Grand Prize

Janus Køster-Rasmussen

Janus Køster-Rasmussen was born in 1972 in Copenhagen, Denmark. 〈Cool Cats〉 is his directorial debut as a feature documentary filmmaker. During the last ten years, he has made several TV documentaries for [DR] (National Danish TV) on politics, culture, music, history and sports. Formerly, he has worked as a music critic at Denmark’s two leading newspapers. He holds a master’s degree in Rhetoric and Literature.

Jury Special Prize

Endo Michiro, the ex-lead singer of legendary punk band ‘The Stalin’, has ventured into film direction with a documentary on a subject where he is better placed than anyone to examine: himself. Endo, a native of Nihonmatsu in Fukushima, was on a nationwide solo tour in 2011 celebrating his 60th birthday when he was interrupted by the Great East Japan Earthquake. While performing at various venues, he visits old friends and expresses his thoughts on a wide variety of subjects, such as his complex about growing up in the countryside, his thoughts about Fukushima and its pre- and post-disaster status in Japan, his family’s experiences in World War II.

Endo Michiro

Endo Michiro was born in Fukushima, 1950. He formed a punk band ‘The Stalin’ in 1980. After disbandment in 1985, he went solo in 1993 in acoustic. In 2011, he began the ‘Project FUKUSHIMA!’ with various activities to support the restoration after the Great East Japan Earthquake. In the same year, he began filming, which focuses on his 60th anniversary solo tour, and directs his first film Mother, I’ve Pretty Much Forgotten Your Face.

World Music Film Today (International Competition)

World Music Film Today introduces latest films across all genres in which music plays a central role. A jury of five international members will select two films to receive the Grand Award and the Special Jury Award, which are accompanied by $10,000 and $5,000 prizes.

Award/Jury

Pen-Ek RatanaruangPresident of Jury, Director, Thailand

Pen-Ek Ratanaruang is a Thai film director and screenwriter. He is best known for his art-house work, Last Life in the Universe, and is considered to be one of Thai cinema's leading ‘new wave’ auteurs, alongside Wisit Sasanatieng and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Before making his debut with Fun Bar Karaoke, which was screened at many festivals after its premiere in Berlin. His third feature film, Mon-rak Transistor, which also premiered at the Director's Fortnight event at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. In 2007, Pen-Ek was invited by the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival to present two of his short films, Total Bangkok and Twelve Twenty, as well as a collection of his commercials, in a program called “Total Pen-Ek”.

Lorna TeeProducer, Malaysia

Lorna Tee is a pan-Asian film producer and works for various international film festivals. She is working with her production company Paperheart, producing several films across Asia. Furthermore, she is the Festival Director of CinemAsia Film Festival in The Netherlands. As part of the Selection Committee in Berlinale, she works as part of a committee member to select films for Competition. She has served on the board of various international film festivals including Rotterdam, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Busan and Jakarta. She has been invited to be a jury member at Berlinale, Cannes, Locarno, London, Hong Kong, Sydney, Barcelona, Mexico & others.

Benjamin IllosProgrammer, France

Programmer for Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, Benjamin Illos majored in Sorbonne University in literature. He collaborated a decade with Pierre Rissient, promoting films and directors. Over the years he has been active in scriptwriting, editing, subtitling and writing about films. Open to all forms of cinematic expression Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight pays attention to the annual production of fiction features, short films and documentaries, to the emergence of independent fringe filmmaking and to contemporary popular genres, and aims to present films that are the expression of individual talent and of an original directorial style.

Soo-hyun AhnProducer, Korea

Soo-hyun AHN started her film industry career as a marketer for Nine Tailed Fox at Shincine in 1994. She joined Bom Film Production and produced The Uninvited(2003), Three Monster(2004) and You Are My Sunshine(2005). After producing Thirst by PARK Chan-wook, she founded Caper Film with director CHOI Dong-hoon, and produced The Thieves(2012) and Assassination(2015) which marked box-office record with admission over 10,000,000. She actively develops and produces films which are critically acclaimed and commercially successful.

Dalpalan (a.k.a Kang Ki-young)Musician, Film Music Director, Korea

Born in 1966. Dalpalan is a film music composer, DJ, and a music producer. He is currently a member of ‘PEACH Project.’ Dalpalan started out as a bassist for the metal band SINAWE in the mid 80’s. After passing through a series of bands such as Pipi Band and Pipi Long Stocking, he changed his name to Dalpalan in 1997 and begun making electronic and film music. He started to make film music with Bad Movie directed by Chang Sun-Woo in 1997, and has participated as a film music composer in various films such as R Point, A Bittersweet Life, The Good, The Bad, The Weird, The Front Line, The Thieves, Assassination, The Wailing and so on.