ADVISOR
INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRY ADVISORY
Pailin Wedel
Pailin is an internationally recognized documentary film producer and director, whose work HOPE FROZEN (2018) received Thailand’s first International Emmy Award and the Best International Documentary Feature award at the Hot Docs International Documentary Festival. The film was a Netflix Original.
She also directed the documentary THE TRAPPED 13: How We Survived The Thai Cave (2022), which was nominated for an Emmy Award in the News and Documentary category. Her latest feature documentary film HEALS about one of Asia’s most famous drag queens is chosen to be the closing night film this year at InsideOut Film Festival in Toronto.
Roee Messinger
Roee Messinger is a filmmaker based in New York City, best known as the founder of Platonic Films.
He gained significant critical attention for his directorial debut, American Trial: The Eric Garner Story (2019), an unscripted courtroom drama that premiered at the 57th New York Film Festival.
Film Career & Creative WorkMessinger’s work often explores social relevance through innovative narrative structures. American Trial: The Eric Garner Story: This film depicts a mock trial for the death of Eric Garner, utilizing real attorneys and witnesses to imagine the legal proceedings that never actually occurred. Tibi Tendlu: The Dirt that Binds Us (2024): Messinger served as the producer and editor for this feature-length documentary about sexual abuse in Swaziland.
Messinger is a dedicated educator, currently serves as an instructor and industry advisor at School of Digital Media and Cinematic Arts, Bangkok University and a teaching artist for organizations like Young Audiences New York and the Film Society of Lincoln Center
Gugi Gumilang
Gugi Gumilang is currently based in Jakarta and Berlin, where he is currently appointed as an Program Director for an award-winning organisation: In-Docs, the non-profit behind Docs by the Sea and Good Pitch Asia and VitaminDocs.
Moreover, the Documentary of Association of Europe (DAE) has elected him to its Executive Board since 2022 and recently he joined Hot Docs as International Film Programmer. As part of his diverse experience, he has been involved as a selection committee and jury member for several reputable international film festivals and
film funds.
The following are among them: IDA, Purin Pictures, DOK Leipzig, Cannes Docs, IDFA Forum, RIDM, CPH:DOX, Points North Institute, Dokufest, Ji.hlava IDFF etc.
INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD
Sopawan Boonnimitra
Sopawan Boonnimitra is a Thai filmmaker and educator working across documentary, fiction, and visual arts practices. She teaches at the Department of Motion Pictures and Still Photography, Faculty of Communication Arts, Chulalongkorn University.
Her first feature film, The Isthmus (2013), premiered in the New Currents section at the Busan International Film Festival and screened internationally.
Her projects include The Caved Life (2020), *Up to the Buffalo*, and *First Cuts are the Deepest*, a six-year documentary following the lives of primary school students in Thailand.
Her works and projects have participated in international platforms including Docs by the Sea, Vision du Réel Works-in-Progress, Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival Pitching Forum.
Alongside filmmaking, she is also involved in documentary education and regional collaborations across Asia.
JEON Gyuchan
Korea National University of Arts
Professor of Journalism and Media Cultural Studies at the Faculty of Film, TV, and Multimedia, Korea National University of Arts, Gyuchan specializes in exploring urbanity, transmedia creative writing, and (counter)memory in popular historiography. With expertise in urban visual flaneurship and excavating genocidal memories, his notable works include the book project Children Survived, which delves into the forgotten history of the Brothers Home encampment in modern Korea. (PhD University of Wisconsin, Madison,U.S.)
CHUL HEO 허철 许哲
Professor, School of Culture and Creativity, Beijing Normal-Hong Kong Baptist University
Since his debut film Between Two Worlds in 1996, Chul Heo, as a filmmaker, has focused on exploring the "human condition" throughout his career. He is currently in the pre-production stage of his fourth feature film, Comic Book War, which he is both directing and writing in South Korea.
Additionally, in this spring, he is scheduled to shoot a short film titled Twenty Fifth Hour (a 20-minute sci-fi drama utilizing ICVFX Virtual Production techniques) as a writer director.
His earlier films have garnered numerous international film festival awards, including recognition at the Montreal World Film Festival.
Before joining XJTLU, Chul taught at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Korea University in Seoul, San Francisco State University and the University of Iowa
in the United States.
LI Xin 李昕
Yunnan University of the Arts, China
LI Xin has been lecturing both in documentary filmmaking and visual anthropology theory at Yunnan University of the Arts in Kunming, China since 2003. He is an experienced filmmaker who made over a dozen documentary and ethnographic films，screened at RAI International Ethnographic Film Festival（UK) etc.
As the co-founder of From Our Eyes, the first participatory community-based filmmaking program in China since 2011,I trained over 200 ethnic minority documentary filmmakers in local communities of Tibetan and Southwestern China. Those films are particularly focus on local eco-cultural sustainability.
Currently, He is working with my students for a long-term project about family memories through multimedia practice.
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TSAI Chin-Tong (Tony)
Professor of Graduate Institute of Documentary & Film Archiving at Tainan National University of the Arts. He holds the Dean of Academic Affairs currently.
His work focuses specifically on documentary, visual sociology and collective memory. His recent publication can be found in arts, cultural studies and mass communication journal. (PhD NTU, Taiwan)
Haruka Iharada
Kyoto University of the Arts
Independent Curator, Lecturer at Kyoto University of the Arts Graduate School. Producing film works addressing political issues in Okinawa, her place of birth; researching activism and art; producing documentaries under the Myanmar coup and developing projects that leverage these efforts.
TEZUKA Yoshiharu
Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at Komazawa University.
With research interests spanning media and cultural studies, Japanese immigration laws,race and gender issues, and Swedish cinema, Yoshi specializes in self-reflexive first-person filmmaking and the visual anthropology of the self.
Notable works include Over the Threshold: 家族写真 (co-directed with C. Lloyd-Fitt, 1989),which received the Best Film Awardfrom the Royal Institute of Anthropology (1990) and an Award of Encouragement from the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (1989). (PhD Goldsmiths College, MA National Film and TV School (NFTS), UK.)
Peerachai Kerdsint
Dr. Peerachai Kerdsint is a Thai academic and filmmaker, currently serves as Assistant to the President for Academic Affair and act for Dean, School of Digital Media and Cinematic Arts at Bangkok University.
He works across documentary, fiction, and creative media development, and also focuses on Virtual Production, which he describes as the future of the global film industry and a key driver for Thailand's soft power.
He is an independent researcher with interests in humanity and practice-led art research. He is an accomplished director and producer known for his contributions to independent and international cinema:The Isthmus (2013): Perhaps his most recognized work, which he co-directed.Other Notable Works includes, , First Grade, and The Caved Life.