Meet the
Artists
Online Program

Uzbekistan-born and Russia-raised, Alia Azamat Ashkenazi has received two United Nations Awards for her documentary work and theater direction. She now writes and directs films in the United States and Europe and directs commercials for clients including Netflix and General Motors.

As reported by Variety, she is preparing to direct Children of Nowhere, a historical drama set on Réunion Island with Laëtitia Eïdo attached to lead. Her other narrative work includes the featurette Esther's Choice starring François Arnaud, the sold spec The Russian Adoption, and the thriller Prima, co-written with Allie Avital and starring Nicola Peltz-Beckham, Faye Dunaway, and Mira Sorvino, now in post-production.

Courtney Botfield is a film distribution and marketing specialist with over 20 years’ experience in independent film across development, production, distribution and exhibition in Australia and the UK, having worked for leading film outfits including Roadshow Films, Transmission Films, Palace Cinemas and the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Courtney was the recipient of the 2015 Natalie Miller Fellowship, which recognises the next generation of female leaders in the Australian screen community. She is known for Dreamboat (upcoming), Dance Academy: The Movie (2017) and Romulus, My Father (2007).

Stephanie Bridger is a producer. She produced Maid of Dishonor, the second feature from writer-director Jenna Laurenzo, alongside Hull Five Studio and Gulfstream Pictures. The romantic comedy stars Emily Hampshire, Theo Rossi, and Laurenzo and is in post-production.

Lilly Bright is a filmmaker, choreographer, movement facilitator, and performer. In 2003 she founded Curiously Bright Entertainment, producing the cult classic The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, directed by Asia Argento, and later founded Arthouse Films, which ran the 2011 Oscar campaigns for Waste Land and William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe and released Basquiat: The Radiant Child.

She is making a feature dance docu-narrative about freedom and belonging through GAGA, the movement language created by Ohad Naharin, with whom she has trained for a decade. A West Virginia native and Northwestern alumna, she lives in the Colorado Rockies with her two children.

David Brownstein, PCC, CPCC, is an executive and leadership coach specializing in the entertainment and technology industries. He has coached executives and creative leaders at Google, Disney/ABC, NBC/Universal, CBS-TV, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Bros. TV, HBO, MTV Networks, the BBC, and many others.

He was named one of the Top 100 Thought Leaders by Leadership Excellence Magazine and has been featured in the New York Times, CNN, the Hollywood Reporter, and Vogue. He is Adjunct Faculty and a Coach-in-Training Supervisor for the Co-Creative Alliance. He holds a BA in Filmmaking and Psychology from Hampshire College.

Patrice Cochet is a French cinematographer with an MFA from the American Film Institute and a four-time Sundance alumnus. He has shot more than 30 scripted features and over 30 projects for TV, commercials, and music videos, and has mentored filmmakers at the Sundance Directors Lab and Columbia College Hollywood.

His credits include Better Luck Tomorrow, The End of Love, The Good Life, and Joshy, and his work on Explicit Ills earned a special jury award for Best Cinematography at SXSW. The Hollywood Reporter called his work technically scorching and emotionally raw.

Sarena Cohen is an Egyptian-American writer, filmmaker, and creative collaborator from New Jersey whose work spans film, television, and character-driven storytelling. She earned a BS in Film and Television Production from Boston University, with additional studies in philosophy, religion, and experimental filmmaking with Jon Jost.

She has written for Marc Cherry's Why Women Kill, was a staff writer on the Untitled David O. Russell Project, and worked on the feature rewrite of The Bends for Reed Morano. She served as a producer on David O. Russell's Amsterdam and the Prada short film Past Forward, and earlier worked alongside Jean-Marc Vallée on Wild and Demolition. She is completing a 500-hour certification as a trauma-informed mindfulness facilitator (CMT-P), bringing contemplative practices to underserved communities.

Angela Cohen is an award-winning writer, director, and actress. She has produced films that screened at Sundance and qualified for the Oscars, and has acted opposite Al Pacino and Ann Dowd. With a degree in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology from Emory, she works extensively in virtual reality and was selected by Google for its inaugural JUMPSTART initiative.

Her short There Can Be Light premiered at HollyShorts and was executive produced by Marci Wiseman. She founded Charley Bear Productions, is producing director of GlowMedia Films, a nonprofit for teen mental health literacy, and was a 2024 AWD Rising Director Fellow.

David Cohen is a filmmaker and editor whose work has screened at Sundance, Venice, Tribeca, SXSW, and Hot Docs. His editing credits include the 2x Emmy-nominated Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, the SXSW Special Jury Award–winning Christopher at Sea, the 2x Emmy-nominated Love, Gilda, and the Emmy-winning The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales. He co-directed LOVE & STUFF with Judith Helfand.

His work has been supported by ITVS, the MacArthur Foundation, Sundance Institute, and Ford Foundation's JustFilms, and published by NYT Op-Docs. He has taught at Columbia, SCAD, and UC Santa Cruz, and is co-directing a documentary feature while developing his first fiction feature.

Joely Collins is an internationally recognized, award-winning producer, director, and actress who has created and sold content to global markets. Her film Never Broken won Best Short at the Lady Filmmakers Festival and the Benelux International Film Festival.

Born in Vancouver and raised on Canada's West Coast and in England, she founded Million Faces Productions to create films, drama series, and unscripted content featuring strong female leads and filmmakers across Canada, the US, and Europe. She is an advocate for human rights and the ethical treatment of animals.

Eleanor Drewry is a script editor and filmmaker who spent years in book publishing, assessing, commissioning, and editing manuscripts across genres and formats. Eleanor's favorite part of the work was interrogating writing choices with love and care to make stories as emotionally impactful as they can be.

Eleanor moved from books to scripts through Eleven Film's Duly Noted training program, and sees the script editor as the custodian of the story: a steady bridge between writer and production company, measuring success not only by the final product but by how supported each writer feels along the way. Eleanor is currently developing a documentary about the von Trapp family in collaboration with FLMS alumna Alexa Schultz.

The Watermelon Woman won Berlin's Teddy Award and lives in MoMA's permanent collection. She directs Bridgerton, Lovecraft Country, and Queen Sugar, and runs Jingletown Films.

Vince Duque has worked in film and television at the Hollywood studio level since 1995, primarily as an assistant director, and has produced independent projects of his own. Now based in Paris, he is dedicated to developing his personal voice across storytelling mediums, with an emphasis on his perspective as a Filipino-American artist, and is looking for creative teammates for the stories ahead.

Julia Eringer is an actor, writer, and director based in Los Angeles. Her film credits include the lead in Girls Like Magic, Mia in Good Kisser, Dina in Fox Trap, and Kal Penn's love interest in Better Off Single; on stage, she appeared in The American Wife at London's Park Theatre.

She will be seen as Sky in the psychedelic romcom Paring, directed by Jett Garrison, and as Lyssa in Making Estrangements. She trained at Drama Centre London, HB Studio, and Carter Thor, and is a member of the acting co-op The Collaborative.

Nathan Firn is a Los Angeles–based director with Escape Velocity Content. Born in Germany and raised in nearly every region of the United States, he has never called a single place home, an upbringing that gave him deep empathy, adaptability, and an obsession with observation.

Undeterred by language, location, or subject, he has directed branded content on five continents, including nationally broadcast campaigns for Coca-Cola, American Express, Shell, Airbnb, and Mizuno, and is known for honest, thoughtful, and intimate portrayals of people. His most recent narrative short, Eldest, screened at the 2018 Reykjavík International Film Festival.

Jonathan Friedman attended James Madison University, graduating with a degree in Mass Communications. Over the years he has made use of his talents as a musician, writer, graphic designer, and filmmaker. In the graphics world, he is best known for his design of the best-selling Conversations with God books, which have sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. In 2002 Jonathan co-wrote, produced, directed, and edited the independent feature film Moving, an irreverent comedy that drew great critical praise for its craftsmanship and ingenuity on a budget of under $9,000. It was called one of the funniest independent films of the year by FilmThreat, won Best Screenplay at the Digital Visions Film Festival, and was picked up for national distribution. Jonathan was recently awarded one million dollars in the Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” competition, winning out against over 6,000 other submissions; his commercial, Man’s Best Friend, aired during the game and placed #1 on the USA Today ad meter. He lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and is working on several creative projects, including an independent feature with his brother Matthew.

Seth Gabel is an actor known for his roles as Agent Lincoln Lee on Fringe, Cotton Mather on Salem, Adrian Moore on Nip/Tuck, and Jeremy Darling on Dirty Sexy Money. His television work also includes Arrow, American Horror Story, Billions, Big Sky, and The Watcher, and his film credits include Take Me Home Tonight and The Da Vinci Code.

A graduate of NYU Tisch, he has built a career spanning more than 25 years across film and television and is now channeling that experience into screenwriting.

Ernie Gilbert is a director of shorts and music videos including Easy 8 (2018) and Nine Minutes (2017), and an editor known for Opus (2025) and Childish Gambino: This Is America (2018).

Winner of the 2025 Kyoto Prize — one of the world's highest honors — for a lifetime challenging conventional theories of moral development. Her 1982 landmark In a Different Voice was called “the little book that started a revolution” and named her among Time's 25 most influential Americans; she originated the ethics of care. Her latest novel, Solstice, explores love and selfhood across a decades-long marriage.

At 25, Emily Ziff Griffin co-founded Cooper's Town Productions with Philip Seymour Hoffman, producing the Academy Award–winning Capote, Jack Goes Boating, and God's Pocket. She is the author of the YA novel Light Years (Simon & Schuster), adapted for television with Amblin, and her essays have appeared in The New Yorker, the LA Times, and the Yale Review.

She wrote on the Apple TV+ limited series about Hedy Lamarr, and Amazon MGM Studios optioned her short story Morning Person for a feature she is writing. She co-founded the Industry Professional Mentorship Program at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

Amy Miller Gross makes films that draw on her background in clinical social work. She studied film and theater at UW–Madison and the NYU Film Academy, then worked at VH1, Paramount Pictures, and in commercial production. Seeking a deeper understanding of human behavior, she earned an MSW from Columbia University and worked as a therapist, including at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.

She wrote and directed the feature Sister of the Groom (2020), starring Alicia Silverstone and Tom Everett Scott and distributed by Saban Films. She is a member of Film Fatales.

Born in Omaha, Kristin Hahn moved to Los Angeles at 18 to attend USC Film School. She co-founded Plan B Entertainment with Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt, serving as executive producer on the Academy Award–winning The Departed. She and Aniston then formed Echo Films, producing The Switch, Cake, Dumplin', and Murder Mystery 1 & 2, and executive producing The Morning Show (Apple TV+). She also founded Hahnscape Entertainment in 2015.

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Mariana Hellmund founded Lazulita Films as a platform for fiction and nonfiction work. She directed, co-wrote, and produced The Aspern Papers, an adaptation of Henry James' novella filmed in Choroní, Venezuela, and starring Brooke Smith. She created the travel series Sonia's Travels and its spin-off Almost Free: Miami for Scripps Networks.

Amaya Herrington is a poet and musician based in Tucson, Arizona. Bilingual in English and Spanish, she grew up playing piano and also plays guitar. She lives for improvisation and uses her body, particularly her feet, as its own class of percussion. She is working on a record exploring call and response in possible and impossible ways, and seeks collaboration and community to "wizard up our music together."

Alexandra Hsu is a Chinese American director and producer from Orange County, California. Her short films give voice to untold stories, often centering Asian and Asian American women across generations. She co-wrote, directed, and produced Sophie in Hong Kong, which screened at more than fifteen festivals including Austin Film Festival and Foyle. Her 1960s period film Our Way Home premiered at Oscar-qualifying HollyShorts.

In 2021 she directed Unread for the inaugural CBS Leadership Pipeline Challenge. She was an SFFILM FilmHouse resident (2019–2020), developing her feature Queens, and is a Creator in the Gold House Futures Network. She is developing a feature about her great-grandmother Zhang Youyi, currently titled The Poet's Wife. MFA, NYU Tisch; BA, Scripps College.

Originally from Bosnia, Azra Isakovic lived as a refugee in Germany before immigrating to the United States. She created Project Golden to celebrate immigrant voices in Los Angeles, using VR storytelling for advocacy.

She produced #Murder (2020); the Humanitas Prize–winning short Sevap/Mitzvah (2023), about a Muslim woman who risks her life to save Jewish friends in Nazi-occupied Bosnia; and Ausgang, Sofie (2024). Having seen the effects of war and immigration on family and identity, she explores those themes throughout her work.

Born in Texas, Malia James left home at 18 to tour the world as a photographer. In London she joined a band the day she started playing bass, going on to play in Dum Dum Girls and with Marnie Stern, performing on David Letterman and singing alongside Debbie Harry and Brian Eno.

She moved into directing music videos for Red Hot Chili Peppers, Interpol, Green Day, Halsey, MØ, Troye Sivan, and Rita Ora, and commercials for Google, Adidas, Captain Morgan, and Bose. She is represented by Imposter for commercial and branded content and is now writing her first feature.

Nikhil Kamkolkar is a New Jersey–based writer and filmmaker who combines storytelling with a keen understanding of technology. His debut feature, Indian Cowboy, reflects on the complexities of identity, and The Dark Between Us brings mental health in the South Asian community to the forefront through genre film.

His original pilots in sci-fi, horror, and thriller have been recognized in Final Draft Big Break and ScreenCraft, and he was invited to the Unreal Engine Animation Fellowship in 2023.

Lena Khan is a writer and director and a graduate of UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television. Her debut feature, The Tiger Hunter, starring Danny Pudi, released in more than 70 cities to strong reviews from the New York Times and LA Times. Disney then tapped her to direct Flora & Ulysses, among the top streamed films worldwide for multiple weeks.

She has directed episodes of Never Have I Ever, executive produced the Oscar-nominated documentary short Stranger at the Gate, and directed Best of the Best, a Bollywood-fusion dance comedy premiering on Netflix in September 2026.

Sarah LaBrie is a TV writer and the author of No One Gets to Fall Apart (HarperCollins, 2024), a New York Times Editors' Pick and Notable Book of the Year named a best memoir of the year by Elle, NPR, and Esquire. She has written for Minx, Blindspotting, Made for Love, and Love, Victor, and her libretti have been performed at Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Apollo Theater.

She has received fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Ucross, Sewanee, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She holds a BA from Brown and an MFA from NYU, teaches in the MFA of the Americas program at Stetson University, and lives in Los Angeles.

Kiki Lambden-Stout is a director, writer, and producer and the founder of Mudcat Films. Her directorial debut, Father's Day, premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. She wrote The Plural of Blood (2017) and The Three Resurrections of Anika Blue (2024).

She serves as President of the Austin Film Society board. She holds degrees from UT Austin (Journalism) and The New School (MFA) and attended Columbia University. A woman of Chickasaw descent, she focuses on stories of gender and race.

Christopher Ryan Laughter is a writer, director, and producer. Through his agency Studio Laughter, he creates purpose-driven documentaries for brands including Microsoft, League of Legends, Sony PlayStation, adidas Originals, and Behr Paint.

In 2016 he co-founded the Assorted Kinds collective, producing 25 short films by 2020 to uplift under-resourced filmmakers. His own shorts blend dark drama with surreal comedy and have screened at genre festivals worldwide. He was Associate Producer on the psychological horror feature The Deep Dark (2022) and is developing the feature Beach House with fellow member Alle Hsu, who is set to direct.

Jenna Laurenzo is an award-winning filmmaker. She wrote, directed, and starred in her debut feature Lez Bomb, which won the Best Narrative Jury Award at the Bentonville Film Festival; executive produced by Bobby Farrelly and starring Cloris Leachman and Bruce Dern, it is now on Peacock. She can be seen in Peter Farrelly's Green Book. Her next feature, Maid of Dishonor, is in post-production, and she is developing her viral series Girl Night Stand (44M+ views).

Georgia Lee won the Tribeca Film Festival with her debut feature Red Doors (2005). In 2000, Martin Scorsese selected her as his on-set apprentice on Gangs of New York. In television, she wrote and produced The Expanse (Amazon) and The 100 (CW), sold pilots to CBS, NBC, Fox, HBO, and Netflix, and created the Netflix drama Partner Track.

Before filmmaking she worked at McKinsey & Company, and she graduated cum laude in Biochemistry from Harvard. She was born in Philadelphia to Taiwanese immigrant parents.

Berry Liberman is a podcaster and writer whose work explores leadership, storytelling, consciousness, money, and human cultural evolution. Her family office, Small Giants, holds a 100% impact portfolio and is a global pioneer in impact investing across media, regenerative agriculture, venture capital, biodiversity, and energy systems.

She is Creative Director of Small Giants Academy, a not-for-profit accelerator, education, and media initiative focused on leadership for a hopeful future. She was Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Dumbo Feather magazine, now The Wisdom & Action Podcast. A mother of three, she sees her work as being in service to generations to come.

Ann Liston is a national political media consultant and founding partner of Adelstein Liston Media in Chicago. Over more than twenty years she has worked on competitive campaigns, from precinct captain in Chicago's 43rd Ward to senior member of the media team on President Obama's re-election, with senior roles at EMILY's List and the DCCC.

She has lectured in Harvard's Women and Public Policy program and received the 2015 Damen Award from Loyola University Chicago. She is committed to helping women and girls reach positions of power and leadership.

Britt Lower is an actor, writer, and director best known for her lead role in Severance, for which she won the 2025 Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Raised in Heyworth, Illinois, she graduated from Northwestern University and trained at UCB and iO. Before Severance she was known for Man Seeking Woman and Casual. She wrote and directed the short film Circus Person (2020).

Malinda Maynor Lowery is a historian and documentary producer and a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. She is a tenured professor of history at Emory University, following twelve years at UNC–Chapel Hill and four at Harvard, and the award-winning author of two books and more than fifty essays for outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Oxford American.

Her first documentary, Real Indian, premiered at Sundance in 1997. Her credits include the Peabody-winning A Chef's Life (PBS), the Emmy-nominated Private Violence (HBO), and RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked the World. She is developing a media piece for the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and the episodic series Lumbeeland.

Patricia Delso Lucas is an independent writer-director born in Madrid and based in Brussels. She earned an MFA in Film Directing from Skillset Screen Academy Scotland; her autobiographical documentary Just to Call You Dad was nominated at the BAFTA Scotland New Talent Awards. She has studied at NYU, the Sundance Shorts Lab, Prague Film School, and London Film School, and her work spans drama, dark comedy, the western, and experimental film, including the festival short For I Am Dead (2022).

Born near the Baltic coast of Germany, Katharina Ludwig studied Directing for Feature Film at the University of Television and Film Munich. Her graduation film, the improvised dramedy This Is Where I Meet You, won Best Narrative Feature at the Montana International Film Festival.

She began her career as a PA and 1st AD on commercials and music videos and interned at X Filme Creative Pool. Her commercial work has won awards at the Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards, the New Media Award, and Eurobest, and was shortlisted at Cannes Lions, for clients including Audi, Deutsche Bahn, KFC, Lufthansa, and Xerox.

Tia Matza is an actor, writer, and director based in Los Angeles, with a career spanning more than three decades across television, film, and theater and a foundation in acting, dance, and filmmaking.

She has written, directed, and acted in short films, including pieces within multidisciplinary performance works at The LA Women's Theatre Festival, TEDx, Boobie Trap, and Theatricum Botanicum. Her feature and short screenplays have been recognized by film festivals and have appeared on the Coverfly Red List.

FLMS alumni from past Online Series cohorts — still part of the community.

A Brown University grad who started three companies in seven years before turning to film in 2010. His debut short, So Good to See You, premiered at Sundance in 2016. He is co-writing Reptilia — a Florida-set thriller starring Oscar-winner Mikey Madison and Kirsten Dunst, directed by Alejandro Landes (Monos), from Pastel and Imperative Entertainment.

Originally from Texas, Stacey Miller came to Los Angeles to act, trained at Playhouse West, and joined Rabbit Bandini Productions as a writer and creative consultant. Her first screenplay, Sal, premiered at the Venice Film Festival six months after she finished it. She went on to write I Am Michael (Sundance 2015) and Tenn, a biopic of the young Tennessee Williams (Austin Film Festival 2017), and wrote and directed the reality series Acting Class.

Now focused on half-hour pilots, she lives in Los Angeles with her partner Joe, who greets her each night with "how many pages?", and their son Rory.

Roe Moore is a comedy-focused director, producer, and script supervisor from Aurora, Colorado, a Second City Conservatory graduate, and a Television Academy member. Credits include associate director and script supervisor roles on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Reunion (HBO Max), RuPaul's Drag Race, Earth to Ned, and Masters of Illusion. A former standup comedian, she has directed the award-winning shorts How We Met, Drive to Airport, We Were Young, and Undercover Wrestler.

David Ogden is a director and producer known for Only Child (1996), Inside Out (2005), and Driver's Ed (2009). A graduate of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, David is currently creating content across Africa.

Shila Vosough Ommi is an American actress, director, writer, and producer who was born in Tehran and grew up in Los Angeles. She has directed and produced award-winning plays in Los Angeles, and for over a decade toured internationally as Shila Vosough with an Iranian-American theater company performing plays in Persian. She directed the feature Wake Up Sleeping Beauty, a psychological drama about a young Iranian-American woman coming into her own power, produced by the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health.

A UCLA graduate with departmental honors in Biological Anthropology, she later studied at the Ruskin School of Acting under John Ruskin and Sir Anthony Hopkins. She also emcees charity events, hosts award shows, performs stand-up, and is a prolific voice-over artist, including the role of Cinder Lumen in Disney/Pixar's Elemental.

Tamar Pelzig is an actor, writer, and director based in Los Angeles. Raised in the only atheist family in the heart of Jerusalem's Old City, she works out her identity through storytelling and searches for magic in the depths of sobering reality.

Best known as the English voice of Stockholm in Netflix's Money Heist (La Casa de Papel), she has voiced more than 150 shows and films and directed English dubbing for Netflix hits including The Eternaut and The Gardener. Her film Rebel Rebel has won festival awards and is being developed as a series, and her feature script Death of an Illusion was an AFF and PAGE semifinalist.

Philiane Phang is a Jamaican-born filmmaker and self-described "recovering lawyer" (JD, Rutgers). Her short Gubagude Ko, starring Mahershala Ali, was developed through AFI's Directing Workshop for Women. She won the inaugural IFP Phosphate Prize for The Space Between, which was also selected for the Sundance Screenwriters Intensive and Producing Labs, Film Independent's Screenwriting and Directing Labs, and Berlinale Talents.

She directed Serena Strong, which screened at the BET/HBO Urbanworld Film Festival, and was a 2023 Film Independent Amplifier Fellow.

Polina Pkhor is an emerging film director and producer based in New York City, with deep roots in theatre. As Creative Director of Russia's largest new-writing festival, Polina curated more than 40 premieres over three seasons while also writing and curating for independent theatre projects.

Now bringing that story-first approach to the screen, Polina is finishing a debut short film while working as a 2nd AC and production coordinator on narrative and branded shoots. Polina's experience spans dramaturgy, script coverage, and pitch-deck design, as well as leading crews and cross-disciplinary teams of 5 to 50. A native Russian speaker who is fluent in English, Polina brings a bilingual perspective to international collaborations, co-productions, and culturally specific stories.

Gabrielle Fulton Ponder is a playwright, filmmaker, and television writer based between Atlanta and Los Angeles. Her directorial debut short Ir/Reconcilable, starring Jasmine Guy, Crystal Fox, and Dick Gregory, received an 18-month broadcast deal with HBO. She was a staff writer on Sacrifice and OWN's Ambitions, and her play Uprising received rolling world premieres at Horizon Theatre and MetroStage.

She holds a BA from Columbia and an MFA in Writing for the Screen+Stage from Northwestern, and is a member of the Dramatists Guild and WGA East. She enjoys road trips, mountain views, gardenias, and Congolese dance.

Per Juul Poulsen is a creative innovator, strategic consultant, and Design Thinking coach who guides organizations through transformation. He has supported market leaders in corporate strategy, change management, and digital innovation, including at the global design consultancy Designit. He leads workshops, teaches the use and ethics of emerging technologies, and develops new methods for co-creation and storytelling.

C Prinz is a self-taught, award-winning director and choreographer who uses the human body as her primary storytelling vehicle. Her music video for Doechii's "Crazy" was a SXSW Official Selection and Vimeo Staff Pick, winning Raindance Best Music Video, a Ciclope Award, and the UKMVA for Best Choreography.

She has worked with Zendaya, Jeremy Pope, Billie Eilish, Charli XCX, Willow Smith, and Caroline Polachek, and with brands including Nike, Hennessy, Givenchy, YSL, Adidas, Meta, and Spotify, while continuing to choreograph for global tours, films, and fashion shows.

Kim Ramsay has written and directed seven short films that have screened at more than 60 festivals internationally and received 22 awards, with broadcasts on The Comedy Channel, Foxtel, and SBS. She has worked extensively in documentary in Australia and abroad, creating stories for nonprofits and directing TVCs and branded content, and is known for raw emotional storytelling and lyricism.

She is in rewrites on her debut narrative feature Cherry, a female cricket coming-of-age story that was a semifinalist for the Outfest Screenwriting Lab. She teaches film and acting at The Academy of Film, Theatre and Television in Sydney, and is an avid underwater photographer with a soft spot for Great White Sharks.

Kate Riedl is an award-winning director and writer of film, TV, commercials, immersive media, and documentaries, known for intimate, truthful performances from actors and non-actors alike. Her films have won awards and nominations at festivals including Palm Springs International, the USA Film Festival, and the Sydney Film Festival. She directed the pilot of Two Twisted, starring Melissa George, and the documentary The Man Who Saved A Million Brains, which won two Best Documentary awards at the Atom Awards and sold to the Discovery Channel.

Her commercial clients include Disney, LG, Kellogg's, Unilever, and Bonds. A graduate of AFTRS, she interned with Zhang Yimou through the Kenneth Myer Fellowship and previously ran the Australian National Playwrights' Centre. She recently founded Denim Pictures, a Sydney-based, globally focused production company. She is represented by RGM Artists and manager Melissa Myers for film and TV, and Compulsive Pictures NY for commercials.

Varya Rootwood is a Webby Award–winning screenwriter and director based in New York City. She moved to the US from Russia at 19 and, while still in college, co-founded Rootwood Films, where she works today. She is developing two feature scripts.

Joan Sauers is a screenwriter, producer and author who worked in London, Los Angeles and New York before settling in Australia. She has lectured in screenwriting in Sydney, London, Paris, Berlin and Casablanca. She has had fourteen books published in Australia, the US, India and Japan. She has been script editor on films including The Babadook and TV shows Rake and The Principal, and has written many screenplays. Most recently, Joan was a writer on the ABC series Wakefield and Ladies in Black, and a sci-fi romance created by her daughter, as well as her next Southern Highlands mystery.

Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa began their career with The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992). In 2006 they originated the idea for the Planet of the Apes reboot, writing and producing Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), which launched a franchise grossing over $2 billion. They went on to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) and produced War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024).

They co-wrote Jurassic World (2015) and Mulan (2020), and were announced as co-writers of the Avatar sequels beginning with Avatar: The Way of Water (2022). Married since 1989, they bring decades of studio-level experience while exploring new creative territory.

Jon Stout is an award-winning director, producer, and creative professional. He has produced feature segments for KTLA's Rose Parade coverage and promotional content for Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, and created Clio- and Webby-winning online experiences for Disney, Sony, FX, and others.

He oversaw online activities at the American Society of Cinematographers, creating multimedia content, live events, and podcasts. He is an Adjunct Professor of Media Arts at LA Valley College and holds an MFA from UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television.

Nathan Tosoni is a screenwriter and film director. He began by specializing in screenwriting, learning the craft from mentors in the United States who had worked on films by Robert Zemeckis, Martin Scorsese, and many others.

He then spent a full year training in acting techniques in Paris, went on to study directing in London and with professionals in New York, and trained in film directing with experts in Los Angeles.

His debut short, Before a Painting (2022), made for $1,000, imagines the moments that led to three masterworks: Caravaggio's Judith Beheading Holofernes, Magritte's The Lovers, and Hopper's Morning Sun. Each chapter ends on a recreation of its painting. The film traveled the international festival circuit, and he is now developing his first feature.

Mishki Vaccaro is a writer, director, and producer from Toronto who gravitates toward stories about imperfect women searching for their place in the world. She holds a BA in Cultural Studies from McGill and an MFA in Writing for Screen & Television from USC. She began in feature development at Simon Kinberg's Genre Films, moved into television at Jason Winer's Small Dog Picture Company, and later joined the writers' room of NBC's Perfect Harmony, where she co-wrote the season finale. Her feature script #FreeBritney was runner-up in Script Pipeline's 2022 Screenwriting Competition.

She wrote and directed the award-winning short Bardo (2024), followed by Meatball (2025), which screened at the Canadian Film Festival's Comedy Igniter. Her latest film, Revel (2026), stars Megan Follows and premiered at the Atlantic International Film Festival. Most recently, she took part in TIFF's Series Creator Lab with Galiano, a dark comedy about the lengths people will go to belong.

Ryan Velásquez is an AFI Directing MFA alumnus whose thesis Ojalá won a Student DGA Award. His short Record Breaker won Best Comedy at LA Shorts Fest, and he was selected for the FOX Global Directors Initiative, the Ryan Murphy TV Directing Mentorship, and Film Independent's Project Involve. He writes, produces, and directs documentary and digital content for the Academy Awards, with more than 30 million views and a Gold CLIO.

Poppy Walker is a director and producer whose work explores the wonders and complexities of the human condition. Her award-winning documentary short Dust Devil (2019) has screened at festivals including Hot Docs, Big Sky, Flickerfest, Santa Barbara International and Ashland Independent, where it won the Jury Award for Best Short Documentary. Poppy co-founded H.W. Collective with director-producer Sophie Hexter, and together they created the short films Hitch (2014), The Battle (2015), The Ghost in the Machine (2016), Land to Vale (2017) and Drummer Girl (2018), screened at Aesthetica, Oberhausen, Lunafest and Big Sky and broadcast on ABC Australia and Aeon. Her commissioned work includes human rights documentary shorts for Oxfam, World Vision and UN Women. She holds a BA in Journalism from Monash University and a Graduate Diploma in Documentary from the Victorian College of the Arts.

Ryan Patrick Welsh is a director, writer, actor, and Associate Professor of Theatre at Michigan State University. His first film, This Is Normal, won Best of Festival at the Seattle Deaf Film Festival, and his short It's Okay screened at the Pasadena, Woods Hole, and Vail festivals. As an actor he won Best Lead Actor at FilmQuest for Outpost and was a series regular on Bite Me. His most recent directing credit is the feature When We Get There (2026).

James Werner is a biracial writer, filmmaker, and actor from Los Angeles. He has been published by Simon & Schuster (the Z2 Comics Blues Brothers graphic novel), graduated from Vassar College, and interned at Blumhouse Productions and Bad Robot.

He was one of 50 directors selected worldwide for Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Creator's Lab, where he scored the short July Stories starring Tilda Swinton. He has assisted directors Nicholas Ma and Elegance Bratton on their debut features and a showrunner on the Justified reboot. He performs improv at UCB and plays in the bands Trees and Knees.

Actress and producer — Northern Exposure (AP), Medium, Max Headroom, A Woman Called Moses. Trained at A.C.T., Drama Centre London, and Stella Adler; board member at Stand Up To Cancer.

At 16, Barbara Williams was singing and playing guitar in church basements in Gibsons Landing, one of many small towns in Western Canada where she grew up. A high school teacher cast her in Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer, and her performance as Katherine won best actress at the provincial drama festival, leading her to study theatre at Vancouver City College.

There she joined John Gray's company Tamahnous for five years of repertory theatre before building a career in television and film.

May Lavendar Yeung is a writer and playwright. She is adapting her play Angina into a television pilot, developing the project through one-on-one work with FLMS.