Farooki on APSA Jury board

Mostofa Sarwar Farooki has become the first Bangladeshi to take the juror's position at the Asia Pacific Film Awards, to be held next month in Brisbane, Australia. He will be joined on the board by Chinese academic Zhang Xianmin, Malaysian filmmaker U-Wei Bin Hajisaari, Russian writer-director Alexei Popogrebsky and Iranian actress Negar Javaherian, and the jury will be headed by co-founder of the Busan Film Festival, Kim Dong-ho. 

Farooki was in attendance with Kim Dong-ho when the announcement of the jury was made, at the ongoing 20th Busan Film Festival in Busan, South Korea. Nominations for the APSA UNESCO Award -- for outstanding contribution to the promotion and preservation of the cultural diversity – were also announced there. 

Farooki later posted on Facebook saying he was happy and scared at the same time, to be invited to take a jury position which was filled in the past by the likes of Asghar Farhadi, Shyam Benegal, Jafar Panahi, Shabana Azmi and David Putnam. Saying he was excited to be representing Bangladesh at such a big platform, he said it would be challenging to select the best films from Asia Pacific in the last year.