Asian Feature Film Competition

JURY, ASIAN FEATURE FILM COMPETITION

Ananda Everingham
Actor

One of the fastest rising actors in Thailand, Everingham acted in his first film at the age of 14 and has since appeared in a steady stream of Thai movies and television including the Asian box-office hit, Shutter, Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s Ploy, The Leap Years, Pleasure Factory and most recently, Queen of Lankasuka directed by Nonzee Numibutr.

Cheek Cheah
Filmmaker/ Executive Vice President, Chinese Language Programming, STAR Chinese Channels

No stranger to the Singapore filmmaking industry, CheeK wrote and directed the romantic comedy Chicken Rice War, winner of the Volkswagon Discovery Award at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival. He went on to develop and direct several film and TV projects including Stories about Love. Two of his earlier short films, Married and Beansprouts & Salted Fish, took the Best Short Film Awards and Special Achievement Award (Beansprouts) at the Singapore International Film Festival. He was also awarded the National Arts Council Young Artist Award for Film. Besides filmmaking, CheeK is also a television executive with stints in various companies including Mediacorp and MTV Asia. His last posting with MTV was as the Senior Vice President of Creative + Content and Creative Director of MTV Japan.  He moved to Hong Kong in January this year to further his career with STAR TV, overseeing all the Chinese Language channels including Star Chinese Movies and Channel [V] et al.  

Zhang Yuan
Filmmaker

Zhang Yuan is a trail-blazer in Chinese cinema, standing in the vanguard of its most important recent developments. In 1990, Zhang produced and directed his first feature film, Mama, the first independent film made in China since 1945. His subsequent award-winning feature films and documentaries include Beijing Bastards, which screened at Sundance in 1994; East Palace West Palace, Seventeen Years, and Little Red Flowers.

NETPAC (NETWORK FOR THE PROMOTION OF ASIAN CINEMA) JURY

Gulnara Abikeyeva
Artistic Director, Eurasia International Film Festival

Kazakhstani cinema expert and cinema critic, Abikeyeva is also author of five books about cinematography of Kazakhstan and Central Asia. Her book Cinematography of Central Asia received the Belyi Slon prize issued by the Guild of Cinema Experts and Cinema Critics of Russia in 2001. A Fulbright Scholar at Bowdoin College (USA) Gulnara has taught courses in Kazakh and held lectures in Harvard, Yale, Standford and Tufts University. Being a member of the FIPRESCI (International Federation of the Cinema Critics) and NETPAC, she has been on the jury of international film festivals such as Berlin, Jeonju and Oberhausen.

John Lui
Film Critic

John Lui is film correspondent with The Straits Times. In his job, he reviews and writes articles about movies. In The Straits Times, he covers lifestyle and entertainment issues. He has been a journalist for over 15 years, in both newspapers, magazines and online.

Sun Shaoyi
Film scholar

Professor of Film and Media Studies at Shanghai University’s School of Film & TV Art and Technology, Sun Shaoyi received his Ph.D. in Asian literature and film from the University of Southern California. He is the author of Lights! Camera! Kai Shi!: In-Depth Interviews with China’s New Generation of Movie Directors (EastBridge, 2008), The Imagined City: Literary, Filmic, and Visual Shanghai, 1927-1937 (Fudan University Press, 2009), and  Global Media Policies: New Perspectives (co-editor; Shanghai Joint Press, 2005). Sun was the NETPAC juror of several festivals including the 2007 Brisbane International Film Festival and the 2008 Shanghai International Film Festival’s International Student Shorts Award.