JURY

Lil Malinich is a stage, film and television actress, acting coach, director and producer from London, Ontario, currently living in New York. Lil’s diverse body of stage work includes classic and contemporary plays as well as leading roles with Working Artists Theatre Project. The Deluxe Illustrated Body, a play Lil co-wrote, received the Brickendon Award for Best Original Script and was produced in NYC. Lil has taught in Canada, Paris, Rome and New York City at the Susan Batson Studio. In 2020, she directed and produced the premiere of The Way I Am, a one-woman show inspired by the life and work of Barbra Streisand. She collaborated with the David Lynch Foundation in developing the screening series for David Lynch’s documentary Meditation, Creativity, Peace.  Lil is acting coach at NYC’s Joffrey Ballet School. Currently she is coaching Forest Whitaker on the Epix series “Godfather of Harlem.”

Curry Sicong Tian is a US-China based multidisciplinary filmmaker and artist, whose talent ranges across Director, concept/digital, 3d, and photographer, and not in a segregated way but artfully blending the vastly different mediums into a seamless harmony of leading edge expression. Born and raised in China, Curry’s mission is to bridge the gap between eastern and western cultures, through video art and film, all led by the art of story. She is currently at Harvard FAS Camlab, as a research scholar, focusing on digital media cognitive study, humanistic research, and creative sensorial media practice. Her film Simulacra won gold medal at the Student Academy Awards 2020

Kristen Yuan is an LA-based Story Artist for Feature Animation at Netflix. Alongside Mild Kamolluck Niamkongkit, she is the co-creator of the award-winning animated short, Gaslight. After graduating from the Ringling College of Art and Design in 2021, she was brought onto Netflix to work on Steps, a film in production with Amy Poehler’s Paper Kite Productions. She was originally only meant to stay on the project for 10 weeks as a freelance artist — and here she still is, on the same team three years later! Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, she moved to LA in 2022 to work in person for Netflix. She enjoys cold weather, good music, and BCD Tofu House at late hours with friends.

Kristi Hoi is an award winning writer-director, filmmaker, and artist from Los Angeles, California. Their film, No Law, No Heaven, won the 2021 Student Academy Award, JetBlue Focus Features Student Filmmaker Award at the 2020 IFP Gotham awards, and was nominated for the 2021 GSA BAFTA Student Award. She is a graduate of the UCLA MFA directing program and holds a BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Sequential Art and Sound Design. As an artist by trade and a storyteller by nature, her work is a deep dive into vivid worlds featuring themes of duality, family and identity, featuring ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.

Aidan Tanner is a Canadian director, cinematographer, and photographer based out of Los Angeles. His work consists of both short-format and feature-length narrative films, music videos, and other branded content. He has also worked extensively on producing social media content for brands/talents like Will Smith, Tom Cruise, Jessica Chastain, and Star Wars, to name a few. Aidan’s most recent short film, THE SANDS BETWEEN, starring Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy, earned a Vimeo Staff Pick among many other film festival awards and selections.

Yoo Lee is a Korean-American writer/ director/animator. She has written and directed 5 stop motion animated shorts in 4 years before obtaining her MFA at USC in animation and digital design.She is a Film Independent Laika Animation Fellow, and Fox Fellow, and her work is currently distributed through the New Yorker Screening room and Max.

Multimedia creator and producer, cofounder of OUI, creative studio based in Miami. His photographic work has been featured at the Bass Museum (Miami) and at Format Festival (Derby, UK). He directed a documentary film recently featured at the Perez Art Museum (Miami Screendance Festival 2020). Before creating and producing content on his own, he worked for Publicis Worldwide, where he was appointed Regional Director for Latin America, thus gathering a broad understanding of multicultural and corporate contexts. He studied at Sorbonne University, where he obtained a bachelor degree in philosophy and a master degree in marketing and communication. French born, currently living in between Paris and Miami.

Mild, or Kamolluck Niamkongkit is a co-creator of Gaslight, the animated short 2021. Currently, she is an animation arts lecturer and thesis advisor at King Mongkut Thonburi university. She was formerly an Animation supervisor and story artist for EEZ studios, Thailand. She also worked as an art director for a Thai mobile game call “Smyleland”. As an artist, Mild is a generalist at heart who finds joy being involved in as many studio departments as she can. Mild is also a Ringling graduate who is borned and raised in Bangkok. She is trilingual if you count her rudimentary Chinese and Thai. She loves all things concerning seals, 1990s Thierry Mugler, tiny cabinets and tasty cinematography.