2011 International Jury

During a career spanning three decades, the prolific and highly regarded Nansun Shi has produced some of Asia’s biggest commercial hits including Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010), Dragon Tiger Gate (2006), the Once Upon a Time in China series (1991-1997) starring Jet Li and the Aces Goes Places series (1982-1986). Shi also executive produced the iconic Infernal Affairs (2002), eventually reworked into The Departed by Martin Scorsese, which won Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

Variety magazine named Nansun Shi one of the 50 most influential independent filmmakers in the world and she was named Producer of the Year by CineAsia in 2005.

Shi has been pivotal in the success of Cinema City and is Executive Director of the Film Workshop Co Ltd, co-founded with her celebrated director husband Tsui Hark who has directed many of the company’s most successful films. Cinema City and Film Workshop have produced classics such as John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow and The Killer, both starring Chow Yun-fat. Tirelessly committed to the progression of Hong Kong cinema, Nansun Shi is a member of the Hong Kong Film Development Council. She was a juror on the Berlin International Film Festival’s main competition in 2007 and in 2011 she served on the Cannes Film Festival Jury, presided over by Robert De Niro.

Cameron Bailey is Co-Director of the Toronto International Film Festival. He is responsible for the overall vision of the Festival’s programming, as well as creating and maintaining relationships with the international film industry. Cameron began working as a programmer for Toronto in 1990, eventually heading the Canadian selection committee, the selection from South Asia and founding the Planet Africa program, which ran from 1995-2004.

Cameron has curated many film series in Canada and internationally for venues such as the National Gallery of Canada and the Sydney Film Festival. He has also served on film festival juries in the US, Europe, Asia and Africa, and has been a guest speaker at several Canadian universities, the Smithsonian Institution and Harvard University.

For many years, Bailey was a film critic, writing for Toronto’s NOW Magazine and broadcasting for the CBC and CTV.

He has served on the Advisory Board of the Royal Ontario Museum’s Institute for Contemporary Culture and is a former board member of the Ontario Film Development Corporation and Toronto’s Images Festival. He currently sits on the Board of Directors for Tourism Toronto. He is also an awarded scriptwriter.

While studying law at Melbourne University during the 1960s, Finney became involved in the Film Society, Film Festival and filmmaking activity. He was one of the original members of La Mama Company and in 1969 he commissioned, co-directed and appeared in the theatrical production of David Williamson’s The Coming of Stork, which director Tim Burstall filmed in 1970.

Finney joined Roadshow Film Distributors in 1971 and brought the movie Stork to Roadshow’s attention. This acquisition led to the formation of Hexagon Productions, the first ongoing joint venture between production and distribution entities in contemporary Australian history, producing such movies as Alvin Purple, Alvin Rides Again, Petersen, End Play and Eliza Fraser.

During his time with Roadshow Film Distributors, Finney supervised the release of many Australian titles including Mad Max, Breaker Morant, Proof, Romper Stomper, Bad Boy Bubby, The Piano, Muriel’s Wedding, Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, The Castle and The Man Who Sued God.

He joined Buena Vista International (now Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures) in 1998 as Vice President and Managing Director, Australia and New Zealand and left the Disney Company in April, 2010. Finney served on the Board of the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) and as a Board Member of the Australian Film Institute. He is currently Chair of the AFI.

In the 2002 Australia Day Honours he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for services to the Australian Film Industry – particularly in the areas of film distribution and promotion – and was awarded the Maura Fay Award for Services to the Industry at the 2010 Screen Producers of Australia Association conference.

Inspired by a gunfight in a Hollywood Western, Samuel Maoz shot his first film at age 13. The experience resulted in the destruction of his prized 8mm camera, but failed to break his creative spirit: by the time he signed up for National Service, he had made dozens of short films. Maoz trained as a Tank Gunner, the death-dealing significance of the role lost on him at the tender age of 18. Training seemed ‘like an amusement park for boys’. War with Lebanon broke out in 1982; when Maoz finally returned home, physically unharmed, his mother rejoiced, little understanding that ‘her son has died in Lebanon’. Years of inertia passed as Maoz tried to come to terms with his war experiences. He describes the completion of his film Lebanon as finally returning home.

Samuel Maoz won the Jury Grand Prize at the 2010 APSAs for Lebanon, which also received the Best Screenplay award. Lebanon won the Golden Lion at the 66^th Venice International Film Festival in 2009, becoming the first Israeli-produced film to have won that honour, and continued on to win four Israeli Film Academy Awards in the same year.  It was nominated for six other Israeli Film Academy Awards including Best Film.

Among many international accolades for the film, Samuel Maoz was named European Discovery of the Year at the European Film Awards in 2010. Maoz is well regarded as a documentary filmmaker for films such as the ARTE production Total Eclipse (2000). He is a member of the European Film Academy and the Asia Pacific Screen Academy.

Kaori Momoi is one of Japan’s finest actresses and a director of note. Momoi was born in Tokyo, moved to London as a 12 year-old to dance at the Royal Ballet Academy and later returned to Tokyo and graduated from Japan’s Bungakuza School of Dramatic Arts. In 1971, she debuted in director Kon Ichikawa’s Ai Futatabi (To Love Again) beginning a career that has spanned 35 years and more 60 films.

As an actress, Kaori Momoi has worked with some of the most notable film directors in Japan, including Akira Kurosawa (Kagemusha, 1980), Tatsumi Kumashiro (Seishun no Satetsu, 1974), Yoji Yamada (The Yellow Handkerchief, 1977 and Otoko wa Tsurai Yo, 1979), Shohei Imamura (Why Not?, 1981), Shunji Iwai (Swallowtail Butterfly, 1996), Jun Ichikawa (Tokyo Yakyoku, 1997), Mitani Koki (Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald, 1997), Yoshimitsu Morita (Like Asura, 2003) and, most recently, Takashi Miike (Izo and Sukiyaki Western Django). She also featured in the Russian film The Sun (2005), directed by Alexander Sokurov, and appeared in director Rob Marshall’s Memoirs of a Geisha.

Kaori Momoi has won the Japanese Academy Award for Best Actress twice and Best Supporting Actress once and was selected Best Actress at the 1983 New York International Film Festival for her role in Giwaku (Suspicion).

Kaori made her directorial debut with Faces of a Fig Tree premiering at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2007 and winning the NETPAC prize. She is currently a director on the feature film omnibus, 3.11 A Sense of Home Films Project. The project is an initiative of acclaimed Japanese director Naomi Kawase and is dedicated to victims of the earthquake and tsunami that struck eastern Japan this year.

Ming Zhenjiang is the Executive Chairman of the China Film Producers Association, the People’s Republic of China’s official representative of FIAPF-the International Federation of Film Producers Associations. Ming is President of August First Film Studios. He is on the national committee of China’s Federation of Literature and Arts Associations (CFLAA), a standing council member of China’s Association of Film Artists and a Vice President of China’s Film Reviewers Association. He is one of China’s best-known film producers and reviewers and is a highly regarded poet and writer.

Ming Zhenjiang has been responsible for over 50 feature films and has won several Chinese and international film awards, including Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Awards. Charging Out Amazon screened at the Kennedy Art Centre in the US and won the 2002 Golden Rooster for Best Film. Other titles include On the Taihang Mountains, An Earth Shaking Event and My Personal Long March.

In recent years Ming Zhenjiang has created and produced more than 60 television series, including Surprising Assault of Soldiers, which won an Excellence Award at the Tokyo International TV Movie Festival. He has produced more than 50 documentaries and published over 100 articles about film and television, several of which appear in collections such as Treasury of Contemporary Chinese Thoughts.