Advisors

AAFFN Special Advisory Group (2011 – 2013)

Includes:

Annette Shun Wah

Actor, writer, broadcaster Founder of Performance 4A

Based: Sydney

Annette is an author, producer and actor, best known as presenter of TV programs such as The Noise, Studio 22 and Media Dimensions. Recently, she devised, wrote, and directed the mobile phone app ‘China Heart‘, which uses dramatised video, oral history and gaming to explore family and community in Sydney’s Chinatown. With Performance 4a, she produced a season of Asian Australian performance – including Stories East & West - a theatrical storytelling show co-directed with William Yang. Nominated for an AFI Award for her performance in the feature film, Floating Life, she has appeared in guest roles on Packed to the Rafters, Crownies, Always Greener andYoung Lions.

Positions on the AAFFN Advisory Group are by invitation and run for 12 months (renewable) on a voluntary basis. Our Special Advisory Group reflect a range of backgrounds on and behind the screen, and include a range of experiences from working on mainstream and independent productions, as well as a combination of long-time established and mid-career professionals as well as emerging artists.

Juanita Kwok

Juanita was invited to join the AAFFN Advisory Board because of her experience in co-founding and co-directing the Sydney Asia Pacific Film Festival 2000-2003. Funded by the Australian Film Commission, the New South Wales Film and Television Office and the City of Sydney, the festival premiered new films from Asia and incorporated a short film competition for films made by or about Asian Australians, and a seminar program.  Juanita’s roles included programming, coordinating seminars, the short film competition and commissioning and editing program notes for the Festival catalogue. Juanita has worked at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, New South Wales Film and Television Office and SBS Radio. Juanita was co-author of  Film Asia : New perspectives on film for English, which won the National Award for Best Reference Resource for Secondary Teachers in 2003. She holds a B.A. from University of Sydney, Post Graduate Certificate in Audio Visual Archiving, Charles Sturt University and is currently studying Honours Arts (Communication), Charles Sturt University.

Peta-Jane ‘PJ’ Madam

Journalist, news presenter (SBS News)
Based: Sydney

Peta-Jane ‘PJ’ Madam landed her first role in journalism in 2004 as an intern with Channel Nine News in Brisbane, earning her stripes before heading  south to work for Nine News in Sydney. As a reporter and producer,  she got a real taste for life in broadcast journalism – spending  time on the road reporting, as well as in studio producing stories  and bulletins. PJ joined SBS as a reporter for World News Australia in 2008. During  her time here she has covered major local and international events,  including the canonisation of Mary MacKillop, two Australian federal  elections, Kevin Rudd’s fall from leadership and the dumping of two  NSW Premiers, the aftermath of the Samoan tsunami in September 2009,  and Cyclone Yasi in February 2011. She was also SBS’s correspondent  from London for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton in  April 2011. As well as reporting, PJ is one of a team who present SBS World News  Australia – you’ll often find her anchoring the 9.30pm news bulletin.

Somchay Phakonkham

Director, producer
Production company: Reinvent Films
Based: Melbourne

Somchay Phakonkham is a Laotian-Australian film director from Melbourne. His fascination with film began at the age of 5 after seeing a TV show being filmed outside his Nott St primary school. He went on to studying film in high school and later graduated from an Advance Diploma of Screen Production at the school of NMIT, Collingwood. Since then Somchay has directed countless short films, music videos and has worked on two independent feature films. His short film ’Get Him’, which was co-directed by fellow director Jesse Galofaro, won him the ‘Best Director’ award at the Queens St Film Festival and was also selected for ‘Tropfest’s Best of the Rest’ in 2007.

His lifelong goal is to join the ranks of Michael Bay, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and Clint Eastwood to become one of the best directors in the world.

Pearl Tan

Actor, director, producer
Production company: Pearly Productions
Based: Sydney

Pearl Tan is the director of Pearly Productions, a film and video production company that provides services to arts organisations and actors. She graduated from the NIDA Acting course in 2005. Originally from Western Australia, she also holds a Communications degree majoring in Media Studies from Edith Cowan University. Her short films Seeya Rach, Thanks for Coming and Baby Cake have screened both nationally and internationally.

Pearl teaches filmmaking at NIDA and has worked behind the scenes for Channel 7, Channel 9, Network 10, Perth’s 96fm and Faith Martin Casting. Pearl was a recipient of the 2009 Mike Walsh Fellowship to attend the New York Film Academy. Her credits as an actor include Motel (Sydney Theatre Company/Wharf 2Loud), Love’s Triumph (Darlinghurst Theatre) feature films Home Song Stories, Sleeping Beauty and Channel 9’s Sea Patrol.

Yu Ye Wu

Arts Administration & Communication, Social Media Marketing: 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art & Information and Cultural Exchange (ICE)
Based: Sydney

Currently works at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art in Sydney across marketing and communications, social media and arts administration. Yu Ye studied a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Sydney in 2008 with a major in English Literature and received first class honours in Art History writing on contemporary Chinese artists Xu Bing and Huang Yongping. Since 2010 she has worked in arts marketing and publicity across Australian mainstream, online and Chinese media at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. Notable exhibitions and projects she has worked on include Cinema Alley (2010, 2011 and 2012), Shen Shaomin, The Day After Tomorrow (2011) and Last Words (2010). Yu Ye has also been Information and Cultural Exchange (ICE)’s Executive and Communications Assistant since 2010 where she has run the organisation’s social media, been the project coordinator for ICE’s Rocks Pop Up Project space and has been a general events and projects assistant.

AAFFN Co-Conveners (2011 – 2013) 

Amadeo Marquez-Perez

Co-founder and Co-Convener, Asian Australian Film Forum & Network (AAFFN), 2011-2013
Artistic Director  Bayside Film Festival, 2009-2013
15/15 International Film Festival, 2000 – 2012
Freelance Digital Media Workshop Coordinator/ Facilitator,  2011-2013

Amadeo has various industry experience, including co-producing the acclaimed independent film The Songs They Sang and being involved with international and regional film festivals such asThe Bayside FF (read more here) & 15/15 FF as artistic director, as a judge for events such as Melbourne Queer FF and teaching film and digital media. His recent workshop experience includes teaching young people for film workshops as part of the Melbourne Museum of Immigration’s ’Identity: Yours, Mine, Ours’ exhibition as well as working with Aboriginal peoples in their communities on telling their own stories and community histories using video technologies.

Dr Indigo Willing 

Co-founder and C0-Convener, Asian Australian Film Forum & Network (AAFFN), 2011 -2012, Transcultural Adoptee Film Festival (TAFF), 2009 – 2011, An Asian Australian Occasion Short Film Festival (AAAO), 2007, Former Co-Convener (2011), Asian Australian Studies Research Network AASRN )

Indigo is a researcher who has over ten years experience in supporting, promoting and working collaboratively with various Asian diasporic communities, with a particular interest in how they define their heritages and constructions of belonging. She has been fortunate to be involved with a number of  collaborative film festivals, writing and research activities on these themes with some great mentors and peers from these and other communities, and is very grateful for these opportunities. She is currently a researcher at The University of Queensland, where she graduated with a doctorate in sociology in 2010. She also has a MA and BA (Film Major) from The University of Technology, Sydney and is a graduate from the McDonald College School of Performing Arts. She is also a former Rockefeller Fellow in Humanities at The University of Massachusetts, Boston 2002/3 studying in their Vietnamese Diaspora project with writers, creatives and researchers from around the world.