Board of Directors & Advisory

Photo: Joyce Wong

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Karla Bobadilla, Chair

A member of the Ontario Bar, Karla is a lawyer with the entertainment, media and communications law firm, Lewis Birnberg Hanet, LLP. Previously, Karla worked at the Canadian Film & Television Production Association providing policy, government relations, strategic planning, advocacy and lobby work on behalf of its membership.

Before the CFTPA, Karla spent much of her industry career as in-house legal counsel, most recently at Astral Media The Harold Greenberg Fund and before that at a Toronto production and new media company.

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

Richard Kim, Vice-Chair

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!

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 Reel Asian as Reel Asian's Treasurer. Just when he thought he was out... they pull him back in!

Evelyn Siu, Secretary

Evelyn Siu is an active member of Toronto's non-profit and community arts sector. She is the project coordinator for Cities of Migration, Maytree Foundation’s international project in immigrant integration. She was the artistic associate for Harbourfront Centre’s celebrated summer festival season, and led several community partnerships with arts organizations, consulates, and culturally diverse artists in Toronto. Her experience in youth engagement included managing the youth literary mentorship program at Diaspora Dialogues and co-writing Harbourfront Centre’s youth strategy. She is an advisory member to the Cultural Pluralism in the Arts program at the University of Toronto Scarborough campus. She holds an honours BA degree with a specialist designation in Arts Management and a major in Art History from the University of Toronto. She joined Reel Asian as the co-chair of the festival’s Marketing Committee in 2010.

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.

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.

Joanna Miles

Joanna is currently Vice-President of Marketing for Alliance Films, Canada's leading motion picture distributor. She was previously, Vice -President of Marketing for Maple Pictures where 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 her current employer, Alliance Films, where she was project manager on the two Toronto exhibits for The Lord Of The Rings film trilogy, she has essentially come full circle. Joanna holds an honours bachelor of arts degree with a specilization in arts administration from the University of Toronto and is delighted to be a member of the Reel Asian board.

Victoria Shen

Victoria is a human rights and labour lawyer. She is an active supporter of the arts, women’s rights, youth programs, and social justice. 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 a staff lawyer at the Human Rights Legal Support Centre.

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.

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.

Danish Vahidy

Danish is currently the Director of Marketing at Mongrel Media, which is one of Canada's leading film distribution companies and home to some of the very best films made in Canada and specializing in art house, foreign and independent feature films as well as documentaries. Danish is a veteran of the film industry with over 15 years of experience in Canadian theatrical distribution and has worked on numerous high-profile films at distributors such as Metro Goldwyn Mayer and Polygram Filmed Entertainment. Danish also sits on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Picture Pioneers, an organization dedicated to the welfare of all members of the motion picture industry in Canada.

ADVISORY

Nobu Adilman
Grace Bai (ED 2007)
Richard Fung
Colin Geddes
Kwoi Gin
Carolynne Hew
Cheuk Kwan
Anita Lee
Helen Lee
Sally Lee (ED 2002-2004)
Du-Yi Leu
Keith Lock
Winnie Luk
Simon Racioppa
Kerri Sakamoto
Caroline Sin (ED 1999-2001)
Deanna Wong (ED 2005-2006, 2008)

FESTIVAL FOUNDERS

Anita Lee
Andrew Sun