Calleen Koh is currently studying at California Institute of the Arts under the Experimental Animation MFA Programme. A lover of dark comedy, her films have been recognised for its subversive and irreverent energy.
Her latest short film, “My Wonderful Life” (2024), starring the voice of Yeo Yann Yann, had its world premiere at the Oscar-qualifying festival, Bucheon International Animation Festival. It has currently won The Gotham's 6th Annual Focus Features & JetBlue Student Short Film Showcase Award, the Michael Fukushima Animasian Award at Toronto Reel Asian and most recently, Best Singapore Short Film at the Silver Screen Awards held by Singapore International Film Festival.
Her film “Sexy Sushi” (2020) was selected for over 40 international festivals, winning awards such as Best Art Director at Singapore’s National Youth Film Awards (NYFA), the Air Canada Award, and Gold at the Crowbar Awards for animation and art direction. Her graduation film, “To Kill the Birds & the Bees” (2021), was shortlisted for the Yugo BAFTA Student Awards in 2022. It also won three awards at NYFA for Best Original Music, Best Screenplay, and Best Art Direction. Additionally, it received five Gold awards at the Crowbar Awards, the Audience Choice award at ANIMAC, Best Student Film and Audience Choice at Cartoons Underground 2022, and the Michael Fukushima Animasian Award from the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival. To date, the film has been screened at over 30 festivals.
Calleen’s achievements in filmmaking has been featured in many media publications such as Vogue, Channel News Asia, Her World Magazine, 987 FM, Money FM 89.3, The Straits Times and more. In 2023, Calleen also had the honour to be part of the jury for the 2023 Yugo BAFTA Student Awards and Cartoons Underground. She is currently developing her first TV series alongside her studies.
An award-winning Vietnamese filmmaker
Dương Diệu Linh is renown for her distinctive approach to storytelling that blends hyper-realistic, slice-of-life narratives with elements of magical realism deeply rooted in Southeast Asian mythology and superstitions.
Linh’s debut feature, Don’t Cry, Butterfly (2024), which won the Grand Prix and the Most Innovative Film Award at the Venice Critics Week, exemplifies her unique cinematic vision and emotionally resonant storytelling. Her highly lauded debut feature, was part of prestigious industry labs such as Full Circle Lab, Less Is More, Locarno Open Doors Hub, and the Hong Kong-Asia Financing Forum (HAF).
Her earlier series of short films also garnered international acclaim, competing and winning awards at prestigious film festivals around the world.
A graduate of several prestigious film programs, Linh attended Berlinale Talents in 2020, the Asian Film Academy in 2016, the Locarno Summer Academy, and the Bucheon Fantastic Film School in 2015. Her work is distinguished by her vision to weave everyday human experiences with fantastical elements, creating poignant narratives that resonate on both an emotional and cultural level.
Kirsten Tan was raised in Singapore but has lived in South Korea and Thailand before moving to New York City, where she's been based for over a decade.
A Sundance institute and Cinereach Film Fellow, she did her Master’s in Film Production at New York University and received the Tisch School of the Arts Fellowship.
She recently completed her debut feature, POP AYE. The film was selected to participate in Berlinale Talent’s Script Station and also competed in Torino Film Lab, where it was awarded the Top Production Prize. It was then presented at Cinefondation's L'Atelier of Cannes Film Festival . POP AYE made its World Premiere in competition as the Opening Night film at Sundance Film Festival. It went on to receive a Special Jury Prize for Screenwriting at Sundance, the Big Screen Award at Rotterdam Film Festival and the Best International Film Award at Zurich Film Festival. To date, it has screened at over 50 film festivals and was also invited to represent Singapore in the Foreign Film Category at the Oscars.
She has directed content for brands including Giorgio Armani, TED Talks, Heineken and Raffles Hotel Singapore. ELLA, a fashion film for Giorgio Armani, has been included in the permanent film collection of MoMA in New York City.
Kirsten was accorded the Young Artist Award by the National Arts Council of Singapore and was nominated as a Singaporean of the Year by The Straits Times, Singapore’s national broadsheet. Other personal honors include Her World's Young Woman Achiever of the Year Award and a Great Woman of Our Time nomination by Women's Weekly. Kirsten was featured on CNN International’s flagship program, Ones to Watch, which 'shines a spotlight on up-and-coming international creative talents set to be the next big names in culture and the arts'.
Singaporean director who swept up two of the most prestigious awards in Locarno Film Festival
His first feature film, Dreaming & Dying, won the coveted Filmmakers of the Present – Golden Leopard (Pardo d’oro Cineasti del presente) award and Swatch First Feature Award at Locarno International Film Festival 2023. His work is marked by a distinctively poetic and thought-provoking style, blending narrative depth with visual experimentation.
Nelson's career has been shaped by prestigious industry programs, including Berlinale Talents Tokyo (2014), BiFan Fantastic Film School (2015), and the Locarno Filmmakers Academy (2018). His short films have been selected for numerous international festivals, including Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, and Cairo International Film Festival.
Notable accolades in his short film career include Best Experimental Short for Mary, Mary, So Contrary (2019) at the Golden Ger International Film Festival, Best ASEAN Short Film at the Bangkok ASEAN Film Festival for Here is Not There (2020), and Best Singapore Short Film at the Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) for the same film. In 2022, his short Plastic Sonata won the Cathay Play Best Chinese Short Film Award at the SeaShorts Film Festival.
His work continues to resonate on the global stage, with projects in development winning awards at international markets.
Singaporean filmmaker and visual artist known for his bold and innovative approach to cinema
Daniel Hui's works often explore themes of identity, history, and the complexities of contemporary life, blending documentary and narrative forms to create visually arresting and intellectually challenging films.
His feature, Snakeskin (2011), received critical acclaim for its exploration of personal and collective identity through the lens of Singapore's socio-political landscape. The film was praised for its experimental storytelling and was selected for numerous international festivals.
Additionally, he has made three feature-length films including Eclipses (Pixel Bunker Award for International New Talent, Doclisboa IFF 2013), Demons (In Competition, Kim Jiseok Award, Busan IFF 2018; Berlinale Forum 2019), and Small Hours of The Night (Rotterdam 2024).
A graduate of the film program in California Institute of the Arts, he is one of the founding members of 13 Little Pictures, a critically acclaimed independent film collective in Singapore.
Wregas Bhanuteja was born in Jakarta, 20 October 1992. He graduated from Jakarta Institute of Arts in 2014 with a film directing major.
He made some short films including "Lembusura" (2015) that competed in Berlin International Film Festival 2015. In 2016 he won Best Short Film in Cannes Critics Weeks with his short film "Prenjak/In The Year of Monkey" (2016) and won Silver Screen Award for best short film in Singapore International Film Festival 2016. His latest short film "No One is Crazy in This Town" (2019) competed in Sundance Film Festival 2020 and Clermont Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2020.
His first feature film “Photocopier” (2021) world premiered in Busan International Film Festival 2021 and won 12 Citra awards at Festival Film Indonesia 2021. His second feature film "Andragogy" will have it's world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival.
Anh first started learning filmmakingwhen she accidentally joined aworkshop by Jorgen Leth: the local filmcenter, Hanoi Doclab sent the invitationby mistake when they mixed up heremail with their students’ contact list.Watching Jorgen’s films and listeningto him opened her up to a whole newdimension.
An alumni of Locarno Open Doors andRotterdam Lab, among others, and anartist of “Things That Remember”, aninternational site specific art shows in2016-2018. Her graduation short film“As I Lay Dying” was selected inregional film festivals, such as BusanInternational Short Film Festival 2021.Once she started making films, she feltalive.
She went on to direct the documentary series “Cinema Workers” (2020 -commissioned by Vietnam Cinema Department) and “Brilliant Darkness!”Feature Film Behind The Scenes documentary series (2022). She alsoproduced "Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell'' which won Cannes' Camerad’Or 2023. Her latest short “Goodnight Baby” is in competition in SGIFF2023.
Shelby Kho is an experimental filmmaker and writer who enjoys personifying feelings and operating intuitively. Apart from working as a videographer, video editor, photographer, and copywriter, she can also be found working on her first novel — a prose-poetry piece detailing the heaviness of the everyday — and solving the Rubik's cube. She has produced several short films mostly interested in intergenerational trauma and woes of the heart.
