2014 MPA APSA Academy Film Fund Panel

Andrew Pike is a film historian and documentary filmmaker, a producer, film distributor and exhibitor.

During the 1980s he specialised in bringing renowned films from Japan and China to Australian audiences and implement many innovative distribution and marking activities for which he won the Australian Film Institute’s Byron Kennedy Award in 1986.

Thorough his company Ronin Films, he has distributed major Australian films including Shine and Strictly Ballroom, the work of documentary directors such as Dennis O’Rourke and Bob Connolly, and the early work of feature film directors such as Jane Campion, Baz Luhrmann, Vincent Ward and Scott Hicks.

He directed award-winning documentary Angels of War and, together with Ross Cooper, he co-authored seminal book Australian Film 1900-1977 published by Oxford University Press. In 2014 he completed Message from Mungo, a feature-length documentary which he co-directed with Ann McGrath, and which won a United Nations Media Award in the special category of Promotion of Indigenous Recognition.

Pike has been honoured with an Order of Australia Medal for his services to the film industry and the community, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Canberra, and was appointed by the French government to the rank of Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres for his promotion of French cinema in Australia. He is board member of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. In 2009, Pike was a member of the Asia Pacific Screen Awards International Jury and has chaired the assessment panel for the MPA APSA Academy Film Fund since its inaugural year in 2010.

Zoe Chen is General Manger of the Ruddy Morgan Organization (China) and Sirens Productions (Shanghai) Limited, in charge of business development in China.

Chen has directed and produced countless award-winning TV programs in China, and worked for BBC, ITV, Channel 4 in the UK. Since 2001 she has had a significant role in development, investment and production for a leading Hollywood boutique film production company, the Ruddy Morgan Organization. She recently produced award-winning feature film My Kingdom.

She holds a degree majoring in Musicology of Western Classical Music, an MA in Audio Visual Production and, realising the changing dynamic in the Chinese film and television industry, she studied business and obtained an EMBA Duel Degree at EMEM (Euromed Marseille Ecole de Management) and Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

A lifelong passion for film and entertainment started as a child when Chen was selected as lead dancer of China’s ambassadorial youth dance tour to the US and she became a presenter of Shanghai TV while still at school.

Before entering filmmaking, Sheila Timothy spent years in the music business. She is also on the board of one of the oldest recording companies in Indonesia, PT Remaco. In 2008 she produced Joko Anwar’s Forbidden Door with her newly established film company, LifeLike Pictures. The film went on to win Best Film in the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PIFAN) in 2009.

In 2011 she organised the Fantastic Indonesian Short Film Competition (FISFiC) in a bid to find new and talented filmmakers in the country.

In 2012 she produced Modus Anomali, written and directed by Joko Anwar. The film premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW) and was distributed in Europe and the US.

Her third feature, Tabula Rasa, a family drama directed by Adriyanto Dewo, was released earlier this year.

Timothy is President of the Association of Indonesian Film Producers (APROFI), 2013-2016.