Andrew Mason is a producer with decades of industry experience in film and television production. He produced Alex Proyas’s sci-fi masterpiece Dark City in 1998 and served as producer or EP for many US studio pictures including the Waschowskis’ The Matrix and its sequels. In 2004 he produced Cave in Romania, followed by the Canadian-produced Silent Hill, from French director Christophe Gans. Returning to Australia at Hopscotch Features, he produced Adoration from French director Anne Fontaine, I, Frankenstein, and the multi-award winning The Water Diviner – Russell Crowe’s directorial debut. A co-founder of Brouhaha Entertainment in 2021, the company has since produced six feature films and a television series. These include Lee with Kate Winslet playing the iconic photographer Lee Miller; The Convert directed by Lee Tamahori and starring Guy Pearce; and the much-awarded 7-part adaptation of Boy Swallows Universe for Netflix. His most recent work, the thriller Dangerous Animals, screened in Directors Fortnight in Cannes 2025. Andrew was a member of the inaugural ReelOzInd! Jury in 2016.
Laksmi De Neefe Suardana is an Australian Balinese model, designer and content creator. She has degrees in design and business from RMIT in Melbourne and Polimoda in Florence, Italy. Laksmi is an ambassador of the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival and in 2020, and launched the first Ubud Writers & Readers Festival Book Club on Instagram Live, bringing readers together across borders and engaging with the younger audience. Passionate about promoting literacy especially among young people, Lakshmi hosts the podcast, Shelf Therapy, and is UNICEF’s Voices of Youth ambassador. In 2022 Laksmi won the title of Puteri Indonesia and represented Indonesia at the Miss Universe pageant.
Rully Kurniawan is the Elizabeth O’Neil Journalism Awards 2024 awardee. The award commemorates the distinguished career of Elizabeth O’Neill OAM who died in service of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Indonesia on 7 March 2007. It is awarded to one journalist from Indonesia and one journalist from Australia each year and is open to high-achieving journalists from print, radio, television and online media organisations at any stage of their career. Rully is host of ‘Rully Files’, a prime-time program on CNN Indonesia that goes beyond the headlines with in-depth reporting and investigations. Rully is Chief of Correspondents overseeing junior and associate correspondents’ coverage related to International Politics, Economy & Business as well as Lifestyle. Throughout his journalistic career spanning over 20 years, he has held several prestigious positions, ranging from executive producer and news anchor. He is also involved in numerous international fellowships concerning global issues.
Charlotte Adorjan is an award-winning copywriter and creative director with an advertising career spanning 25 years across London and Melbourne. Her work has won awards at shows including Cannes Lions and D&AD – including winning for long-form film writing for the racism project, Dear White Parents shot by Academy Award nominee, Kevin Wilson, Jr. She is also co-founder of Woodism, an art collective championing neurodiverse thinking. Woodism work is now held in the permanent collection of the V&A Museum, London.
Will McCallum is a Naarm/Melbourne-based documentary producer, writer and director who has spent much of his career producing videos from a base in China and then Hong Kong. He is a producer and director of Waŋgany Mala (2024), a feature-length documentary amplifying the ongoing ‘Makassan’ ties between Australian First Nations and Sulawesi, Indonesia. The film was made in collaboration with Gumatj and Anindilyakwa Knowledge Holders, and has screened at festivals across Australia, Indonesia and beyond.
Sekar Sari is an actor, dancer, and researcher from Indonesia who is currently based in Melbourne. She has received numerous acting awards including the Best Performance on Silver Screen Award at the Singapore International Film Festival (2014), the Best Actress Award at the Usmar Ismail Awards (2016), Best Young Actor at the Indonesian Movie Actors Awards (2016), and the Indonesia’s Young Iconic Actress Award by Top10 Asia. Sekar has a master’s degree in dance Knowledge, Practice, and Heritage from Choreomundus, an Erasmus Mundus program, and is now pursuing her doctoral research at the University of Melbourne. Her current artistic research thoughtfully explores Indonesian dance films as intercultural cinema, touching on themes such as transnational and diasporic cinema, multicultural realism, embodied expression on screen, and the roles of cultural and soft power diplomacy.
Samuel Hordern majored in Film/TV production and international relations at Bond University and since then has been involved in funding humanitarian projects in Southeast Asia. In 2018 he worked with Dick Cook the former Chairman of Disney to establish the Dick Cook Studios in Melbourne. He has consulted with various film funds and international productions in Australia and abroad. Samuel has a deep passion for Asia as well as Australia and is in active development with projects in China, Indonesia and Australia.
Novi Kurnia is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Science, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), Yogyakarta and a founding member of KAFEIN (Indonesian Film Scholars Association). She is also a researcher at the Centre for Digital Society (CfDS) UGM and Pemantau Regulasi dan Regulator Media (PR2Media). Kurnia completed her doctoral studies at Flinders University in Adelaide, focused on women film directors in post-New Order Indonesia. Her research interests include gender and media, digital literacy, and media regulation. Kurnia is the founder and former director of the Indonesian Film Festival (IFfest!) in Adelaide, South Australia (2006, 2008, 2009). She has served as a jury member and organizer for several film festivals, including Festival Film Dokumenter (FFD), Festival Film Indonesia (FFI), and Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival. Novi was a member of the inaugural ReelOzInd! Jury in 2016.