Dominic Patten

Dominic Patten is the Arts&Life editor and Chief Features editor of the Vancouver Sun . Once a volunteer for VIFF in the better part of what was otherwise a wasted youth, Patten has written for The New York Times , the Globe and Mail , Salon.com , the Washington Times , the Toronto Star , Air Canada's in-flight magazine En Route and the National Post, among others. Formerly the culture correspondent for Canada's CTV National News, Patten also was the co-creator and host of “21(c),” CTV's groundbreaking prime-time youth current affairs series. As well, Patten has worked on numerous documentaries such as The Riot at Christie Pits and Citytv's Spacejunk . He was also a producer and on-air correspondent for CBC-TV's award-winning media series “Undercurrents.”

Gerard Ungerman

With both a military and journalistic background, Gerard Ungerman started producing independent documentary films with his wife Audrey Brohy in 1995. Motivated by an acute sense of justice and respect for nature, Gerard's work is characterized by a constant dual focus on human rights and the environment. Productions include the internationally acclaimed Hidden Wars of Desert Storm , The Oil Factor , Plan Colombia: Cashing-In on the Drug War Failure and Peru: Between the Hammer & the Anvil . His current productions deal with issues of global pollution and responsible energy use.

You, the Audience

For the first time ever, as far as we can determine, audience members—through voting for their favourite "Climate for Change" films—will collectively be on equal footing with the other two esteemed jurors in determining the winner of the Kyoto Planet "Climate for Change" Award of $25,000. Festival Director Alan Franey will act as the audience's proxy by representing the results of audience voting and standing in as their "voice" in jury deliberations. In the spirit of the Kyoto Planet philosophy—where every little bit helps—your small act of voting could help an environmentally conscious filmmaker take the first step toward making her/his next film!

Jang Sun-Woo

Kong Rithdee

Kong Rithdee has been the film critic of the Bangkok Post , Thailand's leading English-language newspaper, since 1998. Besides his reviews, he writes Op-Ed commentary on politics and pop-culture for the newspaper. His work also appears in Variety and Film Comment . Kong is associated with the Thai Film Foundation, an organization that hosts the Thai Short Film and Video Festival and promotes independent filmmaking in Thailand.

Colin MacCabe

Colin MacCabe is a film producer and critic. His latest productions are Chris Marker's installation  Owls at Noon Prelude: The Hollow Men (2005) and Isaac Julien's biopic Derek Jarman (in post-production). In addition, he has produced numerous documentaries on aspects of cinema history and the individuals who have helped shape it. His latest books are on T.S. Eliot and The Butcher Boy. He teaches at the University of Pittsburgh and Birkbeck, University of London.

Canada's foremost First Nations' female actor, Tantoo Cardinal came to international prominence through her performance in Anne Wheeler's feature film Loyalties (1986). Since then she has acted in numerous plays, television shows and films, including Dances with Wolves, Legends of the Fall and last year's Unnatural and Accidental . For her contributions to the First Nations' artistic community, Cardinal won the Eagle Spirit Award in 1990. Other awards include the 1993 Outstanding Achievement Award from Toronto Women in Film and Television and an International Women in Film Award for her contribution to the arts.

Ann Marie Fleming is an independent filmmaker, writer and artist based in Vancouver. She works in a variety of different genres and formats: animation, dramatic, documentary and experimental, often working with the themes of family, history, memory and issues of violence in a continuing media critique. Her films include " M.O.O.D . (2006),  The French Guy (2005), Blue Skies (2002), and New Shoes (90), among others. She has recently completed her first graphic novel, The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam , based on her award-winning 2003 feature-length documentary of the same name.

Joanne Yamaguchi, a web film critic primarily for indie films, taught film history, aesthetics and production at the University of British Columbia for many years. Research includes work done at the Pasolini Foundation in Rome, assisted by the Fulbright Commission. She taught film for the cultural studies department at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, and is working currently as a corporate ethics advisor, while continuing to write film criticism and film scripts.

Peter Brunette

Peter Brunette reviews films for the British trade journal Screen International at the major festivals around the world. He is also Reynolds Professor of Film Studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, and the author or editor of seven books on film, including studies of Roberto Rossellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Wong Kar-wai. He has done the commentary on the DVD of Antonioni's Blow-up and co-commentaries for the Criterion Collection on the DVDs of Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player and Fellini's Amarcord . His current projects include books on Italian director Luchino Visconti and Austrian director Michael Haneke.

Robert Gray

An international film festival regular, Robert Gray moderates press conferences and works as a publicist in Cannes, Toronto, Rotterdam, New York, Montreal and Berlin. Michael Haneke, Catherine Breillat, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne and Ulrich Seidl regularly call on his services as an interpreter. At his day job as director of Kinograph ., which specializes in film translation, he has subtitled many of Canada's best-known films from the last 20 years, including L'Âge des ténèbres, Silk, Fugitive Pieces, The 3 Little Pigs, The Barbarian Invasions, Seducing Dr. Lewis, The Saddest Music in the World, and Jesus of Montreal. For DVD box sets he has subtitled the works of Pierre Perrault, Jacques Brault, Pierre Hébert and Norman McLaren.

Gerald Peary