2026 LAAPFF Awards Jury Announced!
April 24, 2026
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We are excited to announce our 2026 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Awards Jury composed of distinguished members from the film and creative industries. We’re glad to be in community with these artists! Get to know our individual jurors below:
NARRATIVE FEATURE JURORS
LYNN CHEN
Lynn Chen made her filmmaking debut with I Will Make You Mine, a feature which she wrote, produced, directed and starred in. The movie was an Official Selection of the 2020 SXSW Film Festival, streaming on Paramount Plus and Peacock. Rotten Tomatoes featured it on their list of “81 Best Asian American Movies of All Time” (with a 100% rating). She is best known as an actress, recurring as “Dr. Michelle Lin” on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy. She made her debut starring in Alice Wu’s 2005 Sundance film Saving Face. Lynn won the “Best Actress” Award at the 2016 NBC Shorts Festival and a year-long talent holding deal with the network. Lynn has served on the Film Fatales Advisory Circle and the Board of Miry’s List. She is a 2024 and 2025 Rideback Rise Circle member. She recently authored a children’s book, coming out in Fall 2026 through Slant’d Publishing.
JOYCE LIU-COUNTRYMAN
Joyce Liu-Countryman is an independent BIPOC producer and California native who’s work champions intersectional stories that defy stereotypes, and include such award-winning films as Taga, A Family Guide to Hunting, Eat With Me and The Greatest Night in Pop. Her films have premiered at notable festivals including Sundance, Tribeca, Outfest, and Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, and stream on Netflix, HBO Max, and Amazon Prime. Before going indie, she worked at Sony Pictures Entertainment in the Diversity & Inclusion and Film Marketing departments on titles including Little Women, Jumanji: The Next Level and The Mitchells vs. the Machines. Joyce is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and the Television Academy, and the recipient of the LA Media Fund Filmmaker Grant as a Film Independent Project Involve Creative Executive Fellow. Joyce has served as a Thesis Mentor at AFI Conservatory–her alma mater–and as Adjunct Faculty in Cinematic Arts at California State University, Long Beach. She’s thrilled to serve her community as a juror for LAAPFF 2026.
SEAN METZGER
Sean Metzger is a professor in the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television. He is the author of Chinese Looks: Fashion, Performance, Race (2014) and The Chinese Atlantic: Seascapes and the Theatricality of Globalization (2020). The latter won awards from the American Theatre and Drama Society and the Association for Asian American Studies. The former editor of Theatre Journal (2020-2023), he has co-edited several special issues of journals and several books, including Embodying Asian/American Sexualities (2009); Futures of Chinese Cinema: Technologies and Temporalities in Chinese Screen Cultures (2009); Awkward Stages: Plays about Growing Up Gay (2015); and The Methuen Drama Handbook of Gender and Theatre (2024). Most recently, he was awarded a 2026 Guggenheim Fellowship, which will facilitate the completion of a new book on Asian diasporic refugees.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE JURORS
VERA BRUNNER-SUNG
Vera Brunner-Sung (she/her) is a filmmaker working across experimental, nonfiction, and narrative. Her award-winning features and short films have screened around the world and been supported by the Sundance Institute, Center for Asian American Media, SFFILM, and the National Park Service, among others. Her writing about film has appeared in publications including Sight & Sound and Millennium Film Journal, and she has programmed for festivals and other venues, including six years as associate programmer for the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. She is on the faculty in the Department of Radio/Television/Film at Northwestern University.
JOEL QUIZON
Joel Quizon is a Los Angeles based/Manila roots Arts and Culture Curator and Programmer, Filmmaker, and DJ. Currently program lead for NHM’s First Fridays, Summer Nights at the Tar Pits, and other screenings and discussion events since 2019. Joel has worked for the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, Sire-London Records, various independent films, and NBCUniversal/E! Entertainment/Comcast. Film and music projects include “The Cotabato Sessions”, Disco Manila, “Bronzeville, Little Tokyo”, “Walking With Grace”, “Traces 2: Union”, and OPM Sundays. Former Director with Form follows Function, a media collaborative specializing in place-based short form documentaries, emerging media, and multimedia installations working with organizations such as L.A. Conservatory, Little Tokyo Service Center, UC Riverside, Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, L.A. Architectural and Design Museum, and Japanese American National Museum. Joel has been an advocate for representation and marginalized voices and has worked to amplify Philippine music and film for over 20 years. Joel has produced and collaborated with Grand Performances, NYU Abu Dhabi, Visual Communications, International Documentary Association, Susie Ibarra, susmaryosep & co., Bindlestiff Studio San Francisco, Manila Community Radio, Cinema Sala, Dublab, NTS, Cornell University, UCLA-Center for Southeast Asian Studies, and Fil-Am Arts.
LINDY LEONG
Lindy Leong (she/her) is a film and media educator, film programmer, and audiovisual archivist. She has taught undergraduate courses in Contemporary Asian Cinemas, Non-Western Cinemas, Experimental Film and Video, History of the Documentary Film, and Intro to Film and Video, among others. A graduate of the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television, she was the Senior Film Programmer/Programming Manager at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, having first worked in the VC archives as a graduate intern about a generation ago. She co-chairs the annual conference for the Association of Moving Image Archivists, a nonprofit international association dedicated to the preservation and use of moving image media. A member of A-Doc, Brown Girls Doc Mafia, International Documentary Association, Los Angeles Archivists Collective, and Film Independent, she is the administrator for Interaction Design and Media Design Practices at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena.
SHORTS JURORS
WILDA WONG
An immigrant from Hong Kong with vivid memories of seeing events unfold on TV that would alter the course of her family’s lives forever, Wilda began to appreciate the power of image-making from an early age. While cultivating her writing and editing, she took a “literary approaches to film” class at a San Diego community college, which led her to study film at UC Berkeley (where she co-curated her first program while interning at BAMPFA) and the Sorbonne Nouvelle. Wilda found a home with the San Diego Asian Film Festival, where she has been part of the programming team since 2013.
LAUREN TO’OMALATAI
Lauren To’omalatai is a Sāmoan filmmaker and programmer from West Valley City, Utah with a decade of experience in community organizing and building through the arts. She co-founded the Māsima Film Festival in 2021 with the Salt Lake Film Society under the Utah Pacific Island Film Series. Māsima was the first Pacific Islander ran and focused film festival within the U.S., about to launch its 6th year of programming, and she has served as the Festival Director and Lead Programmer since its inception.
Lauren’s screenwriting has earned her placement in imagineNATIVE’s Screenwriting: Features Intensive (2021) Visual Communications Armed With a Camera Fellowship (2022-2023), and Pasifika Entertainment Advancement Komiti’s Writers Fellowship (2025). She is committed to remaining a bridge to resources and opportunities as an advocate for the Pacific Islander community, and other underrepresented and underserved communities, and continues to do so in her current role as the Artist Foundry Coordinator at the Utah Film Center.
NIRAV BHAKTA
Nirav Bhakta is an award-winning Director/Actor/Writer. While growing up as an undocumented immigrant in motels, Nirav utilized the restraints of his environment and geographical boundaries to create with what he had. Nirav’s background in story telling extends from Architecture to the North Indian classical dance form of Kathak. Due to the lack of authentic roles and experiences as an actor, Nirav began creating zero budget short films focusing on the immigrant experience. His films have screened on platforms such as HBO, CBS, Disney+ and in over 200 festivals, including Outfest and the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Nirav currently holds a leadership role in the Undocumented Filmmakers Collective.
