Programmers
Our intrepid team of Festival Programmers reassembled to put together a nimble and diverse slate of programs that celebrate the communities that we serve. Meet our Festival Programmers below!
Jeremy Aguilera-Gaudette was born and raised in Maine but has called Los Angeles home for the past 20 years. After 17 years managing movie theatres, Jeremy now works at Film Independent in the International Programs department. This is Jeremy’s 10th year with LAAPFF and he’s still thrilled to be part of this amazing team.
Veialu Aila-Unsworth (she/her) is a writer/director, originally from Papua New Guinea and Aotearoa New Zealand. She’s a graduate of Aotearoa’s national drama school, Toi Whakaari, and most importantly, an Armed with a Camera Fellowship alum and one of the mentors for the 2024 cohort! When she’s not watching movies, she’s making blanket forts for her cat to play in.
Esperanza Bey is an Archivist Librarian deeply committed to amplifying Black and Pasifika diasporic narratives through storytelling across various mediums. With several years of experience in community archives and public programming, Esperanza has worked to bring underrepresented voices to the forefront. As a former intern in the Archives department at VC, she played a key role in activating VC’s Pasifika collection, notably curating the two-part event series Pacific Cinewaves: Talanoa, A Dialogue on Samoan Stories in Carson. Esperanza holds a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and a minor in Media & Cultural Studies from the University of California, Riverside. She also earned a Masters in Library Science & Information Studies with a specialization in Archival Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Janet Chen (Ma) (she/her) is a film and multimedia director, producer, educator and community organizer. She has worked for Visual Communications in various capacities, and she is excited to be a programmer this year. She has taught filmmaking at the UCLA Center for EthnoCommunications and is currently teaching at UC Irvine Film and Media Studies. Her latest short film ASIAN BITCHES SPEAK was honored with a Special Jury Award for Documentary Short from the 40th VC Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, and a Best Director Award for Short Film from the 31st QFilms Long Beach LGBTQ+ Film Festival. The film is currently part of the Color Congress Elev8Docs initiative. Janet was the inaugural manager and steering committee member of Asian American Documentary Network (A-Doc) and is a member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia (BGDM).
Libby Haein (해인) Chun is a Korean American artist born and raised in Texas and South Korea with a BFA from Dodge College. Her work consists of narrative film, multimedia documentation, and assemblages of language that are searching for gratitude, knowledge, third-culture, catharsis, and the future. She is with Visual Communications Media as Programs Coordinator and Artist in Residence. Her first film, CROSSROADS, has screened at several festivals across the country. She likes to collect encyclopedias.
Francis Cullado(he/him) is the Executive Director for VC. He has worked with VC since 2002 in various capacities including the Volunteer Coordinator and Operations Manager of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, Development Director, and Operations Director. He is an alumnus of California State University, Long Beach and holds a B.A. and M.A. in Asian American Studies with a focus on cultural arts and performances, history, and human geography.
Christina Fong is a Whittier College graduate with a BA in Chinese. She’s passionate about the stories and representation of Asian and Pacific Islanders. She started as a shorts programmer in 2022 with LAAPFF. Volunteering and serving her community is a core value of hers. The college service organization she led, Food Recovery Network, won Student Organization of the Year for 2 consecutive years. Under her leadership, Food Recovery Network won 3 awards, Student Organization of the Year, Service Organization of the Year and Social Justice Coalition Organization of the Year. An avid reader, she loves happy endings and urban fantasy.
Ryan Fukuda is a film + event producer and an emerging director/writer. He maintains a teaching and consulting practice that incorporates intuitive, meditative, and energy healing methodologies to support creators on their artistic path. 2025 will be his 7th year working with Visual Communications on LAAPFF.
Emma Fukunaga is excited to be a part of the programming team for LAAPFF 2025! This is her first time being a part of the festival, and she joined the Visual Communications community last summer after graduating from Scripps College, where she was an Asian American Studies student. She is grateful for the opportunity to continue to grow and learn at VC as she finds her footing as a 20-something. Outside of work, she continues her lifelong journey as a dancer in multiple disciplines. If you’re really nice to her, she might bake you a fresh loaf of sourdough – she takes requests.
Eric Hsiao is a Film Creative, Arts Advocate, and Industry Educator, most notably through his work with The Gotham Film & Media Institute and LMU School of Film and Television. Eric also serves on the Board of Directors for Slant’d, the nonprofit publishing house and creative home for Asian Americans. Eric was previously a creative executive at Perfect Storm Entertainment, the Film & TV company of LAAPFF alum Justin Lin (Better Luck Tomorrow). Now in his third year programming for LAAPFF, Eric got his start in the film industry as an agent trainee at United Talent Agency after graduating from NYU’s MBA/MFA program.
Paula Kiley (she/her) is a Filipino American documentary filmmaker and collage animator whose work integrates personal histories with larger historical narratives. She worked as an Associate Producer at PBS SoCal on the webseries WEEKLY ARTS and contributed as a researcher on BODY PARTS (dir. Kristy Guevara Flanagan). Paula is a 2022 NeXt Doc fellow and an alum of the Armed With a Camera Fellowship where she directed and produced her documentary short BALIK/BAYAN.
Kayli Kimura is a Japanese-American visual storyteller, matcha lover and dog mom. Her documentary short film, sansedai, won Best Documentary Short at Barbados Independent Film Festival and is currently screening in numerous film festivals around the world. She was a 2023/24 Armed With a Camera Fellow and was selected as a mentee for Asian American Collective & Symphonic Women Empowered Mentorship Programs. She has worked on a variety of commercials, TV shows, documentaries and music videos including projects for Netflix, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Telfar, A$AP Rocky, Bad Bunny, J Balvin, and Adidas. Kayli was born and raised in Boulder, CO and is currently based in LA though is often traveling the world and documenting her adventures on her YouTube channel, Kayemi Studio.
Jeff Man is a writer/director and longtime friend of Visual Communications. His debut feature film PAPER MARRIAGE world premiered at the 2024 edition of the VC Film Festival. Jeff first started working at VC as part of the 2011 festival staff. Since then he has proudly served the organization as an Armed with a Camera Fellow, Digital Histories instructor, AWC mentor and, now, a programmer.
Kirby Peñafiel is a veteran LAAPFF Shorts Programmer. His love for film is only matched by his big mouth and his big heart for the community. Rooted in LAAPFF, he started as a volunteer and has worn many hats since. A steadfast media archivist, he sits upon hours of digitized footage and an ever-growing amount of unfinished projects – which he’ll finish, eventually. Someday. He also loves his dogs. Forever standing on the shoulders of giants.
Sultan Pirzhan is an experienced film professional with a decade-long career in producing and consulting on feature films, TV shows, and commercials. He began his career as a film festival programmer, where he gained valuable experience in selecting and building programs that showcased films from underrepresented countries.
Melanie Ramos was born and raised in Northern California. She is a filmmaker, who loves British murder mystery television and farming veggies. She is very excited to join the features programming team for another year of the festival.
Norbert Shieh is a Taiwanese American filmmaker and cinematographer whose work explores the subtleties of everyday life. His projects range from experimental explorations of perception to delicate observational documentaries. An inaugural Sundance Institute / The Asian American Foundation Collab Scholar and recent CAAM Fellow, Norbert has also received support from Creative Capital, BAVC, and Visual Communications. His films and cinematography have screened internationally at festivals like Sundance, Slamdance, Tallgrass, AFI Fest, and Jihlava IFF. Based in Los Angeles, Norbert has directed commissioned projects for KCET, The Autry Museum, and other cultural institutions, and has lensed projects for clients such as Hulu, JetBlue, Fender and Wired Magazine. In 2019, Filmmaker Magazine named him one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film.”
Jason Tiangco (he/him/his) is a Filipino-American creative from Harbor City, CA. Serving as one of the caretaker of the VC Archives, Jason works towards the long-term preservation and accessibility of Asian American materials housed at Visual Communications. Jason also aspires to create safe spaces for underrepresented communities such as individuals with disabilities, deaf or hard-of-hearing individuals, and those dealing with mental illnesses. In 2021, Jason graduated from California State University, Long Beach with a BA in Film and Electronic Arts, and specializes in the Theory and Practice of Cinema. With a deep-rooted passion for cinema and dreams of changing the world through arts, Jason hopes to inspire generations of all ages to channel their personal stories and internal struggles into healthy, artistic creative outlets. For rest and renewal, Jason enjoys going to shows, traveling the world, and getting lost in new spaces with a camera.
Lauren To’omalatai is a Sāmoan writer, filmmaker, and programmer from Salt Lake City, Utah. She is co-founder of the Māsima Film Tour (2020) which was the first Pacific Islander run and focused film festival established in the U.S. She is a proud Armed With a Camera (2022-2023) alumni, part of their first all-Pasifika cohort.
Faroukh Virani is an LA based filmmaker + editor who works within both narrative and documentary formats, as he finds one storytelling style informs the other in his work. He is interested in supporting diverse voices behind the camera, and has served as mentor for the Armed With A Camera fellowship and Shorts Programmer for the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Faroukh is a current member of the Motion Picture Editors Guild.
Brandy Wang is a film curator and the founder of Sorry Not Sorry, a platform for emerging filmmakers to share and reimagine the meanings of “Asianness”. With her curatorial interests in experimental film, ethnographic & indigenous film, and Asian cinema, she has worked with various film festivals and organizations, curating and promoting works from diverse positions and stories of Asian and Asian diasporic Experience. She holds an MA in Media, Culture, and Communication from New York University with a focus on the media representations of identities, particularly on immigration, gender, and sexuality.
Kayla Wong is a Seattle-raised, New York-based producer with a passion for building spaces for Asian American creatives. With a film degree from NYU, she works mostly on independent productions, but has also been at companies like NBCUniversal, WNET New York Public Media, and Sesame Workshop. She was the Director of the 41st to 47th Asian American International Film Festival, and recently shifted to Associate Director of the presenting non-profit Asian CineVision. She’s honored to be a first-year programmer at LAAPFF and is grateful to be in community with fellow film festival organizers and curators.
Ryan H. Wu has served as an LAAPFF Features Programmer since 2016. Ryan can be spotted indulging in his love for Classic Hollywood and mid-20th Century international cinema at the American Cinematheque and the Academy Museum. In between watching movies, Ryan practices law as a partner at a leading class action firm, earning numerous professional accolades for his work.
Marvin Yueh is a seasoned producer with over a decade of experience working on programs and events for the Asian American community. He is also an award-winning podcast producer as well as the co-founder of the Potluck Podcast Collective, a network of independent Asian American hosted podcasts. This is his 5th year programming for the festival.
