Rose Kuo has been hired as AFI FEST's artistic director and Shaz
Bennett has been promoted to associate director of programming.

Kuo has been a fixture at Telluride for many years as well as the San
Francisco, Santa Barbara and Mill Valley Festivals, and is also well
known on the circuit as an Asian cinema programming consultant.

'Rose has a gift for spotting emerging talent, as well as a deep
knowledge and appreciation of world cinema,' AFI FEST director
Christian Gaines said. 'Her leadership, along with the considerable
programming talents of Shaz Bennett and Lane Kneedler, has combined to
create a formidable programming team.'

Bennett has served as a senior programmer at AFI FEST for the past
seven years. Prior to that, she worked for the Los Angeles Film
Festival, the San Francisco International Film Festival, and spent
seven years at the Sundance Institute tracking and developing projects
for the summer labs and screening films for the festival.

Kneedler moves into a senior programmer spot after working in the
department on the past two festivals. The 40th anniversary AFI FEST
is scheduled to run from Nov 1-11.

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