JURORS SCREENPLAY COMPETITION NANCY BULALACAO has been creating cultural programs for the Asian American community for 20 years. She has worked for a range of institutions including the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Asia Society, and Museum of Chinese in America. Her next project, FAM (Filipino American Museum), is a multimedia multidisciplinary venture that will bring together writers, artists, performers, poets, activists, and entrepreneurs in experimentation and exploration.
CLARISSA DE LOS REYES worked at several jobs in New York City before her acceptance to NYU’s graduate film program. She was the recipient of scholarships and awards like the New York Women in Film and Television Production Grant, the Maurice Kanbar Scholarship, Grand Jury Prize at the San Diego Asian Film Festival, Nestor Almendros Excellence in Cinematography award at the First Run Film Festival, and the Best Cinematography award at the Fusion Film Festival, and was selected to participate in the 6th Berlinale Talent Campus. She worked as a camera operator for Oscar-nominated filmmaker John SAYLES’ latest feature, AMIGO, and award-winning documentarist Ramona DIAZ’s THE BILL. Her latest project, DOCUMENTED, a feature documentary on the undocumented immigrant Jose Antonio VARGAS - for which she was both the co-producer and DP - premiered as the Centerpiece Presentation of the AFI Docs Film Festival in Washington, D.C. LILY MARIYE’s feature writing and directorial debut, MODEL MINORITY, has received 11 awards at 11 domestic and international film festivals - London Independent, Sacramento International, AAIFF, Los Angeles Asian Pacific American, among others - for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Cinematography. Her first short film, THE SHANGRI-LA CAFÉ, has been screened in over 25 film festivals worldwide, including the BBC British Short, Seattle International, and Palm Springs Short. As an actor, she is best known as nurse Lily Jarvik on the award-winning TV series, ER, for which she shared the SAG Award for Best Ensemble in a Drama Series four times. She has appeared in many films such as EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES and gueststarred in over 25 TV shows including SHAMELESS. Graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in Theatre, she is also an award-winning theatre actress, performing in N.Y., L.A. and other regions around the country. LEE SKAIFE is a New York-based film and video director with an impressive track record on both the creative and business side of the industry. Lee spent 10 years as a writer and director of promotions and PSAs for the NBA’s in-house agency and served as the creative director of on-air promos for NBATV during her last years at the NBA. Prior to her work with the NBA, she ran her own production company, G-Force Films, where she directed commercials and corporate videos for high-profile clients such as UNICEF. She co-directed feature film USE YOUR HEAD, which premiered at SXSW and went on to play in film festivals worldwide. Lee has an MFA in Motion Graphics and Experimental Animation from Cal Arts. In 2006, her short film TISSUE EXISTENCE was selected as part of Cal Arts Retrospective at MOMA and the Centre Pompidou. CHRIS TASHIMA is an award winning actor, director, and screenwriter from Los Angeles. He received an Academy Award® for the dramatic short film, VISAS AND VIRTUE, which he directed, co-wrote, and starred as Holocaust rescuer, Japanese diplomat Chiune “Sempo” Sugihara. He directed, cowrote and acted in the PBS Special, DAY OF INDEPENDENCE, depicting the struggles of a young Japanese American baseball player in a World War II internment camp, for which he received an EMMY® nomination. Onscreen, Chris is featured as the alcoholic father in Lily MARIYE’s indie drama, MODEL MINORITY, which won the AAIFF ‘12 Audience Award for Narrative Feature. This year, at AAIFF ‘13, he stars in Jeffrey Gee CHIN’s narrative short, LIL TOKYO REPORTER, portraying title character Sei Fujii, an early Civil Rights pioneer and newspaper publisher. AWARD NOMINATIONS: JURORS 37