2024 International Jury

Pen-ek Ratanaruang is one of Asia’s leading film directors and screenwriters. He made his debut as a feature film director with a movie that broke the mould of Thai cinema called Fun Bar Karaoke. Since then, he has been recognised as a major pioneer in the Thai New Wave cinema.

His films have been screened in major festivals such as Berlin, Cannes, Venice and Toronto and have been distributed worldwide. His video installations and multimedia works were exhibited at the 2020 Bangkok Art Biennale. Ratanaruang is the recipient of Thailand Ministry of Culture’s Silpathorn Award and the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the French Ministry of Culture.

He lives and works between Bangkok and Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Chris Pang is an actor, writer and producer of Taiwanese/Cantonese descent and is fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese and an aficionado of martial arts disciplines. After graduating with a Bachelor of Multimedia Design at Monash University in 2006 and pursuing a career in entertainment he has appeared on television in the Australian AFI Award-winning series Rush, in a recurring role in Netflix’s Marco Polo Season 2 and as a series regular in Jason Katims’ series As We See It for Amazon Studios. Pang’s feature film debut was in Citizen Jia Li (2008), for which he was both an associate producer and an actor. The role won him an Asians on Film (LA) Best Actor award. He has since built a stable of film credits, including the Australian box office hit Tomorrow, When the War Began (2010), Crazy Rich Asians (2018), Charlie’s Angels (2019) and Palm Springs (2020). Feeling the need to add his voice to the content currently being created, Pang has moved beyond acting and produced the 2018 indie feature Empty By Design with Cignal Entertainment in the Philippines and currently has a Sessue Hayakawa biopic in development at Raimi Pictures. He will next be seen in the Disney/Hulu series Interior Chinatown.

Kerry Warkia (Papua New Guinean/Scottish) is a producer who has been at the forefront of some of New Zealand’s most innovative content for film, television and the web. Passionate about telling Māori and Pasifika stories, she has just produced her second feature film Vai set in 7 Pacific island countries. In 2016 Kerry produced the groundbreaking feature film Waru made up of 8 vignettes – made in collaboration with 9 wāhine (female) Māori filmmakers. Kerry was awarded the SPADA Independent Producer of the Year in 2017 and in 2014 Kerry was acknowledged as that year’s “Woman to Watch” at the NZ WIFT Awards, a testament to Kerry’s determination to tell a diverse range of stories that ignite her passion.

Park Kiyong is a Korean filmmaker, educator, and policymaker. After graduating from the Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA), he became a producer and director. He played a pivotal role in enhancing KAFA’s reputation and transformed the Asian Film Academy (AFA) into an indispensable training program for emerging Asian filmmakers. Furthermore, he launched and directed Cinema Digital Seoul (CinDi), a vital platform for uncovering and nurturing new Asian talent. His recent work encompasses impactful essay films and innovative filmmaking collaborations. As Chairperson of the Korean Film Council (KOFIC), he took the initiative to establish the Asian Film Alliance Network (AFAN). He also imparts his expertise in filmmaking as a professor at Dankook University in Korea.

Yuliya Kim is a Paris-based producer originally from Kazakhstan, born in 1986. She began her career in the film industry in 2011, when she initially worked on promoting Kazakh film projects to various film festivals and markets. After several years of experience in the industry, she transitioned into a producer role. In 2015 she founded East Wind Production to spearhead international co-operations and co-productions with Kazakhstan. She accompanied many internationally acclaimed directors such as Darezhan Omirbayev (Student and Poet) and Yerlan Nurmukhambetov (Walnut Tree and The Horse Thieves. Roads of Time). Yuliya also supports young promising directors, like Aisultan Seit with his debut Qas.

She has participated as a jury member in various film festivals, and has organised retrospectives and screenings of Kazakh films abroad.

In 2023 Yuliya created an international and intellectual space to unite filmmakers from Central Asia through the Post Space Film Camp for fostering collaboration and creative exchange in the region’s film industry.