Filmex was an annual Los Angeles film festival held in the 1970s and early 1980s. It was the predecessor of the American Film Institute's Los Angeles International Film Festival. After the final Filmex festival in 1983, the founders/organizers of the festival devoted their attentions to developing a new nonprofit cultural organization, the American Cinematheque, which they created to be a permanent year-round film festival in Los Angeles.

Tsai Ming-liang (Chinese: 蔡明亮; pinyin: Cài Míngliàng) (born October 27, 1957) is one of the most celebrated "Second New Wave" film directors of Taiwanese Cinema, along with earlier contemporaries such as Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Edward Yang. His films have been acclaimed worldwide and have won numerous film festival awards.

Tsai was born in Malaysia of Chinese ethnic background and spent his first 20 years of his life in Kuching, Sarawak, after which he moved to Taipei, Taiwan. This, he says, had "a huge impact on [his] mind and psyche," perhaps later mirrored in his films. "Even today," says Tsai, "I feel I belong neither to Taiwan nor to Malaysia. In a sense, I can go anywhere I want and fit in, but I never feel that sense of belonging."

He graduated from the Drama and Cinema Department of the Chinese Culture University of Taiwan in 1982 and worked as a theatrical producer, screenwriter, and television director in Hong Kong.

Tsai's film honours include a Golden Lion (best picture) for Vive L'Amour at the Venice Film Festival in 1994; the Silver Bear - Special Jury Prize for The River at the 47th Berlin International Film Festival; the FIPRESCI award for The Hole at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival; and the Alfred Bauer Award and Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Achievement for The Wayward Cloud at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival.

Park Jin-young (Hangul: 박진영, Hanja: 朴軫泳; born January 13, 1972), also known as J.Y. Park or JYP, is a singer, songwriter, dancer, actor, record producer and the former CEO and founder of JYP Entertainment, a major artist management/record label of Korean pop music. He is best known for his songs called “Don’t Leave Me”, “Elevator”, “She Was Pretty”, “Honey”, “Kiss”, “Your House”. He founded JYP Entertainment in 1997, composing and producing several singles and albums for various singers in South Korea including g.o.d., Park Ji-yoon, Rain, Byul, Wonder Girls, 2AM, 2PM, miss A, JJ Project

Park was born in Seoul, Korea on January 13, 1972. He graduated from BaeMyung High School, and he earned his bachelor’s degree from Yonsei University.

In 1992, Park debuted as a group called ‘Park Jin-Young and the New Generation,’ but it was not successful. In 1994, he debuted as a solo singer with the new album Blue City featured the song “Don’t Leave Me”, and it was successful.

Park has released seven albums. He followed Blue City with his second album Tantara in 1995. His third album Summer Jingle Bell came out in 1997 and featured the hit song "She Was Pretty". His fourth album Even After 10 Years (1998) featured the song "Honey", and his seventh album Back To Stage (2007) featured the song "Kiss". While maintaining his status as a successful artist, he has also composed and produced over 31 charting singles and 25 albums for various groups in South Korea including Rain and Wonder Girls.

Shion Sono (園 子温, Sono Shion^?, born December 20, 1961) is a controversial Japanese filmmaker and poet. He was born in Toyokawa, Aichi, Japan, and is best known for his films as well as avant-garde poetry performances.

Sono began his career as a poet in 1978 when he was only 17 years old. His poems appeared in popular Japanese publications such as The Modern Poem Book. Afterwards, he enrolled at Hosei University, but left school in mid-course and began making 8 mm films. In 1985, he debuted in the PIA Film Festival with a 30-min experimental short movie, I Am Sion Sono!! (Ore wa Sion Sono da!!), a selection of his poetry being read by him on the screen. In 1987, he participated with the movie A Man's Hanamichi (Otoko no Hanamichi), and won the Grand Prize.

After receiving a fellowship with the PIA, Sono made his first feature-length 16 mm film in 1990, Bicycle Sighs (Jitensha Toiki), which he co-wrote, directed, and starred himself. A coming-of-age tale about two underachievers in the perfectionist Japan, Bicycle Sighs settled Sono as a director with great box office success in Japan, and for nearly two years was played over 30 film festivals around Europe and Asia. In 1992, Sono's second feature film The Room (Heya), also written by himself, a bizarre tale about a serial killer looking for a room in a bleak, doomed Tokyo district, participated at the Tokyo Sundance Film Festival and won the Special Jury Prize. The Room also toured on 49 festivals worldwide, including the Berlin Film Festival and the Rotterdam Film Festival.