2016 MPA APSA Academy Film Fund Recipient

Haifaa al-Mansour is regarded as one of Saudi Arabia’s most significant cinematic figures. She was inducted into the APSA Academy in 2013 for her film Wadjda which was nominated for Best Children’s Feature Film. She received one of the development grants through her animated film project Miss Camel.

“Delightful and exuberant, Miss Camel will be a stop-motion animation in which a Saudi girl conspires with a frisky camel to travel to the Miss Camel beauty pageant in Doha to win enough money to pay back her dowry and break her arranged marriage.”

Emir Baigazin studied at the Kazakh National Academy of Arts in Almaty, majoring in film direction and cinema.  He was inducted into the APSA Academy in 2013 for directing Harmony Lessons and was a development grant recipient through his project The River, which will have its World Premiere in the Orizzonti section of the Venice International Film Festival, 2018.

“The River is a sharp drama set in a small town on the steppes of Kazakhstan about the turmoil of a family of five children being troubled by an adolescent from the city.”

Australian director Rolf de Heer also writes and produces the films he directs. His film Charlie’s Country, the third of his collaborations with renowned Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil, won Best Actor in Un Certain Regard at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and was  Australia’s nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. He was also inducted into the APSA Academy in 2014 for directing the film. He was a development grant recipient for his feature fiction film project Mr Ward’s Incredible Journey.

“Mr Ward’s Incredible Journey is a darkly comic biopic drama. A story of two incredible journeys by the same man: one a journey from pre-contact to an almost successful adaptation into a new culture; the other a brutal, stupid journey from the living to the dead.”

Park Joo Young, started working in the film industry in 1999. At CINE2000, Park worked in film investment, production, and marketing. She was inducted into the APSA Academy in 2013 for her film Juvenile Offender which as nominated for Best Children’s Feature Film. She was a development grant recipient through her feature fiction film project Morning Star.

“A delightfully funny and moving drama, Morning Star is about a South Korean man with a failing business who tries to help his grandfather meet his estranged son who is living in the North.”