2018 LACFF JURY
Li, Ruijun
Director, Screenwriter
Li Ruijun has been a rising star of China’s independent cinema as a director and a screenwriter since 2006. His films, The Summer Solstice (2007), The Old Donkey (2010), Fly with the Crane (2012), River Road (2014), Walking Past the Future (2017), have been official selections of the 69th Venice Film Festival, the 65th Berlin International Film Festival, the 70th Cannes Film Festival and other major film festivals around the world.
David E. James
Film Scholar, Educator, Author
David E. James teaches in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. His teaching and research interests focus on avant-garde cinema, culture in Los Angeles, East-Asian cinema, film and music, and working-class culture. His recent books include The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography of Minor Cinemas in Los Angeles, and the co-edited collections, Optic Antics: The Cinema of Ken Jacobs and Alternative Projections: Experimental Film in Los Angeles, 1945-1980. His Rock ‘N’ Film: Cinema’s Dance With Popular Music was published by Oxford University Press in 2016.
Jeff Swimmer
Filmmaker, Educator
Jeff Swimmer is a professor of Documentary at Chapman University's Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, teaching documentary production to undergraduates and graduates. He has also led many of Chapman's renowned international documentary programs, including "Destination: Africa" and "Sikhlens," where students travel with professor Swimmer to countries in the developing world to create short documentaries about innovators and inspiring characters.
He has produced, directed and written television documentaries for BBC, National Geographic, PBS, Discovery, CNN, A&E, Arte (France/Germany) and others. He is a past winner of the Dupont Award for Documentary, and his students' films have been accepted into festivals including Cannes, Telluride, and many others. They have also been Finalists for Emmys and the Student Academy Award. His 2015 textbook "Documentary Case Studies: Behind The Scenes Of The Greatest (True) Stories Ever Told" is widely used in documentary production classes in the United States.
He lives in Santa Monica, California with his four children and wife, Gayle Gilman, CEO of short-form digital content production company, Ripple Entertainment.
Zheng Linhua
Lin Zheng received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Oil Painting from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 1982. He spent six years as a professional artist working with Shantou Literature & Art Association, and teaching fine arts classes at Shantou University on a part-time basis.
Lin moved to the United States in 1987, continuing to produce a variety of fine art paintings including human figures, seascapes, landscapes, and still-life, which have been widely sold and collected by individuals, fine art galleries, universities, and museums around the world. In the Hollywood animation film industry and overseas studios, Lin has credits on more than twenty films and television shows, serving as Art Director and Visual Development Artist. Lin is an Emmy Award winner and has received Emmy nominations on two other occasions.
Yet, Lin’s true passion for oil paintings that he began to study since he was 12 has never been changed. For many years, he has been maintaining regular studies and paint on live models and keeps on producing quality oil paintings, which are influenced by his special zeal for color, light, and shadow. His loose and impressionistic brushstrokes stimulate the eye and pleasantly guide a viewer to the focal point of his paintings, often a dancer enjoying the steps at the dance arena or a ballerina preparing for the stage. The strong tones of light and dark also lead to the focus and add the sense of drama. Lin’s capable draftsmanship and keen eye for composition allow him to build a strong foundation for every painting. Lin Zheng currently lives with his wife in Southern California.
Richard Liang
Producer, Entrepreneur
Richard Liang is an independent producer previously based in Beijing, and now moved to Los Angeles. His feature-length productions include The Next Life (IDFA and GZDoc 2011) and The Road (IDFA 2015, Göteborg Film Festival, TIDF, Sydney Film Festival, AFI Docs, and DOC NYC 2016). Richard’s productions had won Best Feature Documentary Award at the Chinese Academy of Documentary Films 2012, Best Chinese Documentary Award at TIDF 2016, and Special Mention at DOC NYC 2016. In addition to being a producer, Richard also has experience in distribution and event organizing. He had been running a copyright agency for feature documentaries in China during 2013-2016, a monthly feature documentary screening event in China during 2013-2014, and he has been scouting Chinese films for IDFA since 2013 and was in the jury of IDFA in 2015.
Gabrielle Kelly
Film Scholar, Educator, Screenwriter, Producer
Screenwriter/Producer of diverse content for the global marketplace, Fulbright Scholar to Taiwan and Philippines, author of the ground-breaking book “Celluloid Ceiling; Women Film Directors Breaking Through,” she worked in the studio and indie world in New York and Hollywood as writer, producer and executive for director Sidney Lumet, producer Robert Evans and many others. Expert in media story labs and global film development she has taught at UCLA, USC, NYU, and major film programs around the world and is currently on the faculty of AFI and developing co-productions and VR /digital projects with global storytellers from China to Ireland and Myanmar to Brazil.
Rebecca Baron
Film Scholar, Filmmaker, Educator
Rebecca Baron is a Los Angeles-based media artist known for her lyrical essay films which explore the construction of history, with a particular interest in still photography and its relationship to the moving image.
Her work has screened widely at international film festivals and media venues including documenta 12, International Film Festival Rotterdam, New York Film Festival, Anthology Film Archive, Toronto Film Festival, London Film Festival, Pacific Film Archive, Flaherty Film Seminar, Viennale and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her films have received awards at the San Francisco, Black Maria, Montreal, Leipzig, Athens, Onion City, KIN, Sinking Creek and Ann Arbor Film Festivals. She is the recipient of a 2002 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2007 Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She has taught documentary and experimental film at Massachusetts College of Art, Harvard University, and since 2000 at California Institute of the Arts.