Michael is the Festival Director of ANIMATION NATION since 2016. He is also the founder of the Singapore Visual Effects and Animation group which has over 4000 members online. Recently, he was a pre-selection jury member of SIGGRAPH ASIA 2023. Also, he was appointed a judge for the World Trailer Awards in 2022 and 2023.

His film and television career spans across many international companies, film festivals and media projects including Oscar-nominated best picture MOULIN ROUGE and HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE. He was previously a board member of the Singapore International Film Festival and played a key role in its relaunch in 2014 where he remains as a company member.

As a film director, he has worked with international superstar JACKIE CHAN for a global UNICEF campaign. He co-founded the very first Australian chapter of ACM/SIGGRAPH in Sydney and was involved with both editions of SIGGRAPH ASIA held in Singapore. He also held the Assistant Director position for the Animation and Digital Arts graduate program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Asia.

Michael is a qualified film archivist from the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York and holds an MA in TV Drama from Goldsmiths College in London.

ABOUT ANIMATION NATION

ANIMATION NATION is the long-running animation film festival in Singapore which was started in 2004 and organised by the Singapore Film Society.  Over several editions throughout the years, it has shown several diverse award-winning animated films including Aardman Animation, Satoshi Kon, Pixar Animation Studios and Bill Plympton. Recent festival guests have been Oscar-winner Domee Shi, VP of Creative at Pixar Animation Studios and Oscar-winner Adam Elliot, director of ‘Mary and Max’ and ‘Harvey Krumpet’.