Aruna Vasudev
Founder and President of NETPAC, Keynote Speaker of NETPAC@25, India
Aruna Vasudev is the Founding President of NETPAC and has been involved in promoting Asian cinema as a filmmaker, author, film festival director, journal publisher, jury member for four decades. She is well-known as the Founding Editor of Cinemaya, the Asian film Journal that she started in 1988 and continued publishing until selling it in 2004 to Osian’s. She has a PhD from the University of Paris, and has written several books on Indian, Japanese and Asian cinema.
She has been president or member of the international juries of the film festivals of Locarno, Cannes (Camera d'Or), Asia Pacific festival in Taipei, Japanese Biennale at Orleans, and of Vesoul (France), Thessaloniki (Greece), Fribourg (Switzerland), Shanghai, Tehran, Hawaii, Singapore, Tallinn (Estonia), Cinemanila and Cinemalaya (Philippines), Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic), Jeonju and Chungmuro (South Korea), Las Palmas, Granada and Barcelona (Spain), Istanbul, Antalya and Malatya (Turkey), Sale (Morocco), Hong Kong Asian Film Festival, Beirut, and many others.
She was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) by the French Government; the Korea Prize from the Pusan International Film Festival, South Korea; the Star of Italian Solidarity by the Italian Government; the Lifetime Achievement award from Cinemanila film festival, Manila; the Satyajit Ray Memorial Award; the Kalpana Chawla Award for Excellence for Women; and the Lifetime Achievement award by Icongo (International Confederation of NGOs) in India.
Garin Nugroho
Director/Filmmaker, Indonesia
Garin Nugroho was born in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in 1961. He studied filmmaking at the Institut Kesenian Jakarta, where he later taught filmmaking and was the Dean Assistant of Film Faculty & TV. Garin's artistic practices include filmmaking, writing and directing theatre productions, installations, writing, curating and organizing film festivals and publishing newspapers. He concentrates on themes that examine the culture and political issues in Indonesia, particularly in Papua, Aceh, Sumba, Java and Bali. Garin is considered the pioneer of new generation of Indonesian filmmakers. Most of his films have been screened in international film festivals, including Cannes, Venice, and Berlin. He is currently the director of SET Film Workshop. His feature films include Of Love and Eggs, Under the Tree, The Blue Generation, Opera Jawa and Blindfold.
Xie Fei
Professor/Vice President, Beijing Film Academy, China
Born in Yan'an in 1942, Xie Fei graduated from the Beijing Film Academy in 1965. Today he is a Professor, Dean of the Director Division, and Vice President of the Beijing Film Academy. Xie Fei has taught many Fifth Generation Chinese filmmakers, including Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou and Tian Zhuangzhuang. His film Black Snow won the Silver Bear Award for personal achievement at the Berlin Film Festival in 1989, where he later won the Golden Bear Award for Sesame Oil Woman in 1992. Three years later, his movie A Mongolian Tale won Best Director at the Montreal Film Festival. A Girl From Hunan won the Golden Panda Award, Montpelier in 1988, as well as the Don Quixote Award, Spain in the same year. Xie is also a member of the council of the Chinese Filmmakers' Association and Executive Vice Chairman of the Chinese Film Directors' Association. In 2001, Xie was also the first Chinese to be invited to sit on Berlin Film Jury. He has also served as jury member on many award committees, among them the Chinese Golden Rooster Awards, the World Film Festival at Montreal and the Asia Pacific Screen Awards.
Nick Deocampo
Filmmaker/Film Historian, Phillippines
Nick Deocampo is a prizewinning filmmaker, film historian, and a Professorial Lecturer at the College of Mass Communication at the University of the Philippines. He received his Master of Arts degree in Cinema Studies at New York University, his Certificate in Film as a French Government scholar in Paris, France, and his A.B. in Theater Arts from the University of the Philippines. Deocampo has won numerous awards for his gritty documentaries and personal films depicting modern Filipino society. He has written and published several books on cinema, and has served as jury member in more than thirty international and Philippine film festivals.
Shaoyi Sun
Professor, School of Film-TV, Shanghai Theatre Academy, China
Shaoyi Sun is Professor of Film and Media Studies at Shanghai Theater Academy and Adjunct Professor at NYU Shanghai. Sun received his Ph.D. in Asian literature and film from the University of Southern California (Los Angeles) in 1999. He has taught Chinese film, literature, and cultural studies at the University of Southern California, University of California at Irvine, Shanghai University, and New York University in Shanghai. Sun is the author and editor of several books about Chinese cinema, its history and its relation to the rest of the world. He has also served as a NETPAC juror of multiple international film festivals, including the 2011 Bangalore International Film Festival, the 2009 Singapore International Film Festival, the 2007 Brisbane International Film Festival, and the 2001 Hawaii International Film Festival.
Zakir H. Raju
Professor/Dean, School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Independent University, Bangladesh
Zakir Hossain Raju, PhD, is a professor and the Dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at the Independent University in Dakha, Bangladesh. He received his master’s degree (first class) in Mass Communication and Journalism at the University of Dhaka in 1995, and earned his doctorate degree in Cinema Studies ten years later from La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. His research primarily focuses on global media and the South Asian diaspora, transnational cinema and cultural translation in post-colonial South Asia, and the relationship between film and the popular culture and national identity of Malaysia and Bangladesh. As a filmmaker, he has directed and produced several documentaries, all of which address various social issues and the culture of Bangladesh. In 2012, he served as a jury chair for the Asian Cinema Awards at the 16th International Fantastic Film Festival in Pucheon, South Korea, and as a jury member for the Meena Media Award for UNICEF, Bangladesh the following year.Zakir is a founding member and served as Vice President of the Bangladesh Short Film Forum, and acted as a Country Representative for the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) in Singapore.
Dr. Ella Henry
Te Ara Poutama, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
Ella Henry is a Maori woman from the far north of New Zealand. She is a Senior Lecturer in Te Ara Poutama, Faculty of Maori Indigenous Development at Auckland University of Technology. Ella has a background in Sociology, Maori Studies and Management. Her Masters' thesis focuses on Maori women in management, and her PhD thesis on entrepreneurship in Maori screen production. She has also been involved in the development of the Maori screen industry. Ella has been actively involved in Maori broadcasting and pioneered one of the first on-campus Maori film festivals while studying at university in the 1980s. In 1996 she co-founded the Nga Aho Whakaari, the Association of Maori film, video and television. She has been an announcer for Maori Radio Waatea, as well as the host of a TV show called "Ask Your Auntie" on Maori Television.
Dr. Ella Henry's participation is sponsored by Pacific Islanders in Communication.
Vilsoni Hereniko
Co-convener of "Chasing the Dream: Culture, Capitalism, and Cinema," Hawaii
Wimal Dissanayake
Co-convener of "Chasing the Dream: Culture, Capitalism, and Cinema," Hawaii