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ANGEL MA ARGUDIN
(writer/director,
RETURN OF THE DIVAS) was born in Havana, Cuba in 1948. He
has worked in the film and television industry since 1973. In
the late '90s, he directed a feature documentary entitled
PRIMAVERA DEL DRAGON/SPRING OF THE DRAGON, the first
co-production between China and Cuba of its kind. He hopes to
make the second part of RETURN OF THE DIVAS in Cuba and
SPRING OF THE DRAGON in China.
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SEAN BAKER (left,
writer/director/producer,
TAKE OUT) was born
and raised in central New Jersey and graduated from NYU�s Tisch
School of the Arts where he studied film and television. He
premiered his first feature FOURLETTERWORDS at South By
Southwest in 2001. He produced Koorosh Yaraghi�s MEN IN PATIENCE
which screened at seven festivals including the prestigious San
Diego Asian Film Festival and Singapore Shorts in 2002. |
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A.J. CALOMAY (producer,
THE APL SONG and
director/producer,
ESPECIALTY) graduated from UCLA in Psychobiology and
Cognitive Science. Currently, A.J. works as a freelance editor
with clients including the Festival of Philippine Arts and
Culture, Rod Pulido's THE FLIP SIDE, the feature film THE
DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS, and the Madrid based television
show MAGAZINA. He is also running his own production and
editorial company, Xylophone Films, where he has edited videos
for musical talents such as the Lootpack and DJ Icy Ice.
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SUSAN CHANG
(writer/director,
BROKEN ROOTS) is a television broadcaster who has worked for
many of the top networks around the world. As an anchor,
reporter and producer, Susan has written and produced hundreds
of television reports and short documentaries for networks such
as CBC, CTV, CNN and BBC. BROKEN ROOTS is Susan's first film.
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RICH CRANOR
(writer/director, THE
LIFE AND TIMES OF MC BEER BONG) is a graduate of the Art
Institute of Seattle in Multimedia Studies. THE LIFE AND TIMES
OF MC BEER BONG is his first feature length film. His previous
short HAMBURGERS AND SALSA screened at the Vietnamese
International Film Festival. He is currently working on another
feature film shooting this winter, a story about a mail-order
"husband" coming to America.
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RAMONA DIAZ's
(director/producer,
IMELDA) credits include the award-winning SPIRITS RISING, a
film about women's role in the 1986 People Power revolution in
the Philippines. Prior to pursuing a career as an independent
filmmaker, Diaz was an associate producer for "Cadillac Desert,"
a PBS documentary series about the quest for water in the
American West. She also line-produced and edited a documentary
series about the immigrant experiences of Filipinos residing in
Europe and America. Diaz brings to filmmaking years of
experience working for Mary Tyler Moore Productions and Lorimar
Productions in Los Angeles.
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PATRICK EPINO
(writer/director/producer,
SPUNK) is
currently finishing up his MFA in film at San Francisco State
University. In addition to SPUNK, he has recently completed his
first feature-length project, THE PHARTIST, and is now working
on his next film, a multi-format narrative on sadness.
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ANN
MARIE FLEMING (writer/director,
THE MAGICAL LIFE OF
LONG TACK SAM) is an independent Canadian filmmaker, writer
and artist, born in Okinawa, of Chinese and Australian
parentage. Her film work incorporates various techniques:
animation, documentary, experimental, dramatic, and primarily
deals with themes of family, history and memory, in a continuing
media critique. Ann Marie is head of independent production at
Global Mechanic, a production company she and partner Bruce
Alcock founded in 2000. |
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PATRICIO GINELSA
(writer/director, THE
APL SONG and writer/director/producer,
ESPECIALTY) is originally from Daly City, CA, where he
started making video movies with his neighborhood at the age of
13. Patricio graduated at the University of Southern California
with a BA in Cinema Production. He became the Associate Producer
of the award-winning film THE DEBUT, touring with the film and
serving as its DVD special features producer. Patricio wrote and
directed the feature-length video movie LUMPIA (2003 Hawaii
International Film Festival, 2004 Toronto ReelWorld).
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MICHELE GUTIERREZ and CHRISTINE ARAQUEL
(writers/directors/producers,
BROKEN PROMISES)
have been active in the Justice for Filipino American Veterans
campaign since they were 16-year-olds in Long Beach, California.
They were finally able to realize their dream of creating a
documentary about the Veterans movement as undergraduates in the
EthnoCommunications program housed in the UCLA Asian American
Studies Center.
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LISA HALPERN (producer,
8 MINUTES TO LOVE)
studied Comparative Literature at the University of Washington
and received her BFA from Cornish College of the Arts. Her film
credits include the short film WHITE FACE (associate producer),
the feature film INHERITANCE (producer) and the TV pilot
GUERRILLA GARDENER (writer/director/producer, 2003 Telly Award
winner).
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SANGHI HAM, AILEEN IMPERIAL, ADAM MARVEL,
JEFF BENITZ, TOM CONLON, and IRL MICHAEL DAVIS
created BUTOH:
BEYOND THE DARKNESS as part of the documentary video class
at 911 Media Arts Center in Seattle, Washington. This is their
first festival screening, and they hope to continue pursuing
opportunities in documentary video production.
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THOM HARP (director,
8 MINUTES TO LOVE)
graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles with majors in
Film and Theater. Thom wrote and directed the short film
AFTERNOON DELIGHT as well as the trailers for the 2000 and 2003
Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festivals (SPIN THE BOTTLE and RIDE
IT).
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WOOK STEVEN HEO (writer/director/producer,
TEXAS DOUGHNUT SHOP)
was born in Korea in 1970 and received a BA in Mass
Communication from Sogang University. After working in Korea for
six years, he move to the US to pursue an MFA in Film at
Syracuse University. His short films and documentaries have been
exhibited internationally including Japan, Germany, and France.
He lives with his wife and two sons in Las Vegas where he is an
assistant professor in the Film Department at UNLV.
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DANIEL HSIA (writer/director,
I HATE CHEESE) is
a television comedy writer in Los Angeles.
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MICHAEL D. JONES (producer,
WALKING BETWEEN THE
LINES) was born in El Camino Hospital in Sunnyvale,
California, and from the very start, had aspirations to play
professional baseball. Tragically, a shoulder injury in high
school prevented him from reaching his God-given potential, and
he now pushes paper at a production company in Van Nuys.
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YOHEI KAWAMATA
(writer/director/producer,
THE HAIRS) was
born in Japan in 1977. He has a BA in Economics from the
University of Tsukuba and is working towards his MFA in Film
from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.
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JISU KIM
(director/producer,
HAIR) came to New York in 1997 to study film history,
criticism and production in the Cinema Studies Department of New
York University�s Tisch School of the Arts. In 2003, she
received a scholarship from New York Women in Film and
Television to attend the Digital Film Academy in New York City,
where she produced, directed, shot and edited HAIR. Her current
projects include documentaries about Korean-Japanese artists,
the Italian-American family, and public bathrooms around the
world.
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GRACE LEE (director,
BEST OF THE WURST)
is a writer/director currently based in Los Angeles. Her most
recent short film BARRIER DEVICE, starring Sandra Oh, won a 2002
Student Academy Award, a Directors Guild of America Student
Award, top prizes at the Urbanworld, Palm Springs, and Los
Angeles Asian Film Festivals and was broadcast on the Sundance
Channel. Grace is also the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation
Fellowship for her latest film THE GRACE LEE PROJECT, a humorous
investigation into the lives of several people named Grace Lee.
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IN-AH LEE (producer,
BEST OF THE WURST)
is a producer based in Los Angeles and Hamburg. She is currently
producing Wim Wenders' latest feature film LAND OF PLENTY,
co-produced by InDigEnt and IFC and to be released in 2004 as
well as his upcoming feature DON'T COME KNOCKING, written by and
starring Sam Shepard. She is the executive producer at Wim
Wenders Productions for commercials and music videos and
recently took on the position of head of production at the
Hamburg based Reverse Angle Production.
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SAMUEL KIEHOON LEE
(writer/director/producer,
HOW TO MAKE KIMCHI:
ACCORDING TO MY KUN UMMA) is a Toronto-based
Korean-Canadian filmmaker. Born in Canada (Barrie, Ontario), he
is still trying to learn his original mother tongue and has made
this film to atone. Lee has been making films for over five
years; HOW TO MAKE KIMCHI... is his first non-fictional
film. He is as yet unmarried, much to his Kun-Umma's chagrin.
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SUSIE LEE
(writer/director/producer,
ODE TO MARGARET CHO)
has a Ph.D. in Asian American history from Cornell University.
Currently, she is a media research consultant for the Ford
Foundation. Her first short film, FLAG TV, was co-produced by
Third World Newsreel and screened at the MOMA and the Anthology
Film Archives.
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New York native X. DEAN LIM
(writer/director, THE
YELLOW TRUTH) interrupted the gestation of a perfectly good
Manhattan stereotype when he moved to Los Angeles to become a
writer -- an entirely different stereotype. Since then, he's
kicked around (and been kicked around) on several television
writing staffs while being also being punted about by a handful
of useless film studios with dangling development carrots.
Currently he is working for John Wells Productions. To this
date, he has still not studied writing, directing or filmmaking.
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After KAREN LIN
(writer/director/producer,
PERFECTION)
received degrees from Pomona College and UC Berkeley, she
decided to head to Hollywood and follow her passion for film.
She started as an agent�s assistant, and moved on to feature
film production; three years ago, she made the leap into
production managing music videos and producing short films. In
March 2001, she founded ZuZu Films and completed PERFECTION, her
first 35mm short film. She is currently developing a documentary
and a romantic comedy feature film,
A LUCKY ACCIDENT.
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JEANNETTE LOAKMAN
(writer/producer,
ANNIE ONG: LOST AND FOUND) is a producer/director of
documentary films and a journalist and television programmer. In
1995, she made a short video diary called THE LAST SEVEN DAYS OF
ANNIE ONG which charted her search for her birth mother. It was
broadcast and played the festival circuit to much acclaim.
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RACHAEL MAR (producer,
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF
MC BEER BONG) works as a medical professional at the
University of Washington. She is a member of the Wok N Roll
production team, helping with all types of producing tasks, such
as location scouting, talent wrangling, and so forth. She is
currently cast in an upcoming film being written by her husband
Rob.
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ROB MAR (writer,
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF
MC BEER BONG) loosely based MC Beer Bong on his own
experiences in the music industry. He is now writing another
film that is based on some of the same themes. As a high school
student, he toured the country writing and performing his own
plays. Currently, he works as a lawyer in Seattle.
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JENNIFER MATTE
(writer/producer, 8
MINUTES TO LOVE) holds a BA in Mass Communication from the
University of Ottawa, Canada, and a certificate in Dramatic
Scriptwriting. Her feature film scripts have been recognized in
international writing competitions (Nicholl, Austin) and she
received a fellowship from the Praxis Center for Screenwriters
(Vancouver, BC) in 2000.
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Films shot by CAROLYN MCCARTNEY
(cinematographer,
AFTER THE APOCALYPSE)
have been screened at numerous festivals. Her own award-winning
films have been screened domestically and abroad, and her B&W
still photography has also won prizes and been published and
exhibited internationally. She is a full time faculty member at
Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.
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YASUAKI NAKAJIMA
(writer/director/producer,
AFTER THE APOCALYPSE)
was born in Hokkaido, Japan. He is a self-taught filmmaker who
moved to New York in 1996 to join the independent film
community. For more information about his feature film, After
the Apocalypse, visit
www.aftertheapocalypse.com.
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ANDREA NEMTIN (producer,
BROKEN ROOTS) is
the President and CEO of PTV Productions and President and CEO
of PTV Releasing. Specializing in international and
inter-provincial co-productions, Andrea has produced a number of
quality documentaries and documentary series. She has produced
projects for a variety of broadcasters in Canada, the US and
Britain.
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NHIEN NGUYEN (producer,
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF
MC BEER BONG) is the editor for Seattle's Chinatown
newspaper The International Examiner. She is also a
fiction writer. Her previous credits include the screenplay for
HAMBURGERS AND SALSA which screened last year at the Vietnamese
International Film Festival.
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LYNN OKIMURA
(writer/director/producer,
FUNETICS) is a graduate
animation student at the UCLA School of Film, Television and
Digital Media. Currently, she is also working in production at
Disney TV Animation on the "Lilo & Stitch" series.
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GREG PAK
(writer/director/producer,
ODE TO MARGARET CHO)
is an award-winning filmmaker whose first feature, ROBOT
STORIES, has won over thirty awards and is now screening
theatrically across the country. Greg's screenplay RIO CHINO won
the IFP Market's Pipedream Screenwriting Award and a Rockefeller
Media Arts Fellowship. Greg's short films have won awards and
screened in festivals around the world. Greg also edits
FilmHelp.com and AsianAmericanFilm.com. Greg is now writing
"Warlock" for Marvel Comics.
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MARILYN PEREZ (producer,
RETURN OF THE DIVAS)
was born in New York in 1961. Extensive travel to Cuba in the
'90s changed her focus as a visual artist and poet producing for
TV, film, and print. In 1998, she formed the Gabriel Project to
bring Cuban cultural riches to audiences in the US. She hopes to
develop RETURN OF THE DIVAS into an hour-long comprehensive
portrayal in Havana about Chinese Cuban elderly women and their
culture.
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STEFAN RANDSTR�M
(director/writer,
ANNIE ONG: LOST AND FOUND) is an award-winning Finnish
filmmaker who has lived in Canada since 1995. Stefan is a
journalist turned filmmaker who has worked extensively all over
the world. He makes a living as a director, writer,
photographer, reporter and host. Stefan has also written books
and a musical.
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DAVID ROWE
(writer/director/producer,
PERFECTIONS) is a graduate of the Seattle Film Institute and
has made several short films. As a member of Infinite Quest
Productions, a film and stunt team based on the West coast, he
plans on continuing to write and direct, working towards a
feature film production.
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LONG LIFE, HAPPINESS &
PROSPERITY is the third feature from writer/director MINA
SHUM. Her second feature DRIVE SHE SAID premiered at the
1997 Toronto Film Festival. Her feature debut DOUBLE HAPPINESS
won Best First Feature at Berlin and a Special Jury Citation
from Toronto. Shum has also written and directed seven short
films including PICTURE PERFECT and SHORTCHANGED. |
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NATT THANGVIJIT
(co-writer/director/producer,
STRANGER IN THE WOODS)
is the Director of Animation for headsprout.com, an online
program that teaches children to read. In his spare time, he
creates short films with animated elements that add "sparkly
magic."
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The films of TRAN QUOC BAO
(writer/producer,
PERFECTIONS) have screened at the Northwest Film Forum, the
Northwest Asian American Film Festival, and the Los Angeles
Asian Pacific Film Festival. His film "3:45" was co-winner of
the 2003 Seattle Student Film Festival.
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SHIH-CHING TSOU (right,
writer/director/producer,
TAKE OUT) was born
and raised in Taipei, Taiwan. After receiving a Bachelor�s
Degree in Religious Studies in Taiwan, Shih-Ching came to the
states for her Masters in Media Studies at The New School. Her
credits include production design on three nationally aired
commercials and post-production work on three short films. Shih-Ching
supports her indie film career as a graphic artist. |
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VINCENT TSU
(writer/director/producer,
WALKING BETWEEN THE
LINES) was born in Hong Kong and grew up in the San
Francisco Bay Area. He received his undergraduate degree in film
production from UCLA and is living and working in Los Angeles as
a freelance editor and motion graphics designer. In 2003, with
the help of a film school classmate, Vincent founded a small,
boutique post-production company, Mighty Big McRocket Post,
based in Los Angeles.
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FREDDIE WONG
(writer/director/producer,
THE SUITCASE) is a
freshman at the University of Southern California. He would like
to extend his deepest gratitude to Green Lake Segway for not
putting a bounty on his head for this movie.
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JESSICA YU (director,
SOUR DEATH BALLS)
is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She won the 1997 Academy
Award for Best Documentary Short for BREATHING LESSONS: THE LIFE
AND WORK OF MARK O�BRIEN, and her documentary THE LIVING MUSEUM
premiered at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. Yu is the first
director selected for the John Wells Director Diversity Program,
and most recently, Yu directed, produced and edited a feature
documentary film IN THE REALMS OF THE UNREAL about the life of
outsider artist Henry Darger. She is currently working on her
first narrative feature. |