Photo: Joyce Wong

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Karla Bobadilla, Chair

A member of the Ontario Bar, Karla’s responsibility at the Canadian Film & Television Production Association includes providing policy, government relations, strategic planning, advocacy and lobby work for a number of the CFTPA Committees, including New Media, Children’s & Youth, Documentary Programming and the Ontario Producers Panel.

Karla has spent much of her industry career as in-house legal counsel, most recently at Astral Media The Harold Greenberg Fund where she managed the equity investment program and oversaw all legal affairs, and before that at a Toronto production and new media company.

During many of her non-CFTPA hours, Karla enjoys running the Reel Asian Board as Chair, but during most of her non-CFTPA hours, she enjoys running around after her two young children.

Diang Iu, Treasurer

Diang has spent the last 10 years working in fields as varied as public accountancy and strategy consulting, finally settling on film and television in 2003. Diang started his career in public accountancy with Arthur Andersen, focusing on the audit needs of Canadian financial institutions. Leveraging this experience, Diang moved on to strategy consulting helping financial institutions and Fortune 500 all over North America with strategy development and operations reengineering. Feeling that his true passions were being underserved working on Bay Street, Diang shifted focus to film and television, working as the controller for Shaftesbury Films, a freelance industry consultant, and more recently as a Development Executive.

When he's not counting his wonderful beans at home, he counts beans at ReelAsian as ReelAsian's Treasurer. Just when he thought he was out... they pull him back in!

Stephanie Shinkoda, Secretary

Stephanie currently does content acquisitions of lifestyle and reality programming for Canwest Television Inc’s vast roster of specialty channels. Prior to Canwest, Stephanie worked for eleven years at Warner Bros. International Television Distribution Inc. (Canada), most recently in the capacity of Director, Sales and Administration handling the sale of Warner Bros. television series, movies and animation to broadcasters across Canada. She received an honour degree in Film Studies from Ryerson University and joined the Reel Asian Board of Directors as Secretary in May 2007.

Victoria Shen

Victoria is a labour and human rights lawyer. She is an active supporter of the arts, women’s rights, youth programs, and labour. She has sat on a number of Boards including the Chinese Canadian National Council (Past President, Toronto Chapter), Asian Canadian Labour Alliance, and Mayworks (Chair, Programming).

Prior to her legal career, she worked extensively in the public sector and occasionally in radio, television and print. She currently works as in-house counsel to UFCW Locals 175 & 633.

Victoria joined the Board of Reel Asian in September 2008 as Acting Secretary. She can usually be found at RA parties, by the sushi platter.

Pablo de Ocampo

Pablo de Ocampo is a curator and occasional artist living in Toronto where he is the Artistic Director of the Images Festival. Prior to his post at Images, Pablo resided in Portland, Oregon where he helped to found the experimental film screening series Cinema Project and was the Executive Director of the Independent Publishing Resource Center. Pablo joined the Reel Asian Board in 2007 and serves on the Programming Committee.

Richard Kim

Richard is a licensed lawyer and business and corporate development executive who has worked in the knowledge-based industries for the past decade. His experience includes senior management and advisory roles with some of Canada’s best known media organizations. He has also acted for a number of producers and distributors of filmed entertainment, providing day to day and strategic legal and business affairs advice. Richard has been a board member with Reel Asian since 2006; he is a member of the Governance and Nominating Committee and he chairs the Development Committee. Known as a straight shooter and a picture of poise under pressure, one might find that difficult to believe having watched him golf!

Megan McPhee

Megan McPhee is a principal with Kim Orr Barristers practicing in class action and commercial litigation. Megan has acted as counsel before all levels of court in Ontario and before the Supreme Court of Canada. She holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Kings College and a law degree from Dalhousie University. Megan has been a member of the RA Board since 2008 and serves on the Development and Governance committees.

Alice Shih

Alice Shih is a Toronto based film journalist and a board member of the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival since 2005. She serves as a member of the programming committee of the festival, and also for CinemAsia, (Asian Institute, Munk Centre at the University of Toronto ). She is a regular contributor for CineAction and POV. Her critique on films can also be heard on Fairchild Radio, the national Chinese radio broadcaster in Canada . She specializes in world films, especially films from Asia, the Asian Diaspora and Canada . She received an honour degree in Film Studies from Ryerson University.

David Simpson

David is Principal of InterPraxis, a Toronto-based consultancy specializing in corporate responsibility and sustainability assurance services. A former Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Ethics & Corporate Policy, David has also served as an advisor to the Federal Government on Ethics and Values in the Public Sector and has worked internationally for organizations such as CIDA, the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace, Transparency International, and the Korean Standards Association.

David is a Certified Sustainability Assurance Practitioner and has served as the independent social auditor for a number organizations in the banking, insurance, investment, consumer goods and manufacturing sectors.

In addition to serving on the Reel Asian Board, David enjoys hanging out at T&T on weekends enjoying all their free food samples.

Joanna Miles

Joanna is currently Vice-President of Marketing for Maple Pictures Corp., an independent Canadian film company making it's mark in the film industry through its grassroots acquisitions and distribution of diverse and distinctive filmed entertainment. Through Maple she has effectively marketed such titles as Precious, The Hurt Locker, The Bank Job, Mad Men and Pontypool. Prior to this, she was Director of Distibution at the boutique releasing division of Capri Films. Joanna received her start in the film industry at Alliance Films where she was project manager on the two Toronto exhibits for The Lord Of The Rings film trilogy, as well as part of the marketing team that handled all aspects of marketing and promotion. Joanna holds an honours bachelor of arts degree with a specilization in arts administration from the University of Toronto and is delighted to be joining the board of Reel Asian.

Jennifer Chen

Jennifer Chen is the Director of Programming and Acquisitions at Channel Zero managing four channels in Canada: Movieola- The Short Film Channel, Silver Screen Classics, CHCH of Southwestern Ontario and CJNT, the ethnic channel in Montreal. She was formerly the General Manager of Ouat Media, managing one of the largest distribution companies specializing in the acquisition, distribution and sales of short form content internationally. Her previous festival and sales experience include the Canadian Film Centre, the Toronto International Film Festival and the Cannes Film Festival. Jennifer studied cinema at the Sorbonne in Paris for a year before returning to Canada, where she worked in feature film production and directed and produced her own short films. Jennifer has shared her knowledge of the film industry with audiences at film festivals around the world, consulted on distribution strategies for award-winning shorts, published papers on the subject and represented shorts in many international film festivals.

ADVISORY BOARD

Nobu Adilman
Richard Fung
Colin Geddes
Kwoi Gin
Carolynne Hew
Cheuk Kwan
Anita Lee
Helen Lee
Sally Lee (ED, 2002-2004)
Du-Yi Leu
Keith Lock
Simon Racioppa
Kerri Sakamoto
Caroline Sin (ED, 1999-2001)

FESTIVAL FOUNDERS

Anita Lee
Andrew Sun