List of Speakers
Panel 1: East meets West: The emerging trends of queer cinema around the world.
Jay Lin
CEO of Portico Media & GagaOOLala
Jay Lin is the founder of Portico Media, a media powerhouse in Taiwan distributing linear channels and programs of NBCU Comcast, A&E, Viacom CBS, and other global media brands. He is also the founder of HahaTai, one of the most popular social media channels in Taiwan as well as GagaOOLala, an OTT streaming service that became the first to go global in May 2020. Jay has been named by Newsweek as one of fifteen of the Best of Creative Class by Newsweek in 2019. He is a consultant to ITRI in media data collection and is a frequent speaker at various media and entertainment-related conferences.
Ray Yeung
Chairman of the Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
Ray Yeung's first feature film, CUT SLEEVE BOYS, premiered at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in 2005.
Ray’s second feature, FRONT COVER premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival 2015. It was the Closing Film for the Asian American International Film Festival in New York 2016. FRONT COVER won Best Screenplay at the FilmOut San Diego LGBT Film Festival and Jury Award for Best Domestic Feature at the Outflix Film Festival in Memphis.
SUK SUK is Ray's third feature. The film premiered at the Busan International Film Festival 2019, and was screened at the Panorama section of the Berlinale International Film Festival 2020. It was nominated for five Taiwan Golden Horse Awards and nine Hong Kong Film Awards. The HK Film Critics Society also awarded SUK SUK as Best Narrative Feature of 2019.
Ray is the Chairman of the Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival since 2000.
James Woolley
Frameline Executive Director
James has been with Frameline since 2019. Originally from Australia, has over 12 years' experience working on over 20 large-scale film festivals, including the Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane International Film Festivals. In 2017 James became Sydney Film Festival's Head of Marketing and Customer Relations, where he rebranded the organization and oversaw a range of new strategies to drive attendance to the festival. James also was the Festival Manager at Queer Screen's Mardi Gras Film Festival for four years, alongside Frameline's current Director of Exhibition & Programming, Paul Struthers. Attendance at the festival tripled during their 4 years together.
Sridhar Rangayan
Founder Festival Director - KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival
Sridhar Rangayan wears many caps – of a filmmaker, writer, activist and festival director. He has consistently strived to give a voice to social issues in India through his films, writings and public speaking for over two decades. His award winning films The Pink Mirror, Yours Emotionally, 68 Pages, Project Bolo, Purple Skies, Breaking Free and Evening Shadows are at the forefront of India’s emergent queer cinema movement. He is the Founder Festival Director of KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival, South Asia’s biggest LGBTQIA+ film festival and the most well known in India for the past 11 years. Rangayan was one of the Grand Marshals of Montreal Pride 2016 and has figured in ‘Global List of LGBT Influencers’ by BFI Flare, UK; ‘5 most influential gay & lesbian Indians’ by Pink Pages, India; and ‘21 heroes changing LGBTI Asia for the better’ by Asia LGBT Milestone Awards, Hong Kong.
Lisa Rose
Festival Director for Queer Screen
Lisa Rose was appointed as Queer Screen’s Festival Director at the end of May 2017 after having served on it's Board of Directors for four and half years, as President, Vice-President and Membership Director.
Queer Screen is based in Sydney, Australia and is a not for profit charity that was founded in 1993 and produces Queer Screen's Mardi Gras Film Festival each February and Queer Screen Film Fest each September; as well as supporting Australian LGBTIQ+ filmmakers with industry initiatives such as Queer Screen Completion Fund, Queer Screen Pitch-Off and My Queer Career.
Lisa comes from a sales, service and marketing background and is a passionate believer in giving voice to all forms of queer entertainment, Lisa is focused on showcasing and championing diversity.
Bartholomew Sammut
Program Manager
After being awarded ‘most promising new filmmaker’ at the Warner Roadshow QLD New Filmmakers Awards in 2000, Bartholomew went to work on a number of shows for SBS Television Australia, namely ‘Eatcarpet’ the program dedicated to smart, experimental, queer short films. They also continued to produce a number of short films that screened widely over the international LGBTQI film festival circuit and in 2006 founded the XPOSED International Queer Film Festival Berlin. In 2009 Bartholomew started at the Panorama section of the Berlinale and in the past years has become a part of the selection advisory committee, as of 2019 they became the Program Manager. As well as curating external film programs for other festivals, Bartholomew also curates the Berliner Kurzfilmrolle and in 2015 established the Queer Short Film Fund to help foster and support queer film production in Berlin. From 2019, Bartholomew became a member of the Berlinale Series Selection Committee. Bartholomew uses all pronouns.