Kirpi Uimonen Ballesteros, Barbara Gasser and Mirai Konishi Join the HFPA HOLLYWOOD, CA, May 9, 2011 – Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) President, Philip Berk, announced today that three journalists have been elected as new members of the organization: Kirpi Uimonen Ballesteros, Barbara Gasser and Mirai Konishi. Ballesteros, who writes for the Ilta-Sanomat, Kouluainen, and Suosikki (Finland), Gasser, who writes for M-Starmedia Verlag and Maxima (Austria), and Konishi, who writes for CUT and eiga.com (Japan), were voted in at the membership meeting on May 6, 2011. The three new members join the association’s current roster of 82 active members. About the Hollywood Foreign Press Association: Founded in the 1940s during World War II, the HFPA was originally comprised of a handful of LA based overseas journalists who sought to bridge the international community with Hollywood, and to provide distraction from the hardships of war through film.  Sixty-eight years later, members of the HFPA represent 55 countries with a combined readership of 250 million in some of the world’s most respected publications.  Each year, the organization holds the third most watched awards show on television, the Golden Globe Awards, which have enabled the organization to donate more than $12 million to entertainment related charities and scholarship programs. For more information, please visit www.hfpa.org, and follow us on Twitter (@goldenglobes) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/goldenglobes) for exclusive celebrity videos and up to the minute Golden Globes news!

# # #

Press Contacts: Keleigh Thomas/Michael Samonte Sunshine, Sachs & Associates goldenglobes@sunshinesachs.com 323.822.9300