Advisory Board

Sharofat ARABOVA
Sharofat Arabova is a filmmaker and a film scholar based in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. She graduated in Cultural Studies from Russian-Tajik (Slavic) University (2006) and in Film Direction from the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune (2013). She holds a Ph.D. in history and researches different aspects of Tajik cinema. She is a member of the Filmmakers’ Union of Tajikistan and the Network for the Promotion of Asian Pacific Cinema (NETPAC). Sharofat served on international juries in Bishkek, Moscow, Bucheon, Dhaka, Kazan, Kolkata, Bangalore, Toronto, Vesoul, Kathmandu and Herat. Currently, she works as a film director at the State Tojikfilm Institution and as an independent film scholar collaborating with Tajikfilm and the Filmmakers Union of Tajikistan.

Chris BERRY
Chris Berry is Professor of Film Studies at King’s College London. In the 1980s, he worked for China Film Import and Export Corporation in Beijing, and his academic research is grounded in work on Chinese-language cinemas and other Chinese-language screen-based media, as well as work from neighboring countries. He is especially interested in queer screen cultures in East Asia; mediatized public space in East Asian cities; and national and transnational screen cultures in East Asia. Together with John Erni, Peter Jackson, and Helen Leung, he edits the Queer Asia book series for Hong Kong University Press.

Philip CHEAH
Philip Cheah is a film critic and the editor of BigO, Singapore’s only independent pop culture publication. He is currently program consultant and advisor to film festivals in Shanghai (China), El Gouna (Egypt), Jogjakarta (Indonesia), Jaffna (Sri Lanka), Hanoi (Vietnam) and for River Meets Mountain (India). He is Patron of the SEA (South-East Asia) Screen Academy in Makassar, Indonesia. He is also Spiritual Advisor to the Bakunawa Young Cinema Film Festival, Philippines. He is co-editor of the books „Garin Nugroho: And the Moon Dances“; „Noel Vera: Critic After Dark“ and „Ngo Phuong Lan: Modernity and Nationality in Vietnamese Cinema“. He was given an Honorary Award at the 15th Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival 2019, as well as awards in Kyrgyzstan, Vietnam, and Korea.

Roland DOMENIG
Roland Domenig is Professor of Japanese Film History at Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo. He works as a film curator for the British Film Institute (BFI), the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa), Cinémathèque Française, Pacific Film Archive, Harvard Film Archive, Cinémathèque Québécoise, Cinematheque Seoul and for numerous film festivals in Europe and Asia. He is also a subtitle translator.

Aravinda NAVADA
Aravinda Navada stepped into the field of journalism in 1997 and was associated with newspapers like Digvijaya, Udayavani and Vijaya Karnataka as a resident editor. As a movie critic, he writes articles on cinema in newspapers and blogs. He has worked as an Associate Editor for a news daily. Besides, he is a speaker and has delivered several lectures in media schools. Aravinda Navada has been a member of the Indian Censorship Board. Recently he completed an editorial project for the Mysore Eveninger.

PARK Kiyong
Park Kiyong started his film career after graduating from the Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA) in 1987. He has worked on various film projects as producer and director. His films Motel Cactus (1997) and camel(s) (2001) won numerous national and international awards. While representing Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA) from 2001 to 2009, he started the “Feature Film & Animation Production Program” which became an enormous success. Films made in this program were shown in many leading international film festivals and won numerous awards. In 2007, he co-founded Cinema Digital Seoul (CinDi), an international film festival focusing on showcasing digital films. In 2011, he directed his first essay film Moving, and has directed several other films on various topics ever since. Since 2012, he teaches directing at Dankook University, Korea, and was head of the Graduate School of Cinematic Content between 2018 and 2020. In January 2022, Park Kiyong was elected as the Chairman of the Korean Film Commission (KOFIC) for the next two years.

Zakir Hossain RAJU
Zakir Hossain Raju is Professor and Head of the Dept. of Media and Communication at Independent University, Bangladesh. He also taught at Monash University in Australia and in Malaysia. He obtained his Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from La Trobe University, Melbourne. Raju served as Research Fellow at University of Malaya and Korean National University of Arts. His films were screened in international film festivals including Hawaii, Fukuoka, San Francisco, Busan, and Singapore. Raju authored many research articles and monographs on Asian cinema including “Bangladesh Cinema and National Identity” (Routledge, 2018). He also served as jury member in several international film festivals including Rotterdam, Honolulu, Melbourne, Vesoul, Tallinn, Dhaka and Bucheon.

Ashley RATNAVIBHUSHANA
Ashley Ratnavibhushana is a journalist, author, film critic and film society activist. He is the President of the Asian Film Center (AFC) in Sri Lanka and the foremost interpreter of Sri Lankan cinema to the outside world. He is the Founding Editor of the journal Cinesith and author/co-author of several books on Sri Lankan cinema. Presently he is the Joint President and the Jury Coordinator for Network for the Promotion of Asia Pacific Cinema (NETPAC). He is also the President of the Sri Lanka Film Critics’ Forum affiliated to International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) and President of the Sri Lanka Federation of Film Societies affiliated to International Federation of Film Societies (IFFS). He was the Coordinator for the first SAARC Film Festival held in Colombo in 1999 and Executive Coordinator of the Commonwealth Film Festival held in Colombo in parallel to Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM – 2013) & Senior Programmer to the International Film Festival, Colombo in 2015 and 2016. He has worked on numerous special film events and has served on many local and international juries.

Fernanda RENNO
Fernanda Rennó is a Norwegian-Brazilian distributor and producer with a Master’s degree in Production and Distribution of Feature Films at ESRA Paris. She worked as sales agent at UDI before joining AS Fidalgo Film Distribution as Head of Distribution. AS Fidalgo has been distributing quality films from all over the world since 1991. The company released over 250 titles so far.

Hayley SCANLON
Hayley Scanlon is a freelance film author and editor of East Asian cinema website Windows on Worlds. She writes for outlets such as the BFI Online and Senses of Cinema.

Indu SHRIKENT
Born in New Delhi, India, Indu Shrikent joined Cinemaya – The Asian Film Quarterly in 1993, the only journal worldwide devoted to Asian cinema. One of the founding members of NETPAC India, she helped in organizing film weeks from Asian countries and retrospectives of filmmakers like Omer Kavur from Turkey; Prasanna Vithanage from Sri Lanka. Indu was the co-director of Cinefan since its inception in 1999 with Aruna Vasudev and was the director of 12th Osian’s-Cinefan Film Festival. She has served as a juror at many international film festivals; was President of the short film competition at Locarno. She was a member of the FIPRESCI Jury in Hong Kong in 2010 and has attended many other international film festivals. Presently, Indu is working at Osianama Research, Library, Archive and Sanctuary.

Italo SPINELLI
Italo Spinelli, based in Rome, has directed for cinema, theater and television. He is the founder and director of Asiatica Film Festival dedicated to Asian cinema, which has been taking place in Rome since 2000. He has taught cinema and theater at the University of Siena, edited the entry India and Indonesia for the Encyclopedia of Cinema Treccani and the volume „Indian Summer. Films, Filmmakers and Stars Between Ray and Bollywood“ (Olivares Editions). He collaborates with several magazines. He has participated in numerous international film festivals as a jury member.

Andreas UNGERBÖCK
Andreas Ungerböck is a film curator and journalist – and the co-founder of Red Lotus. He worked for the Viennale for more than 25 years, organized several retrospectives on Asian cinema, served as jury member at numerous festivals worldwide, authored or edited a dozen books and worked as co-publisher of the Austrian film magazine “ray” for more than two decades.

YOO Un-Seong
Yoo Un-Seong was the programmer at Jeonju International Film Festival, program director at Moonji Cultural Institute SAII, editorial committee member for Magazine F, and is currently the co-publisher of „Okulo Journal of Cinema and Moving Image“. He has written books on cinema like „A Ghost and the Guards“ (2018) and „Not So Long After Midnight: A Tractate on Cinema“ (2021).