Matthew Tan
Film Critic, Malaysia
Matthew’s work as a film critic, scholar and filmmaker intersects closely with his interests in philosophy, heritage and migration. He holds a BA in Film and Philosophy from New York University, and an MSt in Film Aesthetics from the University of Oxford as a Chevening Scholar, where his thesis advanced a metamodern criticism of contemporary Malaysian cinema. His films have been screened at DocEdge, SSFF & Asia, the BFI and the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Feature credits include assistant-editing AI: African Intelligence (Berlinale 2023) and Angela Davis: A World of Greater Freedom (Sharjah Biennial 2023).
Matthew currently lectures in film at the Faculty of Cinematic Arts in Multimedia University, Malaysia. His academic work has been published by Routledge and Palgrave Macmillan. In 2024, he was invited to present his research on the intersection between Buddhist eco-philosophy and embodied film spectatorship at the Film Criticism Conference in Riyadh, and most recently in 2025 he served as a jury member at the 23rd Dhaka International Film Festival. Matthew was previously an Image Nation Abu Dhabi (Arab Film Studio) Screenwriting Fellow, an NYU Cross-Cutting Initiative on Equality (Op-Ed Project) Fellow, and a Writer-in-Residence with the performing arts company Exit 11.