Sandra NG

---

Award-winning actor Sandra Ng is a mainstay of Hong Kong cinema, from her iconic comedic performances reaching back to the 1980s through to more serious roles and recent work as a director and producer. A household name as Hong Kong’s ‘Queen of Comedy’, her films have been consistent box-office smashes throughout the decades in her native film industry, and her versatility has also been recognized at the Hong Kong film award and Golden Horse award for her powerhouse dramatic performances. Sandra Ng’s international accolades are numerous, that include Crystal Bear award at the 60^th Berlin Film Festival and becoming the New York Asian Film Festival’s first female recipient of the Star Asia award back in 2014. She both produced and starred in 2021 hit ZERO TO HERO, Hong Kong’s submission to the 2021 Academy Awards, and honored to be the Filmmaker In Focus at the Hong Kong International Film Festival in 2022 in recognition of her outstanding artistic and commercial contribution to her native film industry.

Chen Yu

---

Chen Yu is a screenwriter and director. He is a professor at the School of Arts, Peking University. He is a member of China Film Directors’ Guild and a member of China Writers Association. He is a researcher and practitioner of genre narrative theory, as well as a creator of the “editorial and directorial integration”. His original and scriptwriting works include the films FULL RIVER RED, ROCK SOLID, SNIPER, and the TV series HEROES OF THE STATE GATE. His directing works include the films EGG FRIED RICE, STAR DIARY and GIRL’S DIARY. He has published hundreds of thousands of words of books and papers, such as A Comparative Outline of Film and Theatre Ontology and Reading Film in Yan Yuan: Industry and Aesthetics of Images of the Times. He has been honored by the “Four Batches” of talents and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television as one of the leading talents in the national radio, television and network audiovisual industry.

Gao Qunshu

---

Gao Qunshu is a director and executive producer in China. He initially started his career as a journalist. He gained widespread recognition for his directorial work on the TV drama series CONQUER which is acclaimed as one of the most explosive crime dramas in recent years. In 2006, he made his directorial debut with the film TOKYO TRIAL, which unearthed the memories sealed away for sixty years in the hearts of Chinese people. TOKYO TRIAL received the Special Jury Prize at the 8^th Changchun Film Festival. Following his successful debut, Gao Qunshu continued to direct notable films such as THE MESSAGE, OLD FISH and BEIJING BLUES. These outstanding works have earned him numerous awards, including the Golden Goblet Award for Best Director at the Shanghai International Film Festival and the Best Feature Film at the Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards. His completed films SEVEN KILLINGS and THREE OLD BOYS are also scheduled for release in the near future. Gao Qunshu’s contributions as executive producer have had a significant impact on the industry, nurturing a considerable number of exceptional directors, producers, and actors, who have become the backbone of the Chinese film and television industry.

Mai Jia

---

Mai Jia is a writer and screenwriter, winner of the Mao Dun Literature and Vice Chairman of the Chinese Writers’ Association. He is the author of several full-length novels, including UNRAVELING THE SECRET, PLOT AGAINST, THE MESSAGE, and THE SEA OF LIFE, among which Unraveling the Secret won the Sixth National Book Award, THE MESSAGE won the Sixth Annual Novelist Award for Chinese Media Literature, and PLOT AGAINST won the Seventh Mao Dun Literature Award. He has written more than 150 episodes (parts) of screenplays, including PLOT AGAINST, which won the Best Screenplay Award at the 13^th Shanghai International TV Festival, and The Underground Sky, which won the Best TV Series Award at the Golden Eagle TV Festival. His works have been translated into 33 languages and UNRAVELING THE SECRET and PLOT AGAINST have been selected as one of the two contemporary novels in the “Penguin Classics” library in the UK, which are the only two Chinese novels included in the library so far. In 2014, Declassified was named one of the “Top 10 Global Novels of the Year” by The Economist; in 2015, it won the CALA Best Book Award; and in 2017, it was selected by The Daily Telegraph as one of the “20 Best Spy Novels of All Time”.