Garin Nugroho

Garin Nugroho is one of Indonesia's foremost film-makers and recipient of many national and international awards, including awards from the Indonesian Film Festival, Asia Pacific Film Festival, Video and Film Festival in Japan, Taromina Film Festival (Italy), International Film Festival (Japan), International Forums des jungen Films (Germany), Singapore International Festival as well as the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1996 Berlin Film festival, and the Netpac Award - Special Mention at the 2003 Berlin Film festival. His recent film, Serambi, has been selected for screening at the 2006 Cannes International Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard session. His 1998 film, Daun di atas bantal (Leaf on a pillow) was also screened at the prestigious Cannes International Film Festival. Other works include Puisi tak terkuburkan (A poet), 2000, Surat untuk Bidadari (Letter to an angel), 1994 and Cinta dalam sepotong roti (Love in slice of bread), 1991.

Shyam Benegal

Shyam Benegal is one of India's most prominent film makers alongside the likes of Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen. Well known as one of the founding fathers of New Indian Cinema, his films have won numerous awards in India and overseas. Benegal's first film Ankur (1973) was nominated for the golden bear award at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1974. Samar (1998) won the golden lotus award for best film at the Indian National Films Award in 1999. He has produced more than 70 films, short films, documentaries and television programmes. Benegal's other films include Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976), Bhumika (1977), Kalyug (1981) and Zubeidaa (2001). His work is marked by a gritty realism and critical social awareness which has provided the grammar of radical film making in India and much of South and Southeast Asia for over a quarter of a century.

Dr Paola Voci

Dr Paola Voci is a lecturer in the Chinese Programme at the University of Otago, New Zealand. Her area of research combines Chinese studies with film and media studies, and visual culture. Dr Voci was among the first ten foreigners admitted to the Beijing Film Academy in 1990 and Chinese cinema has been her area of speciality since that time. Her recent research has focused on visual culture in contemporary China and the media of the Chinese diaspora. She is currently writing China on Video: Visual Culture, Dissent and the Open Society (working title), a book that focuses on works that fall under the broad category of "not-just-feature films" and examines their role in contemporary Chinese culture and society.

Yingjin Zhang

Yingjin Zhang received his Ph.D. from Stanford University and is Professor of Chinese Literature and Film, Comparative Literature, and Cultural Studies at University of California-San Diego, USA. He is the author of The City in Modern Chinese Literature and Film: Configurations of Space, Time, and Gender (Stanford, 1996), Screening China: Critical Interventions, Cinematic Reconfigurations, and the Transnational Imaginary in Contemporary Chinese Cinema (Center for Chinese Studies, Michigan, 2002), and Chinese National Cinema (Routledge, 2004); co-author of Encyclopedia of Chinese Film (Routledge, 1998); editor of China in a Polycentric World: Essays in Chinese Comparative Literature (Stanford, 1998) and Cinema and Urban Culture in Shanghai, 1922-1943 (Stanford, 1999); and co-editor of From Underground to Independent: Alternative Film Culture in Contemporary China (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006).

David Robie

David Robie (1945-) is a New Zealand author, journalist and media educator who has covered the Asia-Pacific region for international media for more than two decades. He became an associate professor in Auckland University of Technology's School of Communication Studies in 2005. In 1985, Dr Robie sailed on board the Greenpeace eco-navy flagship Rainbow Warrior for 10 weeks until it was bombed by French secret agents in New Zealand's Auckland harbour. He is the author of a book about the ill-fated voyage, Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior (Lindon Books, 1986). A new memorial edition of Eyes of Fire was published in July 2005 (Asia Pacific Network).

In 1993-1997, Robie headed the University of Papua New Guinea journalism programme and in 1998-2002 became coordinator of the University of the South Pacific journalism school where his students covered the 2000 George Speight coup d'etat in Fiji. In 1999, Robie became the annual Australian Press Council Fellow. He is founding editor of Pacific Journalism Review, which was launched at the University of Papua New Guinea in 1994. In 2005, he won the PIMA Pacific Media. Freedom Award Dr Robie is author of several books on South Pacific media and politics, including Mekim Nius: South Pacific media, politics and education.

David's staff profile, Auckland University of Technology

Louise Williams

Louise Williams is a senior Australian journalist with considerable experience in the Asia-Pacific region and international affairs. She spent more than a decade as a foreign correspondent for Fairfax newspapers (the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Melbourne) based in Manila, Bangkok and Jakarta, a period of extraordinary economic, political and social change. She has worked as Asian Editor and Foreign Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald and has written or contributed to a number of books on regional issues. She is currently contracted by the Sydney Morning Herald to write editorials, feature articles and commentary. She also contributes to the Seoul-based East Asian news service, Ohmynews, teaches at the University of Technology, Sydney and sits on the International Humanitarian Law committee of the Australian Red Cross, NSW Branch. Louise Williams has won various major awards throughout her career, including the Walkley Award for Excellence in Journalism, the John S. Knight Fellowship for Journalism at Stanford University, the Australia Council's Asia-Pacific Writers' Fellowship and the Citibank Pan Asia Journalism Award in conjunction with Columbia University.
Louise Williams has written several books including On the Wire, on the frontline in Asia (1992) and was the co-editor of Losing Control, Freedom of the Press in Asia (2000).