Mandarin

Technology executive-turned-filmmaker Hao Wu takes a raw and human approach to storytelling in an era when culture evolves online. Wu previously held management roles at Alibaba, TripAdvisor and Excite@Home. His award-winning films have received support from JustFilms/Ford Foundation, ITVS, Sundance, Tribeca and international broadcasters.

Benoit Felici is a French-Italian filmmaker. He graduated from the Zelig Film School in Italy. His film, Unfinished Italy, is a journey into the remains of incomplete buildings and infrastructure scattered throughout rural Italy. In The Real Thing, Benoit focuses on architectural replicas, and explores the reality of life in fake surroundings.

South African director Nicole Schafer has lived in Malawi, where she produced award-winning stories for Reuters’ pan-African magazine show, Africa Journal. Schafer is the director of the production company, Thinking Strings Media. She has an MFA degree in Film and Television Production from the University of Cape Town.

Michael Glawogger was born in Graz, Austria, and studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and the Vienna Film Academy. He started as an assistant camera operator, and later worked as a cinematographer, screenwriter, and director. He made numerous internationally-acclaimed shorts, documentaries, and feature films. He had recently devoted himself to literary writing. Michael Glawogger died in Monrovia, Liberia, in April of 2014 while shooting Untitled.

Heather White is the founder and former president (1995–2005) of www.verite.org, an award-winning non-profit organization recognized for its groundbreaking leadership in the areas of global supply chain monitoring and factory social audits. From 2011–2014 she was a Network Fellow at Edmond Safra Center for Ethics, at Harvard University. Complicit is her first documentary feature.

Lee Yong-chao was born in northern Burma. In 2015, he was accepted into the 7th Golden Horse Film Academy, founded by HOU Hsiao-hsien. His short films have been selected for the Busan International Film Festival and Warsaw Film Festival competitions. Blood Amber is his first feature documentary.

Jiu-Liang Wang is the director of the award-winning and impactful documentary film Beijing Besiged By Waste. WANG graduated from Communication University of China, School of Cinematic Arts in 2007. From 2007 to 2008, he finished a set of photographic works on traditional Chinese superstitions. He began investigating the landfill pollution around Beijing in 2008. In 2011 he finished Beijing Besieged By Waste, a photography series and documentary with the same name. Since then he has been working on the documentary Plastic China.