron Howard, among others. He was named Future Leaders: Producers in 2013 by Screen International and was awarded Producer of the Year in 2017 by Asian Film Commission in Busan.
Meiske Taurisia
Producer, Palari Films
Meiske Taurisia entered the film industry in 2004 as a Costume Designer. Continuing as a producer, she produced Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly (2008, Rotterdam-Fipresci Award), Postcards from the Zoo (2012, Berlinale), Rocket Rain (2014, Karlovy Vary), The Fox Exploits the Tiger’s Might (2015, Critic’s Week, short film), Following Diana (2015, Toronto, short film), Love Story Not (2015, Busan, short film), and Cuts (2016, IDFA, feature documentary).
In 2016, she co-founded Palari Films and produced Posesif (2017, SGIFF), and Aruna & Her Palate (2018, Culinary Cinema, Berlinale). Both films won several awards at Festival Film Indonesia, such as Best Director, Best Actor & Actress, Best Scenario Adaptation, and Best Supporting Actor. Currently, she is in post-production for the film title Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, an adaptation from Indonesia literature. Parallel, on June 17, 2021, Netflix will release another film produced by Palari Films titled Ali & Ratu Ratu Queens, worldwide.
Aside from producing films, in 2013 she founded Cipta Citra Indonesia Foundation, a social enterprise that focuses on supporting the independent film scenes in Indonesia. Started with a distribution program for independent films – Kolektif, a micro cinema – Kinosaurus, a film lab for young and rising filmmakers – LOCK, a mini festival – Film Musik Makan, and a film archival forum – Layar.
Phan Dang Di
Film Director
A leading director and trailblazer in the Vietnamese film industry, Phan Dang Di’s films have been screened at numerous international film festivals around the world, such as Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Hong Kong, Moscow, Stockholm, Vancouver, Busan… Winner of both the ACID and SACD Awards at Cannes for his debut features Bi, Don’t Be Afraid (screened across 50 international film festivals), he has also competed for the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival via his second feature Big Father, Small Father and Other Stories. This film was wide released in France by French leading art-house distributor Mementor Films in 2016. In 2019, Di wrote and directed He Serves Fish She Eats Flowers – an episode belonging to the miniseries Food Lore for HBO Asia.
Beside his career as a filmmaker, Di also taught Film History, Directing, and Screen-Writing at Hanoi National University and Fullbright Vietnam University. He is also president of Autumn Meeting, an annual international cinema event in Da Nang, Vietnam.
Alfian Sa’at
Playwright & Poet
Alfian Sa’at is a Resident Playwright with Wild Rice. His published works include three collections of poetry, ‘One Fierce Hour’, ‘A History of Amnesia’ and ‘The Invisible Manuscript’, a collection of short stories, ‘Corridor’, a collection of flash fiction, ‘Malay Sketches’, three collections of plays as well as the published play ‘Cooling Off Day’.
Alfian has won Best Original Script at the Life! Theatre Awards four times, in 2004 for ‘Landmarks’, in 2010 for ‘Nadirah’, in 2013 for ‘Kakak Kau Punya Laki’ (Your Sister’s Husband) and in 2016 for ‘Hotel’ (with Marcia Vanderstraaten).
In 2001, Alfian won the Golden Point Award for Poetry as well as the National Arts Council Young Artist Award for Literature. He has also been nominated for the Singapore Literature Prize three times, for ‘Corridor’ (1999, Commendation Prize), ‘A History of Amnesia’ (2004) and his translation of the novel ‘The Widower’ (2016)
Sonny Liew
Artist & Illustrator
Sonny Liew’s multi-Eisner winning The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye was a New York Times and Amazon bestseller, and the first graphic novel to win the Singapore Literature Prize. Other works include The Shadow Hero (with Gene Luen Yang), Doctor Fate (with Paul Levitz) and Malinky Robot, as well as titles for Marvel Comics, DC Comics, DC Vertigo, Boom Studios and Disney Press.
Selection Committee
Tran Thi Bich Ngoc
Producer
Tran Thi Bich Ngoc graduated from Hanoi Academy of Theatre and Cinema in 1998. Two of her key career highlights for independent feature film projects include: Big Father, Small Father and Other Stories by Phan Dang Di, (selected for official competition at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2015) and The Third Wife by Ash Mayfair, (which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2018, winning the NETPAC Jury Award for the Best Asian Film).
Ngoc also is co-founder of Autumn Meeting, an international cinema event which began in 2013 as a platform to support young film-makers in Viet Nam and across the SE Asian region. In 2019, she was named one of Forbes Magazine’s ’50 Most Influential Women’ in recognition of her efforts to support young filmmakers and help bring Vietnamese cinema to the world.
Umi Lestari
Writer
Umi Lestari explores the history and the aesthetic of Indonesian cinema and its interdisciplinary aspects with arts and literature. Her scholarly articles appeared in journals such as Southeast of Now and Korea and Asian Arts. In 2019, she received New Emerging Writers Fellowship from Southeast of Now Journal for researching Basuki Resobowo, the earliest art director in Perfini’s films and Lekra’s member. Besides given talks as an invited speaker at film festivals and academic forums, Umi has written articles for several online media such as Nang, Jurnal Footage, Cemeti, and Goethe-Institut Jakarta. Umi is also teaching at Film Department, Universitas Multimedia Nusantara, Indonesia.
Sam I-shan
Curator
Sam I-shan is a curator with an interest in time-based media, photography, and art and politics. With fifteen years’ experience in art institutional settings, she was previously curator at National Gallery Singapore, Singapore Art Museum and Esplanade Visual Arts. Her monographic, research-focused exhibitions at NGS include the Ng Teng Fong Roof Garden Commission: Cao Fei, and Georgette Chen: At Home in the World. At Esplanade, she curated and managed new commissions and site-specific exhibitions, working with a range of regional artists. Her exhibitions at SAM include Afterimage: Contemporary Photography in Southeast Asia. She also headed film and moving image initiatives there, specialising in Artist Films, and co-programming the annual Southeast Asian Film Festival.
Pre-selection Committee
Alfonse Chiu
Editor-at-Large, SINdie
Alfonse Chiu is a writer, artist, curator, and researcher working at the intersection of text, space, and the moving image. Departing from investigations into the histories and contestations of both the built and natural environments in Southeast Asia, their practice focuses on networked readings of the economies of geopolitical and socio-economic imaginaries as mediated by cartography and other modalities of spatial representation. They currently head SINdie, an editorial platform exploring Southeast Asian film culture(s), where they work on editorial direction, research, and special projects. They are also the founder of the Centre for Urban Mythologies, a project-based research initiative interested in the (im)material tensions present within the urban contexts of the region, and co-founder of the Moving Picture Experiment Group, a curatorial and research collective exploring the polyvalency of the moving image medium in contemporary practices. They are currently the programme manager of the SeaShorts Film Society.
Giana Barata
Festival Coordinator, QCinema International Film Festival
Giana Barata is the festival coordinator of QCinema International Film Festival, the official film festival of Quezon City in the Philippines. Since 2013, she has been working closely with the Quezon City local government in promoting and expanding QCinema, transforming it into one of the most sought-after film festivals in their country. In 2019, she participated in the Film Culture Exchange Projects of The Japan Foundation Asia
Center and Tokyo International Film Festival in Tokyo, Japan. She is a graduate of the University of the Philippines Diliman with a degree in Public Administration and is currently working as a project and program administrator for the government.
Keenen Yong
Filmmaker
Keenen Yong graduated from the London Film School in 2017. His latest film credits include editor for ‘Los Fantasmas’ (2020) and sound recordist for ‘If you see her, say hello’ (2021).