Kiki SUGINO Actress, Director, Producer Born in Hiroshima, Japan in 1984. Kiki debut in the Korean film, “One Shining Day”(2005).
Then appeared in “Time“(2006) by Ki-duk Kim. From 2008, she starts producing movies. She won Best Picture and Best Actress Award by starring and producing the movie “Hospitalit´e”(2010) by Koji Fukada. Sugino also appeared and produced “Odayaka”(2012) by Nobuteru Uchida and “Au revoir l’été “ by Koji Fukada, etc. She was chosen by the Jury at International Film Festival Rotterdam for the first time of Japanese in 2014.
She started directing “Kyoto Elegy” (2014). Her second featured film, “Taksu” won the
Rising Director Award at Busan International Film Festival. Directed and starring “Snow Woman”(2016), premiered at the competition Tokyo Film Festival and she won the Jury Prize at the QCinema IFF. She recently appeared in “I WANT TO BE LOVED” (Ronan Girre), “Natsu-Itarutokoro” (Elaiza Ikeda) “A picture with Yuki” (Lachezar Avramov), etc. “Love Mooning” (Kunitoshi Manda) will be showing in theaters on Nov 12, 2021.

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Shuzo John SHIOTA President & CEO, Polygon Pictures Inc. Shuzo John Shiota joined the Nippon Steel Corporation in 1991. Shiota went on to participate in the launch of Dream Pictures Studio in 1997. He moved to Polygon two years later and in 2003 assumed the position of President and CEO. As studio head Shiota has spearheaded efforts to cultivate Polygon's overseas presence, helping the studio to become a leading developer of TV series and content targeted at the foreign market.Shiota has also served as a judge at major Japanese and international film festivals including Prix Ars Electronica (AUS), SIGGRAPH (U.S.) and the Annecy International Animation Film Festival (France). In 2008, he was selected as one of the "25 Toon Titans of Asia" by popular industry publication Animation Magazine. He will also preside as conference chair for SIGGRAPH Asia in December 2021.

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Kohei ANDO Film-maker, Professor Emeritus of Waseda University Ando, who in his youth worked with Shuji Terayama　who was very famous poet, author and film director in Japan, is known for his refined and creative expressivity as a filmmaker. He is a global pioneer to incorporate Hi-vision techniques in film making. His many films have received numerous international awards, including the Silver Maile Award at the Hawaii International Film Festival and the Grand Prize at the International Electronic Cinema Festival in Montreux etc.. His works are included in the collections at major art museums and film libraries in Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo and elsewhere. In both 2001 and 2005, his retrospective exhibition had been held in Paris.

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Karen Severns Writer, Programmer and Educator Karen Severns has worked in New York and Tokyo as a filmmaker, film critic and programmer, journalist and advertising executive. She holds an MFA in Film from Columbia University and an MS in Journalism, and currently teaches film courses at Temple University Japan and Tokyo University of the Arts. She has been the film series curator at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan since 2008, and a programmer for the New York Asian Film Festival since 2015. She is a founding partner of Tokyo-based KiSMet Productions, a boutique film production/promotion company involved in transnational projects.

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LeSean Thomas Creator, Executive Producer South Bronx, New York City, native LeSean Thomas is a television animation creator, producer & director operating out of Meguro, Tokyo, Japan. His most recent works are creator, executive producer and showrunner of YASUKE and CANNON BUSTERS, both Original TV-Anime series currently airing on streaming giant, NETFLIX.

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Sanghyun Hong Film Journalist Oerating Committee of the CoAR the cinema web media. Adviser of Jeonju International Film Festival and Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival also, Senior producer of Takasaki Film Festival.
Sanghyun Hong holds a master’s degree in political science and visual arts, studied abroad in Japan at The University of Tokyo. (member of Shimizu seminar which works on a collaborative project with Paris School of Economics) 2004, By the experiment of “Presidential Committee for the Hub City of Asian Culture” when he was working at an advertising agency, interested in “the Culture of Policy Agenda” and involved with the Culture City of East Asia project. 2008, A documentary film “For The Islanders “he produced was invited as an Opening screening film at the Jeju Film Festival.
His serial interview articles on CoAR with Japanese in the movie industry are popular in Korea.

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