Léo Soesanto

Film Critic, France

Léo Soesanto is a Paris-based film journalist and programmer. He studied at Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris.His writing has appeared in such publications as LibérationLes InrockuptiblesVogue ParisPremiere or Grazia. He’s a guest critic on Le Cercle Cinéma (on French TV channel Canal Plus). He was programming director (2012-2018) at Festival International du Film Indépendant de Bordeaux (FIFIB) and programmer (2016-2020) at International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR). At Cannes’ Critics Week, he was a member (2009-2015) of the selection committee for features and has been head of short films selection since 2017. He also worked as a program advisor/moderator for several festivals (Geneva, Valencìa, Utrecht, Cinemasia in Amsterdam). He curated several retrospectives/programs dedicated to Olivier Assayas, Jonathan Caouette, Denis Coté, punk cinema, TV series and Asian diasporas in films. He served on many juries in festivals (Toronto, Vila do Conde, Morelia, Gijón, Winterthur, Kiev…). He wrote L’Aéroport mis en scènes (« The Staged Airport »), a book about the representation of airports in films.