JUDGES

Eiko Mizuno-Gray is the CEO and delegate producer at Loaded Films in Tokyo. She has produced “Ten Years Japan” (executive producer Hirokazu Kore-eda), Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “To the Ends of the Earth” and Chie Hayakawa’s “Plan 75” which won the Cannes Caméra d'Or Special Mention in 2022 and was Japan’s official Oscar entry. Her latest production, Hayakawa’s “Renoir”, has been selected in the official competition at Cannes 2025.

Amanda Nell Eu is a filmmaker based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Her debut feature TIGER STRIPES was the Grand Prize winner of Critic’s Week in the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. The film was also the official Malaysian submission for the Academy Awards that year. Amanda is an alumna of Berlinale Talents, Tokyo Talents and Locarno Filmmakers Academy. Her short films have won awards and played in various international film festivals including, Venice, Locarno, and Clermont-Ferrand.

Keiko Funato began her career at Uplink Co., an independent distribution company in Tokyo in the 1990s, specializing in edgy art house films from around the world. She later moved to France, gaining international experience in world sales while working at Celluloid Dreams. After that, she joined UniJapan, where she worked on a project developing international co-productions for Japanese producers, collaborating with several global initiatives such as Producer’s Network, Cinemart, and EAVE.

In October 2011, together with her business partner Virginie Devesa, she co-founded Alpha Violet, a high-concept world sales company based in Paris — maintaining a strong independent spirit and a deep love for cinema.

Paolo Bertolin is a film programmer and curator. He worked for the Venice International Film Festival, Cannes' Directors' Fortnight, Locarno Open Doors, Doha Film Institute, IFFRotterdam, Udine Far East Film Festival, BiFan, Vistions du Réel, etc. He is the Artistic Director of Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival, and he is a member of the European Film Academy, of Film Independent and of the Asia Pacific Screen Academy.