What are we?

AsiaPacificFilms.com streams culturally and historically significant films from Asia and the Pacific that entertain, educate and inspire viewers to think beyond boundaries. With the latest streaming technology, subscribers have unlimited access to our films in DVD quality.

Who are we?

We are an experienced team of Asia and Pacific film programmers working in concert with notable scholars, critics, and curators who carefully select our films. Our curators and AsiaPacificFilms.com’s president Jeannette Hereniko are members of the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC), a well-respected international organization. Every year NETPAC awards prizes at major international film festivals.

Jeannette Hereniko, Founder and President

Philip Cheah, Curator

Shaoyi Sun, Ph.D., Curator

Aruna Vasudev, Ph.D., Curator

Teo Swee Leng, Acquisitions Manager

Justin Park, Project Manager

What’s our storyline?

By acquiring digital rights and streaming our film collection on our website, we give our subscribers access to half of the world’s films: films made by Asians and Pacific Islanders.

Fact: 95 percent of these films are never seen outside of their own countries because mainstream distributors don’t bring them to the global market, or filmmakers from these areas lack access to distribution channels.

Our curators -- experts in Asian and Pacific cinema studies – hand-pick our films for their cultural nuances and historical significance, and for their themes, filmic techniques and styles.

Our film selections present artistic works that offer viewers a broad historical and cultural context about Asia and Pacific. We are creating an online library and archive because we believe the virtual environment is the best way to keep our cinematic heritage in perpetual circulation.

AsiaPacificFilms.com features high-quality reviews, excusive interviews, theme-based searches, online commenting, podcasts, and much more.

Our filmmakers -- among them, renowned directors from China, Korea, India, Iran, and Southeast Asia -- receive royalties. A portion of our profits go to support the important work of NETPAC. In the future, a special research and development fund will support future film projects of filmmakers who have contributed films to this website.

 

Staff Bios

 

Jeannette Hereniko
Founder and President



Jeannette Hereniko has over 30 years experience in the Asia and Pacific film industry as a producer of television programs, films, theatrical productions, websites and international film festivals.

Her career started in 1975 when she was hired as a television writer, director and producer for Hawaii Educational Television. Later she received a M.A. degree in American Studies from the University of Hawaii with a thesis on American reaction to Asian film.

She is best known as the Founding Director of the Hawaii International Film Festival, launching it in 1981 to showcase significant films from Asia, the Pacific Islands, and the USA. She served in this position until 1996. While directing the Hawaii festival, she was invited in 1990 by the Mayor of Palm Springs, California, the late Sunny Bono, to be the first director of the Palm Springs International Film Festival. She continued programming Asian and Pacific feature films for that festival for several years.

In 1994, she started the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema/USA. Under her leadership, NETPAC/USA curated and organized film tours of Asian and Pacific films until 2000. The organization also produced film symposiums and screenings of Asian films at various venues.

In 1996, she was appointed Director of the Asia Pacific Media Center at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center of Communications, a position she held until 2005. It is here that she visualized the concept of a website that would distribute Asian and Pacific films through the Internet.

Since 1997, Ms. Hereniko has been the President of Te Maka Productions, Inc. She produced the award-winning feature film from Fiji/USA, The Land Has Eyes (2004).

Ms. Hereniko has been on the Advisory Board of Cinemaya, the Asian Film Quarterly; a Founding Board member of NETPAC; and a member of the Founding Nomination Council for the APSA (Asia Pacific Screen Awards). She has served on international film festival juries, including during festivals in Berlin, Rotterdam, Pusan, Singapore, Brisbane, and New Delhi. On October 9, 2009 Ms. Hereniko received the Korean Cinema Award for her work promoting Korean cinema.

All of her experience culminated in the position as innovator and President of Asia Pacific Films.com.

Email: jhereniko@asiapacificfilms.com

Philip Cheah, Curator

Philip Cheah is a film critic and is the editor of BigO, Singapore's only independent pop culture publication. He is Honorary Secretary of Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC), and is currently program consultant for AsiaPacificFilms.com, the Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival, the Cinema Digital Seoul Film Festival, and the Dubai International Film Festival.

He is also on the selection committee of the Locarno International Film Festival and Founding Member of the Singapore International Film Festival.

He is co-editor of the books, Garin Nugroho: And the Moon Dances; Noel Vera: Critic After Dark and Ngo Phuong Lan: and Modernity and Nationality in Vietnamese Cinema.

Mr. Cheah was given an award for Achievement in the Promotion of Asian Cinema at the 8th Cinemanila International Film Festival in 2006 and the Korean Cinema Award at the 9th Pusan International Film Festival in 2004.

Email: pcheah@asiapacificfilms.com.

Shaoyi Sun, Ph.D., Curator

 

Shaoyi Sun is Professor of Film and Media Studies at Shanghai University’s School of Film & TV Art and Technology. He has taught Chinese film, literature, and cultural studies at the University of Southern California, University of California at Irvine, and New York University in Shanghai. He was the NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) juror of the 2009 Singapore International Film Festival (Chair), the 2007 Brisbane International Film Festival, the 2001 Hawaii International Film Festival, and a jury member of the 2008 Shanghai International Film Festival’s International Student Shorts Award and the 2000 Dhaka International Film Festival.

Sun received his Ph.D. in Asian literature and film from the University of Southern California (Los Angeles) in 1999. He is the author of Lights! Camera! Kai Shi!: In-Depth Interviews with China’s New Generation of Movie Directors (EastBridge, 2008), The Imagined City: Literary, Filmic, and Visual Shanghai, 1927-1937 (Fudan University Press, 2009), Structural Transformation of the Media Industry in Asia (co-editor; Shanghai Joint Press, 2009), Global Media Policies: New Perspectives (co-editor; Shanghai Joint Press, 2005) and the Chinese translator of Rey Chow’s Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography and Contemporary Chinese Cinema (Taipei: Yuan-Liou Publishing Co., 2001).

 

Email: shaoyi@asiapacificfilms.com

Aruna Vasudev, Ph.D., Curator

Aruna Vasudev is an author, critic, editor, and former festival director with a Ph.D. in cinema from the University of Paris. She is the author of two books on Indian cinema - Liberty & Licence in the Indian Cinema and The New Wave in Indian Cinema. She is editor and co-editor of a number of other books on Indian and Asian cinema including, Indian Cinema, Superbazaar; Frames of Mind: Reflections on Indian Cinema; Being and Becoming: The Cinemas of Asia; Modernity and Nationality in Vietnamese Cinema; and Kenji Mizoguchi & The Art of Japanese Cinema. She is the editor of a continuing series of books including Legends of Indian Cinema.

She is the Founder-President of NETPAC; Founder-Editor of Cinemaya, The Asian Film Quarterly (1988-2006); and Founder-Director of Cinefan,the Festival of Asian Cinema (1999-2004). She has been a jury member of more than thirty international film festivals.

Among other honors, Vasudev was conferred Korea’s Award for promotion of Korean films; the Cinemanila Asian Cinema Award for promoting Asian cinema; France’s top cultural award, the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres; the The Satyajit Ray Memorial award for promoting Asian film culture; and the Star of Italian Solidarity.

Email: avasudev@asiapacificfilms.com

Teo Swee Leng, Acquisition Manager

Swee Leng has been an arts, film and new media administrator for major international organizations for the last two decades. She was festival director of the Singapore International Film Festival, and her involvement in the arts includes pioneering work in the performing arts and new media in Singapore.

Email: slteo@asiapacificfilms.com

Justin Park, Project Manager

Justin Park is a Honolulu-based web consultant and co-founder of Parsonage Productions, a Web services firm. He helped build MensHealth.com into one of the largest online men's brands until 2008. As a consultant for Asia Pacific Films, he manages the technical side, ensuring the quality of everything from digitized videos to user interfaces. He is also an independent videographer and award-winning journalist. 

Email: jpark@asiapacificfilms.com