2025 LAAPFF Awards Jury Announced!

April 29, 2025

We are excited to announce our 2025 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

MELISSA BISAGNI
Melissa Bisagni is a film curator, consultant and programmer specializing in Indigenous and Asian American film. She is currently the Festival Director for the DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival, a member of the Four Quarters Collective along with Nzingha Kendall, Joanna Raczynska and KJ Mohr. She served for 15 years as the Film and Video Program Manager at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, where she continues to work in Museum Learning and Programs. Melissa’s other passion, education equity, has given her the opportunity to work with parents and community leaders advocating for children in the DC public school system through district-wide Head Start, Kindred Communities and DC PAVE.

SUSAN E. KIM
Susan E. Kim is a feature film and television picture editor. Her recent work includes PACHINKO, the Apple TV+ series about a Korean family and their rise across four generations. PACHINKO has garnered numerous awards, including the Critics Choice Award, Film Independent Spirit Award and a Peabody Award.

Susan recently edited the film A BIG BOLD BEAUTIFUL JOURNEY, directed by Kogonada and starring Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie, to be released in 2025 by Sony. Her recent work also includes A SMALL LIGHT, the critically-acclaimed limited series for NatGeo/Disney+, I’LL BE YOUR MIRROR (formerly BLOOD – 2022 U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award, Sundance Film Festival) and the anthology series LITTLE AMERICA for Apple TV+.

Susan is proudly Korean-American, born and raised in the Chicago area. She now resides in Los Angeles. When she’s not in the editing room, Susan loves exploring all things food and fitness, traveling around the world and taking epic walks in new cities.

IRAM PARVEEN BILAL
Iram Parveen Bilal is a global citizen and award-winning storyteller whose work bridges science and empathy to spark bold, inclusive narratives. A Caltech-trained environmental engineer turned filmmaker, she is a powerful voice in World Cinema, recognized for crafting socially resonant stories that challenge norms and inspire change. Her films—deeply rooted in equity and impact—have led to tangible social shifts, often advocating for causes that are underrepresented or politically charged. Committed to “raising while rising,” Iram has created platforms to uplift others alongside her own ascent. She spearheaded the formation of the Pakistani Oscar committee and founded QALAMBAAZ, South Asia’s first professional screenwriting lab, now in its eleventh year and operating across the region. A sought-after mentor for women in film and tech, Iram has been spotlighted as one of eight directors to watch by the Alliance of Women Directors. She serves on the boards of Film Fatales and Noorani Dance, and is a fellow of both Film Independent and the Thomas J. Watson Foundation. Her honors include multiple Women in Film awards, and her work has been featured in The New York Times, NPR, BBC, Bloomberg, and Filmmaker Magazine. An honors graduate of both Caltech and USC’s prestigious Peter Stark Producing Program, Iram blends technical acumen with creative instinct. When not on set, she can be found dancing to Bollywood or brainstorming with fellow engineers. She believes curiosity is the most powerful antidote to fear. Her latest and boldest project, WAKHRI (One of a Kind), an audacious feature inspired by real-life digital activism, has earned accolades on the festival circuit, including the Community Award at LA Asian Pacific Film Festival 2024. It is now headed for global distribution, with acclaimed filmmaker Deepa Mehta on board as presenting Executive Producer.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE JURORS

BRYAN GRIFFIN
Bryant Griffin is an Emmy Award winning Los Angeles-based writer/director with an MFA in directing from UCLA. Prior to attending UCLA Bryant worked for 12 years at Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light and Magic (ILM). During that time I contributed to over 30 feature films including Star Wars Revenge of the Sith, The Eternals, and The Avengers. 

Bryant’s first narrative feature film, “Young King”, premiered at the American Black Film Festival 2024 and the Austin Film Festival amongst others. The film was the recipient of the Arri Franz Wieser Grant in 2021.

Bryant premiered the feature documentary titled “L.A. Rebellion: A Cinematic Movement” on PBS SoCal’s Artbound Series, the Los Angeles PBS affiliate, in October, co-directed with Kitty Hu, and won the LA Area Emmy award in the Education/Information category. The film retells the personal experiences of the UCLA film school’s first diverse group of filmmakers in 1969.

VINCENT N. PHAM
Vincent N. Pham is a Professor in the Civic Communication and Media department at Willamette University and affiliate faculty in the American Ethnic Studies program. He co-authored Asian Americans and the Media (Polity Press, 2009); co-edited the Routledge Companion to Asian American Media (2017); and published in The Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, Enculturation, Quarterly Journal of Speech, Women’s Studies in Communication, and Cinema Journal. He has been interviewed by NPR’s Code Switch and US News and served on the awards jury of the San Diego Asian Film Festival and the Seattle Asian American Film Festival.

 

JIN YOO-KIM
Jin Yoo-Kim is a Bolivian-born Korean American filmmaker who directed and produced for TAKE OUT WITH LISA LING. She produced and impact produced MANZANAR, DIVERTED: WHEN WATER BECOMES DUST and is the co-director of the BAVC MediaMaker Fellowship, an annual fellowship devoted to supporting emerging documentary filmmakers with a grant and year long support. Jin co-produced A WOMAN’S WORK: THE NFL’S CHEERLEADER PROBLEM, co-produced K-TOWN ‘92, and was the impact producer for TRY HARDER!, WAKING DREAM, and BLOWIN’ UP. She was an impact lab facilitator for A-Doc’s Impact Fellowship 2024, an American Film Showcase envoy to mentor Ladera Sur’s 2023 inaugural audiovisual lab overseeing 12 fellows in Chile (in Spanish), and was an impact mentor for the 2022 A-Doc x Haverford Impact Lab for LIQUOR STORE DREAMS. She was a 2022-2023 Sundance Women to Watch Adobe Fellow, and a 2022 US – South Korea NextGen Creative Fellow. Jin was also a 2020 Sundance Creative Producers Fellow, a 2020 Film Independent X CNN Original Series Docuseries Fellow, a 2020-2021 Redford Center fellow, a 2020 Film Independent Doc Lab fellow, and a 2017 Firelight Media Impact Producing Fellow. She is currently pursuing her MA in Clinical Psychology at Pepperdine University. Her goal is to serve the mental health needs of the documentary field and help build a healing-informed pipeline. She received her MFA in Film from USC and a BA in Psychology and Cinema & Media Studies from Wellesley College.

SHORTS JURORS

SO YOUNG SHELLY YO
So Young Shelly Yo is a Korean-American filmmaker whose films were supported by HBO, SFFILM, Sloan, CAAM and others. Shelly’s first feature, SMOKING TIGERS premiered in the US Narrative Competition at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival and was awarded best screenplay, best performance, and a special mention for the Nora Ephron prize. The film has screened internationally at the Sao Paolo International Film Festival, Warsaw International Film Festival, Jeonju International Film Festival and many more. Prior to SMOKING TIGERS, Shelly created many award-winning short films including SOFT SOUNDS OF PEELING FRUIT and MOONWALK WITH ME. Most recently, Shelly was awarded the New Voice Award at the 2023 Austin Film Festival and was chosen for the 2023 Bafta Breakthrough Program. 

SET HERNANDEZ
Set Hernandez is a filmmaker, poet, and community organizer whose roots come from Bicol, Philippines. Unapologetically queer and undocumented, their filmmaking uplifts and complicates the stories of their communities. Winner of an Independent Spirit Award, Set’s feature debut “unseen” (POV/PBS, PRX, 2024) is noted for its groundbreaking use of accessibility to center blind/disabled and undocumented audiences. Set’s past documentary work includes the short “COVER/AGE” (2019) and impact producing for “Call Her Ganda” (Tribeca, 2018). An alumnus of the Disruptors Fellowship, Set is developing a TV comedy pilot which won the SeriesFest Pitch-A-Thon at the Bentonville Film Festival. Since 2010, Set has been organizing around migrant justice issues, from deportation defense to healthcare access. They co-founded the Undocumented Filmmakers Collective which promotes equity for undocumented immigrants in the film industry. Set’s work has been supported by Visual Communications, Firelight Media, Sundance Institute, NBCUniversal, among others. In their past life, Set was a published linguistics researcher, focusing in the area of bilingualism. Above all, Set is the fruit of their family’s love and their community’s generosity.

MARIQUITA “MICKI” DAVIS
Mariquita “Micki” Davis (familian “Pilele”, Dådi yan Gadas, tao tao Hågat, Guåhan) is a CHamoru artist, educator and the co-founder of Pilele Projects based in Los Angeles. She is a participating artist for the MALI’E performance research project and co-curator of Pasifika Transmissions with the Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum of Long Beach. She joined the community of Visual Communications in 2012 when she was an Armed with a Camera fellow. Since then she has served in several roles including programmer for the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival and mentor for the Armed with a Camera Fellowship program. As an artist her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Honolulu Biennial, University of Queensland Art Museum, Vancouver Art Gallery, and UNSW Galleries, Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, as well as Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (YIDFF) and Guam International Film Festival. She currently teaches in the Fine Arts and Communications departments at Pepperdine University.