Forward Future International Jury

(names in alphabetical order)

Widely recognized Chinese director, screenwriter, and actor Feng Xiaogang will be the President of the international jury. From The Dream Factory, to A World Without Thieves, If You Are the One, Aftershock and Back to 1942, his works have left a lasting mark on Chinese cinema.

1998年，《甲方乙方》拿下大众电影百花奖最佳故事片。2007至2009年，其导演的《集结号》斩获百花奖、华表奖、金像奖，而冯小刚个人也凭借此片将百花奖最佳导演、金鸡奖最佳导演、华表奖优秀导演统统收In 1998, The Dream Factory won Best Feature Film at the People's Hundred Flowers Awards. From 2007 to 2009, his film Assembly won Hundred Flowers Awards, Huabiao Film Awards, and the Hong Kong Film Award. Feng Xiaogang himself also won the Best Director Award at Hundred Flowers Awards, the Best Director Award at Golden Rooster Awards, and the Outstanding Director Award at Huabiao Film Awards for this film. In 2012, Back to 1942 premiered in Chinese mainland, once again bringing Feng Xiaogang the Huabiao Award for Outstanding Director, the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Cross-Strait Chinese Film, and Best Feature Film at Beijing International Film Festival. On the global stage, his films have won the Golden Shell at San Sebastián International Film Festival and competed for China at the 79th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.

Feng-style comedies, if they could be tasted, would be Beijing noodles with soybean paste: authentic, hearty, and satisfying. In 1997, Bursting into cinemas in 1997, The Dream Factory racked up 36 million yuan in ticket sales, pioneering China's New Year movie tradition. It was followed by Be There or Be Square, Sorry Baby, and Big Shot's Funeral, each topping the annual box office in succession. That line—“Not the best, just the priciest”—has endured and is still familiar to audiences.

Despite his fame in comedy, His camera has always seeks the unseen people and untold stories. In Assembly, he re-examines war from a personal perspective, allowing a forgotten hero to reclaim the glory he deserves amidst the dust of history. Zooming in from sweeping historical events to everyday homes, Aftershock and Back to 1942 show how families crumble and rebuild in the face of disaster, and how humanity shines through it all. Through moments of joy and sorrow, his films engage audiences, showcasing Feng's unique cinematic charm.

Notably, Feng Xiaogang has a penchant for making cameo appearances. He is the gentle and restrained Chen Jingxiu in Hachiko, the lifelike Du Yuesheng in The Founding of a Republic, and the fleeting yet memorable advisor in Let the Bullets Fly—each character is a miniature stage for his own expression. Just as the Forward Future, section, which embraces innovation and new talent, Feng consistently proves that artistic limits are always worth testing.

Anthony LaMolinara is a Hollywood veteran whose work as a director, animator, and visual effects artist bridges technology and artistry like few others. Starting his career at Pixar, he helped bring Toy Story (1995) to life, the first fully 3D animated film that marks the dawn of digital animation. He later worked on the visual effects for Stuart Little (1999), expertly combining CGI with live-action performances. In 2002, Anthony co-produced the animated short film Alien Adventures, a witty and visually distinctive piece that won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. As a key VFX artist, he contributed to Spider-Man (2002) and Spider-Man 2 (2004), with the first earning an Oscar nomination and the second winning Best Visual Effects at the 77th Academy Awards, cementing his status worldwide. He made his directorial debut in 2005 with The Lonely Matador, a short film showcasing his distinctive style of merging animated expressiveness with live-action narrative.

Throughout his career, Anthony LaMolinarahas been repeatedly nominated and awarded by the Academy Awards (Oscars), BAFTA Awards, and the Visual Effects Society (VES). His work combines the precision of animation, the exact control of visual effects technology, and the artistic fluidity of cinematic narrative. Anthony is a global leader in technical artistry, as well as a filmmaker of rare skill and foresight.

Wei Xiang is a Chinese actor and director, and one of the "meritorious actors" at Fun Age. His filmography features Too Cool to Kill, Pegasus series, Hello Mr. Billionaire, Successor and Lose to Win.

Since joining Fun Age in 2005, Wei Xiang has honed his skills on the drama stage for over a decade. With more than a thousand stage appearances and hundreds of roles under his belt, the media has dubbed him comedy's "face of versatility" and a behind-the-scenes master. In 2017, he performed the skit A Son-in-Law is Half a Son at CCTV Spring Festival Gala. In 2018's Hello Mr. Billionaire, his role as the football coach who can wolf down a whole pig in three bites became an instant classic among viewers. 2022 was a major turning point in his career – his first leading role in a comedy film Too Cool to Kill grossed over 2.6 billion yuan at the box office. Wei Xiang continued to shine in popular films such as Full River Red, YOLO, Pegasus 2, and Detective Chinatown 1900, and won the Most Media-Attended Supporting Actor award at the 22nd China Movie Channel Media Focus Unit for his role in Detective Chinatown 1900. His 2026 Spring Festival release, Pegasus 3, dominated the box office and broke into the top ten in Chinese cinema history. To date, films starring Wei Xiang have grossed over 8.7 billion yuan, with his total film appearances surpassing 43 billion yuan. From bit parts to leading roles, Wei Xiang has proven over twenty years that genuine passion withstands time.

Iván Fund is an Argentine director, screenwriter, and producer, best known for films such as Los Labios, Toublanc, Dusk Stone, and El Mensaje. In 2010, the feature film Los Labios which he co-directed with Santiago Loza was selected for "Un Certain Regard" section of the 63rd Cannes International Film Festival, gaining international attention for the first time. In 2017, his crime film Toublanc was nominated Competition Section at the 39th Nantes Three Continents Film Festival. In 2021, his feature film Dusk Stone was selected for the Venice Days section of the 78th Venice International Film Festival, it was also in competition for the Horizons Award at the 69th San Sebastián International Film Festival, further establishing his distinctive auteur style. At the start of 2025, his new film El Mensaje was selected Competition Section the 75th Berlin International Film Festival and won Silver Bear Jury Prize; it was later screened in the Competition Section at the 15th Beijing International Film Festival and won Best Artistic Contribution, Best Cinematography and Best Supporting Actress Award. In the same year, he also served as a jury member for Golden Goblet Awards at the 27th Shanghai International Film Festival.

He is known as a coldly philosophical voice in Argentine cinema. His cinematography wanders through the liminal space between fantasy and reality. He has a gift for crafting time's textures through simple, restrained imagery. Memory’s remnants and the exile of identity are central in his films, in which the unsettling gaps between words and silence evoke a captivating Latin Gothic ambiance. Each frame appears to pose the question: when the world is mute, where does the soul reside?

Chang Chia-lu is a screenwriter and producer from Taiwan, China. His representative works include A World Without Thieves, The Message, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame and Mystery Mojin - The Lost Legend. Between 2010 and 2018, he penned the scripts for three films in the "Detective Dee" series: Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon and Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings. In 2015, the action fantasy film Mojin - The Lost Legend for which he served as screenwriter, was released, and he was nominated for Best Screenplay at the 23rd Beijing College Student Film Festival. In recent years, Chang Chia-lu has shifted his focus towards producing, supervising, and supporting new talents. In 2022, he joined the jury for the 16th FIRST International Film Festival. In 2024, the films he produced, I Love You, to the Moon, and Back and Moments We Shared were released.

He moves effortlessly across genres, from city absurdities and mysterious crimes to fantastical epics, while delving into the emotional depth of his characters within mainstream films. As a screenwriter who balances commercial success with artistic pursuit in the Chinese film industry, he doesn’t pander to audiences. Instead, he finds equilibrium between disciplined genre craft and sincere expression, while actively mentoring young creators and injecting fresh energy into the industry.

With this star-studded jury now assembled, the curtain for the Forward Future is about to rise. Maybe the answers we’re looking for will reveal themselves as the future unfolds. Join us in Beijing this spring to enjoy the best films, and don’t miss the latest at Forward Future!