AFFF 2008 Jury Members

Nadia Tass

Multi award winning director Nadia Tass, is one of Australia's most respected and unique filmmakers. Most recently she directed the musical theatre production "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" which was nominated for Best Direction of a Musical for the Sir Robert Helpmann Awards in Australia.

Tass' first feature film "Malcolm" in 1983 received critical acclaim throughout the world and earned her the Australian Film Institute Best Director award among many others. Tass went on to direct and co-produce features "Rikky and Pete" and "The Big Steal". She directed her first film in the United States in 1990, "Pure Luck" (Universal Studios), starred Danny Glover, Martin Short and Sam Wanamaker.

"Stark", shot in 1993, marked Tass' debut into the world of television. Her feature "Mr Reliable" premiered at the 1996 Edinburgh Film Festival and in 1998, Tass directed "Amy", which enjoyed international critical and box office success, winning 23 international awards, including 3 at Cannes. In recent years, Tass has directed "The Miracle Worker" (2000) "Child Star, The Shirley Temple Story" (2001) and "Undercover Christmas" (2003).

In 2004, she directed "Samantha: An American Girl Holiday" for Warner Brothers through Julia Roberts' Red Om production company, and in 2005 "Felicity: An American Girl Adventure". In 2007 she directed the film "Custody" for Jaffe/Braunstein Films.

Tass currently has a number of feature films in development with American studios, in addition to the slate of projects being developed through her production company Cascade Films. Projects in development include "Love and Mortar", "Cupid and Arrow" and "Bottle This!" (Nadia's first documentary venture).

Tikoy Aguiluz is one of the leading figures in the alternative cinema movement in the Philippines. He was co-founder and former assistant director of the U.P. Film Center. His films Mt. Banahaw, Holy Mountain (1976), Boatman (1984), Segurista (1996) and Rizal sa Dapitan (1997) have won several awards. He has served on the jury of the Berlin, Pusan, Singapore, Vesoul (France) Ossian's Cinefan in Delhi, Kerala, among others. He is the chief creative force behind the highly successful Cinemanila International Film Festival

Tikoy Aguiluz

Yim Ho

Hong Kong born YIM-HO studied filmmaking in the leading private London International Film School in UK. He spent three years with Hong Kong Television Broadcast Ltd (HKTVB) as television writer/ producer / director before segueing into feature films in 1978. Interestingly, as a Hong Kong-based auteur, the majority of YH's works is filmed in China. His directorial debut Home Coming (1984) which he also produced instantly put him in the spotlight and won 6 awards including Best Picture and Best Director at the Hong Kong Film Awards was honoured by the China Film Museum Archive as one of the '100 Movie Classics' in China.

Yim Ho achieved international acclaim with Red Dust (1990), a tragic love story set in the 1930's China starring Brigitte Lin and Maggie Cheung, garnered 8 awards (out of 9 nominations), including Best Picture and Best Director awards in the Golden Horse Film Awards in Taiwan, the most awarded film ever to date in the awards history. His following two films secured his status as an international award-winning director. The Day the Sun Turned Cold (1994), won Best Picture and Best Director awards at the Tokyo International Film Festival in Japan, marking him as the first Chinese director to win the Best Director Award at the festival.

With The Sun Has Ears (1996), Yim Ho was awarded the Silver Bear Best Director and the FIPRESCI Prize at the Berlinale International Film Festival. His international projects included Kitchen (1997), an adaptation of one of the most influential Japanese author/ philosopher Banana Yoshimoto's phenomenal debut novel; Pavilion of Women (2001), a Universal Studio / China Film Studio co-production, screenplay adapted from Pearl Buck's international best-seller, starring Willem Dafoe.