2022 MPA APSA Academy Film Fund Recipient

Khadija is Yemen’s first woman filmmaker, and has made some over 25 documentaries for various TV stations in France and Yemen and received several awards at various film festivals worldwide. With Charles Hoots, she has written a book, “The Tears of Sheba,” about her experiences growing up in Yemen.  She also wrote the book Nada “la rose de matin”. She occupied until 2012 the post of Press Counselor and Director of the Communication and Cultural Center at the Embassy of Yemen in Paris.

Among the awards she received: The Knight of the Order of Arts & Letters awarded by the French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand.  Inspiring woman, chosen by the Mosaic Foundation (Washington D.C. Medal of Honor rank of Knight (Chevalier) awarded by the French President Jacques Chirac.

Kirby Atkins has worked with some of the most recognisable names in cinema across animation and visual effects. He has been a director and senior animator for Laika Studios (the company behind Coraline, ParaNorman and more) and development director for DNA Studios where he created properties for animated features and television. He worked as a character animator on the Academy Awards -nominated Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and directed episodes of the spin-off television series The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. He has worked in animation for feature films by companies such as Sony Animation and Weta Digital, including The BFG for director Steven Spielberg. Before Mosley, which he also wrote, Atkins had directed the short film Mutt, which won Best Animated Short at the Hollywood Film Festival. As director of Mosley, this is his first APSA nomination.

Anne Köhncke holds an MA in Film and Media. She has specialized in the financing of documentaries in the Nordic countries. She joined Final Cut for Real in 2009, after holding a position as Commissioning Editor for DR2. Before that she was a Sales Executive at TV2 World, and has worked for EDN and Filmkontakt Nord. Anne attended the EAVE Producer Workshop in 2011. Anne has produced Football is God (dir. Ole Bendtzen, 2010), The Kid and The Clown (dir. Ida Grøn, 2011), Returned (dir. Marianne Hougen- Moraga, 2011), The Act of Killing (2012 dir. Joshua Oppenheimer) and The Look of Silence (2014 dir. Joshua Oppenheimer).

Lai Weijie is a film producer based in Singapore and Toronto. In 2010 he co-founded E&W Films, a Singapore-based film development and production company, the producer of POP AYE (2017) by Kirsten Tan which received awards at Sundance, Rotterdam, and Zurich, and Taste (2021) by Lê Bảo, that received the Special Jury Award in the Encounters section of the recent Berlinale Film Festival where it had its world premiere. Upcoming projects include CNC Development Award recipient Mongrel by Chiang Wei Liang, developed at the Cannes Residence, Talents Tokyo, and TorinoFilmLab ScriptLab. Weijie has several years of experience as a senior programmer formerly at the Singapore International Film Festival, developing its film academy and overseeing its Asian selection. He has served on the selection committee for several fund bodies.