Ellen Bruno is an award winning documentary filmmaker based in San Francisco. With a background in relief work, Ellen's films have focused on issues at the forefront of human rights, including sex trafficking in Burma, political prisoners in Tibet, the social alienation of people with leprosy, and genocide in Cambodia. Ellen serves on the board of the International Buddhist Film Festival, the Pacific Pioneer Fund, and Ethical Traveler.
Nicole Guillemet has worked in key positions in the film industry for twenty-five years. She has served as Vice President of the Sundance Institute, Co-Director of the Sundance Film Festival, and Director of the Miami International Film Festival. Guillemet is a dedicated arts activist, serving on the national boards of a number of arts organizations including Women Make Movies. She has also served on the funding panel for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rolex Foundation, and as a juror and panelist for international festivals.
Igor Blaževič is the founder and longtime director of One World, Europe’s biggest human rights documentary film festival, and co-founder of the Human Rights Film Network. Igor is an international consultant as well as jury member for the Human Rights Human Dignity International Film Festival.
Jackie Pollock has had a long career in challenging positions promoting human rights and social justice. In 1996 she founded MAP (Migrant Assistance Program), which became one of the leading migrants rights organizations in Thailand, supporting migrant workers to organize and migrant women to fight for equality and justice. In 2014, Jackie moved to Burma/Myanmar and is currently working with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on the Tripartite Action to Promote the Rights of Migrant Workers within and from the Greater Mekong Sub-Region (GMS TRIANGLE).
Chris McDonald was named the president of Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in 2013. Prior to Hot Docs, Chris was Development Director for five years at the prestigious Canadian Film Centre, the advanced film, television and new media training centre founded by director Norman Jewison. He sits on several industry advisory boards, and has served on panels and juries at leading film festivals and markets around the world.
Liora Zonshine is the Israeli cultural attaché, and the wife of the Israeli Ambassador in Yangon. She was director of foreign relations and production of ‘Minshar for Art’ School of Visual Arts in Tel Aviv. During her diplomatic mission in India, she produced a number of Israeli film festivals. She has worked for numerous TV shows in Israel, and at Haifa Film Festival (Haifaff) as coordinator of foreign guests. She directed two short films and a documentary film is still in the process.
Franz Xaver Augustin, born in 1953, studied history, art history and political science in Freiburg, Grenoble and Rome, working for the Goethe-Institute (German Cultural Center) since 1986 in Spain and Southern India, Berlin/Germany and Vietnam. From 2007 to 2013, he was the regional director of the Goethe-Institutes in SE-Asia, Australia, New Zealand. Since 2014 he is building up the new German Cultural Center / Goethe-Institute in Myanmar.
Debra Zimmerman has been the Executive Director of Women Make Movies, a non-profit NY based film organization that supports women filmmakers, since 1983. During her tenure it has grown into the largest distributor of films by and about women in the world. WMM’s internationally recognized Production Assistance Program has helped hundreds of women get their films made. Films from WMM programs have been nominated or won Academy Awards for the last nine of the last ten years.
Kate Gunn is a journalist and graduate of the Australian Film and Television School. Much of her work has focused on humanitarian issues and she is a recipient of the UN Media Peace Award for best TV Current Affairs Report in 2006. Kate currently works in media development and recently managed radio projects in Pakistan and Kenya that provided lifesaving information to local communities.
Mila Aung‐Thwin is a co-founder of the Montreal production company EyeSteelFilm, which produces and distributes documentaries from around the world. He has produced more than 20 feature documentaries over the past decade including Up the Yangtze (Golden Horse winner), Last Train Home (winner of 2 Emmy Awards), Rip: A Remix Manifesto (IDFA audience choice prize winner) and Forest of the Dancing Spirits (IDFA First Appearance Prize). He currently serves as president of RIDM, Montreal's international documentary festival.
The HRHDIFF festival founder, Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi, has extensive experience participating in international film festivals as a result of his award-winning documentary, The Floating Tomatoes. He is also an experienced film festival organizer, having coordinated the first edition of The Art of Freedom Film Festival 2012 in Burma/Myanmar. He is a poet, filmmaker, feature film director, and screenwriter from Burma/Myanmar.
May Sabe Phyu is an articulate and passionate advocate for women’s engagement in the peace process and justice reform in Myanmar. She is Director of the Gender Equality Network and was instrumental in developing the National Strategic Plan for the Advancement of Women (NSPAW). She is currently co-coordinating a law reform process with stakeholders to draft the country’s first law on violence against women. She also co-founded the Kachin Peace Network and Kachin Women Peace Network to other raise awareness of the situation of internally displaced persons (IDPs).
Maung Lin Yeik is an established poet and editor. In August 1969, his first poem was published in Phu-Ni-Nyo-Pyar magazine. He published his first book of poetry (co-authored with Than Nyein Aung), New Oo Ye Eik Met Cho (Sweet Dream of the Spring) in 1980. He worked as an editor for Myanmar EBook Online (www.foreverspace.com.mm) from 2003-2006, for Myanmar Tribune Journal in 2007, and for Pansodan Art and Culture Journal in 2013. He has a leading role in some poet societies such as Action Group of Myanmar Poets and Myanmar Poets' Union.
Chaw Ei is regarded as a painter, a conceptual and performance artist, her international career is highly profiled as she portrays the contradictions and conflictions of her socio-political environment. Her numerous achievements include exhibiting installation, “September Sweetness” collaboration with artist Richard Streitmatter Tran in the 2008 Singapore Biennial, and presenting “The Burmese Performance Art Scene: Challenges Faced by Burmese Artists” at the Asia House Gallery, London in 2007. She founded art@apt. in 2011 with fellow artist KST in NY.
Yeni is an editor of The Irrawaddy that is regarded as one of the foremost journalistic publications dealing with political, social, economic and cultural developments in Myanmar. He fled the country as a university student in 1988 democracy uprising and spent time as an activist and musician artist on the Thailand-Burma border before moving to Chiang Mai and into journalism. In 2013, he came back to Yangon.
Having been involved in civil society and rights-based work for more than 15 years, Kyaw Thu is recognised as one of Myanmar’s key community organizers. He is now Executive Director of local NGO Paung Ku, which is a dynamic and rights-based civil society strengthening initiative that works across religious, ethnic, class, and other divides. Kyaw Thu, Paung Ku and its hundreds of local and regional partners are committed to peace, social justice, equity and environmentally sustainable development for poor, oppressed and marginalised people.
Sithu Aung Myint is an independent journalist and writer. He has been contributing various articles to a number of local print media since 1997. He started contributing for print and broadcasting media in exile since the 2000s. Recently he has been working as a regular contributor for different newspapers including Mizzima Digital Daily, the Myanmar Times, Yangon Times, Myanmar Post, Myanmar Post Global, People Age and Myanmar Than Daw Sint. Aung Myint published 7 books with the collection of his articles.
Ma Thida is a founder of DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma, est. 1992) and works as the head of Entertainment Dep. in DVB. She has more than 20 years of experience in producing entertainment, infotainment, edutainment radio programs and has been producing TV programs since 2005. Thida has written many womens rights articles and worked for women rights issues. She is a board member at the International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT) and has worked as a media partner with film festivals in Burma such as Wathan and Myanmar Youth Film Festival.