The Asian Film Academy (AFA) has named Mohsen Makhmalbaf as its dean for the year. Run jointly by the Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) and Dongseo University, the intensive Talent Campus-style workshop is in its third year.

Iranian veteran director Makhmalbaf (Kandahar, Sex And Philosophy), who also runs his own film school, is the head the Makhmalbaf family of filmmakers and a regular at PIFF where he won the Asian Filmmaker of the Year Award in 2003.

He is joined on the faculty by Thai director Pen-ek Ratanaruang, whose most recent film Ploy was in the Cannes Directors' Fortnight, and Japanese cinematographer and professor Kurita Toyomichi, who shot films such as Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune and Oshima Nagisa's Gohatto.

The directors will guide the AFA students in master classes, seminars and short film production, exploring the themes of 'Asian cinema' and 'identity as an Asian filmmaker'.

AFA closed admissions May 31 and is to announce its participants on July 2. The workshop will run Sept 27 - Oct 13 in Busan, where it will screen the two short films produced by its students during the Pusan International Film Festival.

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